Content in Adobe Community

Premier Elements 12 / Video stops while I'm doing other things / how can I change this?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 17:23:49 GMT

Hello and first sorry for my bad english, hope you understand my question anyway...

While I'm using Premier Elements 12 I would love to do different things in the same time. For instance I watch over a Video and watch the full length like 30 Minutes... and every 5 Minuts I have to correct something with the program. So I use facebook in the same time. But everytime I click at the facebook window, Premier elements stops the play of the video. For me it's annoying cause most oft the things I have to correct are related with the sound not the video itself... so it pause while I'm answering a friend and when I start it again... Is there any possibility to let the video move on while I do other things? I didn't find anything But maybe somebody has a clou for me?

Thank you very much

Lumida

Need Help On Adobe Premiere elements 12

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 19:12:01 GMT

I have made a recording on my DVR and captured it onto my laptop with the Hauppauge capture device without a problem I have edited it with the Premiere elements but upon reviewing it it looks a little more pixilated than the original.

What are the correct settings to finalize it without it seeming so pixilated Im looking to save it to a external hard drive Thanks

Premiere Elements not allowing me to edit photos. I am not interested in videos. Also not opening photos from other sources. Windows 8 computer

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 21:53:42 GMT

I have many photos in my files and computers; most of them are visible in Premiere elements Organizer, but I can't edit them or pull out individual ones. Often cannot open a photos that comes in an email. I don't use videos; I just want to edit my photos.

Did I buy the wrong program?

Help

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 15:26:59 GMT

Hey there! I got one noobie question and that is how will I fix this black "background"

bluray authoring in premiere elements

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 26 Oct 2014 01:22:48 GMT

I downloaded the latest version of adobe premiere elements over a month ago to try it out before deciding on a purchase. I was not happy with the video capture section because it seems all videos are captured with a 4:3 aspect ratio - even 16:9 source videos! so I proceeded to uninstall premiere elements. However, I have since decided that a purchase is possible if the bluray authoring section meets my requirements. It has been over a month since uninstallation so I cannot install again without purchasing premiere elements. Therefore, I have a few questions which when answered will enable me decide whether or not to make a purchase. my questions are as follows: can bluray video be authored with both mpeg 2 and avc h264 codecs? If so, can these codecs be used for both standard definition( 720x576) and high definition(1280x720; 1920x1080) resolution video? Is a range of bitrate provided for these codecs for example between 5 and 15 mbps or just already preset bitrate values for example 5,7,10, 12 mbps?( please specify bitrate values) For audio, are both dolby digital (ac3) and lpcm provided and if so what bitrates are used?

Help PLZ

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 14:54:33 GMT

i have a samsung wb100 and i would like to know what is the best way to export this video so it wont look pixelated, its 720HD and 30 frames per second

Pan&Zoom in Picture-in-Picture; Zoomen&Schwenken mit Bild-in-Bild; Premiere Elements 13

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 18 Oct 2014 10:06:27 GMT

Hi,

my question is:

I want to have the Pan&Zoom-Effect (also known as Ken-Burns-Effect) in a smaller Picture in the bigger background Picture. Every time I'm using the Pan&Zoom- Tool the Picture-in-Picture Effect disappears and the smaller Picture becomes a full frame Picture. Is it possible to have both effects in one Picture?

Thanks for your Time and Support.

Hallo,

meine Frage lautet:

Wie kann ich den Schwenk&Zoom-Effekt (Ken-Burns-Effekt) in einem Bild-in Bild Effekt anwenden? Sobald ich Schwenk&Zoomen auf ein Bild-im-Bild anwende wird es zu einem Vollbild und der eigentliche Hintergrund ist nicht mehr zu sehen.. Ist es möglich mit Adobe Premiere Elements 13?

Vielen Dank für Ihre Zeit und Hilfe.

Trouble converting catalogs from PSE11 to PSE13

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 19:01:39 GMT

I have a Windows 7 PC and am trying to convert catalogs from PSE11 to PSE13. Only 2 catalogs have converted (I have several). The others "fail" after the line: "

flattening 3gpp files, removing j2k files...An error was encountered in the sqlite database: unable to open database file

conversion log: Conversion Failed"

I have tried all the "solutions" recommended including repairing (not needed), optimizing, renaming thumb files, running as administrator, restoring, etc. to no avail. Adopbe does not provide phone support for the PSE13 product so no help there, nor with the "community" nor the suggestions I found on the forum. Are there any other ideas as to why the "SQLite database" doesn't open?

Auto-Play DVD and menus

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 02:16:18 GMT

I am trying to create DVD that will auto-play a short preview of a future movie project and then go to the main menu of the feature film. Is this possible with Premiere Elements 12? How? I would like to be able to access different scènes from the main menu.

Custom graphic image to intro

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 07:59:44 GMT

I just want to add a graphic image with no white plate behind my image.

Have imported all types of image files, psd. tiff, png.

In photoshop they have a invisibale background, but when I add the image to the video intro on the text tool its with an ugly white backgound.

Have looked on the tube, google. This simple thing seems to be missing.

Have a complicated idea to use the graphics on greenscreen and PIP but its not user friendly to do.

Is there a simpler way to do this simple task?

FREEZING

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 23:07:01 GMT

Any assistance with HINTS (solutions) to freezing issues.. I can't view my edits, frustrating (obviously...). Stutters; starts and stops almost the whole time. Can I play back in a low res format? I am rendering each clip/change, not solving the problem...

thx

Surcode trial download?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 25 Aug 2014 11:44:18 GMT

Where can I find the Trial file for Surcode 5.1 Sound for Premiere CC

Video is going so slow

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 22:01:04 GMT

I captured a 4 hour VHS Video to MPEG4, but Elements "12" doesn't recognize 4, so I converted it to MPEG2. The video doesn't not show up on the frame line. If it does, it's so slow, taking several minutes to show even one frame. Any suggestions on how to make this process go faster?

sharing large [3.5 gb] videos for viewing on other computers [for sending overseas on flashdrives]

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 19 Jul 2014 13:46:49 GMT

I've made a video of my tour of Andalucia, and I'd like to share it with my companions on the tour. I've convinced PE 12 to burn a BluRay disc that looks excellent for viewing at home. Now I'd like to make a HD version that I can copy to flashdrives and send overseas. So far, however, I can't figure out what settings to use for high quality. Can anyone in the PE community help?

Thanks,

Hugh Goodheart

hughgoodheart@post.harvard.edu

Premiere CS6 is not showing waveforms ¿what to do?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 16:39:46 GMT

Waveforms are not showing neither for audio clips or video clips.

I tried clean cache, and play with all the options in Preferences>Media Cache

including

-Save media cache files next to original

-Write XMP ID to files on import

-Enable cliip and XMP metadata linking

All what I see instead waveforms are only empty channels without any waveform inside.

SOS!

Revert movie back to home

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 28 May 2014 01:03:31 GMT

I am using PE 12 and am making a simple movie, not setting a movie menu, just inserting some titles at the beginning and end. My movie plays to the end but it will not go back to home, my time line indicator stops at the last audio and video file and there are no orphans present. What am I doing wrong that my movie will not return to the start?

Thanks

"free list canary is damaged"

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 25 May 2014 19:58:06 GMT

Hallo, ich bekomme beim Download von CF auf MacBook folgende Fehlermeldung : "free list canary is damaged". Kann mir bitte jemand auf Deutsch helfen ? Danke - Gruß Knuddelburg

Alignment Grids for Titler in PrE & PrPro

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 20 May 2014 22:10:08 GMT

There have been several discussions on the lack of real alignment tools in Titler, for both PrE and PrPro. I use a workaround to this, and just Import a "grid" image, created in PS and Saved to .PSD with Transparency. I use the same technique to build layouts for PiP and similar.

One just Imports the .PSD into their NLE (Non Linear Editing) program, as a still, or as Footage in PrPro. The .PSD is then placed on the Timeline in a Video Track above any other Clips. The Title is then placed above the .PSD. In PrE, one sees the Video below the Title automatically. In PrPro there is a checkbox to do this.

The grid in the .PSD is used for alignment of the elements/text in the Title.

Be sure to remove the grid, when you are done, or in PrPro, you can turn off visibility for its Video Track. Otherwise, you WILL Export the grid, and that is not what you will likely want to do. Do not forget to disable this .PSD, before the Export.

Attached are an NTSC 16:9 .PSD and an NTSC 4:3 .PSD, with proper PAR for each.

Hope that this helps someone, where they need better alignment in Titler in either PrE, or PrPro.

Hunt

Go-Pro Helmet Cam Footage Editing Tips

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 00:53:39 GMT

This was graciously provided by Gonza, and I hope that it helps others:

Editing GoPro HD with Premiere Pro CS4

Introduction

GoProHD has many different resolutions, all of them progressive scan (p) with square pixels, titled R1 to R5. It records in MP4 files, using H.264 video (AVC) and AAC audio.

Here I will address R2 to R5:

R2 = 1280 x 720 30p (widescreen 16:9)

R3 = 1280 x 720 60p (widescreen 16:9)

R4 = 1280 x 960 30p (standard 4:3)

R5 = 1920 x 1080 30p (widescreen 16:9)

Preparation of files

It seems Premiere Pro CS4 does not like the way GoPro builds the MP4 container. So you have to re-write it so that it has a more standard form. You can do that using MPEG Streamclip (or Quictime Pro, but that one is not free)

http://www.squared5.com/

If you open your GoPro videos in MPEG Streamclip (or Quicktime Pro) , and then you just save them again ("save as... MP4") , then the MP4 container will be re-written but the video will not be re-encoded (hence, there will be no quality loss!)

You can also process many files at once, using the batch feature: Just go to List>Batch List and start adding files. Then as task, choose “save as”.

Sequence Preset

Now that you have all your files converted, we need to pick the right project sequence preset for the resolution you are working on, all of them based on AVCHD

· For R2 choose AVCHD 720p30

· For R3 use AVCHD 720p60

· For R4 you will need to create a custom profile, because there is no built-in profile for this resolution: Select AVCHD 1080p30 and then go to the General tab. Change Editing Mode to Desktop, so you will be able to modify the resolution. Change the resolution to 1280 x 960 and then press the Save Preset button to save your newly created sequence profile for GoPro R4

· For R5 use AVCHD 1080p30

Export

After all your editing (using the modified MP4 files) you will want to export your final product.

I usually export in meg2 or MP4 files, for direct use on my PC, but you can try many others.

· For MP4 files (H.264 video and AAC audio) choose “H.264” as format. I started out with the HDTV 1080p 29.97 High Quality profile but the bitrate was too high for me. So I set out to create a bunch of MP4 export presets for the GoPro, doing some tests and trying to preserve the aprox. bit-rate that GoPro uses for each resolution.

I did them with the Baseline ecoder profile, but you can change it if you want to to use other.

There’s one normal profile and one “low” profile for each resoultion. The “low” one will have a lower video bit rate and 64kbps AAC audio (instead of 128 kbps)

· For Mpeg 2 files choose MPEG2 format (nahh!! really?? J )

For R2 and R5 you can use the corresponding HDTV profiles, but for R3 and R4 I had to create them myself.

To install my profiles just extract them from the archive zip file , and copy them to:

C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR_USERNAME\Application Data\Adobe\Premiere Pro\4.0\Presets

Then they will automatically appear under the MPE2 and H.264 formats.

Enjoy!

Gonza

PrE 12 - Titler/Styles Bug

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 16:04:09 GMT

It appears that there is a Bug in PrE 12's Titler, when using Styles. If you are encountering this Bug, please see: http://muvipix.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=12456&p=106115&hilit=text+style#p106115

Good luck,

Hunt

Sound Effects & Music - Possible Sources

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 19:12:13 GMT

Often, one is looking for SFX (Sound Effects) files, or music files for use in their videos. This is a list of some possible sources. Some of these are free, while some are for sale. While there are many more, and they will be added, as I come across them, these URL's would be a good place to start. I have used several of these, both free ones, and commercial ones, but cannot comment directly on all of these, as many were added by others.

http://www.stevengotz.com/audio.htm

http://www.findsounds.com/ISAPI/search.dll

http://www.freesound.org/index.php

http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/

http://www.ljudo.com/default.asp?lang=tEnglish&do=it

http://www.sounddogs.com/

http://www.soundsnap.com/

http://www.stock20.com/commerce/index.php

http://www.shockwave-sound.com/index.html

http://www.smartsound.com

http://www.ilovewavs.com/Effects/Music/Music.htm

http://www.jamendo.com/en/albums

http://www.5alarmmusic.com/

http://www.studiocutz.com/

http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=180598

http://www.soundrangers.com/

http://www.beatsuite.com/

http://www.beatsuite.com/sounds/bsengine/Royalty_Free_Music/_Flash_Button_Sounds_/

Good luck,

Hunt

Using External HDD's for Video Editing

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 18:20:29 GMT

External HDD’s (Hard Disk Drives) are everywhere, and quite popular. These allow one to increase the storage capacity of a system greatly, quickly and easily, for not that much money. We now have many sizes, and many connection types. Some connection types are better than others, if one is doing more than off-loading data to archive it, and perhaps free up internal HDD space. With the right connection type, one can also edit to/from the external HDD’s. Again, some connection types are better than others. Note: for editing Video, the physical HDD’s need to be at least 7200 RPM.

For simple archiving, any connection type will work well. In that process, files are just written to the external HDD, and when needed, read from the external HDD. The problem comes in, when one tries to edit to/from the external HDD. Most current computers are faster than the slower connection types can manage. The OS is firing commands for reads/writes too fast. The OS expects rapid response, and can overwhelm the external HDD. When one adds in an NLE (Non Linear Editor) program, there is a great deal of HDD activity, and this requires many reads and writes, and requires them quickly. The files are very large too. Suddenly, the I/O (Input/Output) sub-system is overwhelmed, but the requests keep coming.

Here is a real-world look at the data transfer of some common connection types:

Average transfer rates in MB/s for different interfaces:

USB2: 20 - 25, depending on other USB devices sharing the same bandwidth
FW400: 30 - 35
FW800: 50 - 60
USB3: 65 - 80, depending on other USB devices sharing the same bandwidth
eSATA: 100 -140
SATA: 100 - 140

Raid0: 0.9 x N disks over a single disk

Raid3/5: 0.8 x (N-1) disks over a single disk for read, 0.6 x for write. ICHR10 figures are a bit lower than hardware controllers.

Note: “FW” refers to FireWire, which might also be referred to as IEEE-1394a (FW-400) or iLink, and as IEEE-1394b (FW-800). The connectors are different, as are the cables. Also, one needs the appropriate controllers. Most computers have FW-400/IEEE-1394a/iLink controllers on the MoBo and connectors available for the cables. For FW-800/IEEE-1394b, one usually needs to add a controller, either on a PCI card, or via PCMCIA, or ExpressCard. More on controllers later.

As one can see, the USB 2.0 connection is slower than the rest. Problems can arise, when trying to edit to/from such an external HDD. They can be plagued with read/write errors, as they cannot maintain the data transfer, required by the OS and by the NLE program. When the allowed time has expired, based on the OS’s expectation of data transfer, it stops the process, and issues a read/write error. In a worst-case scenario, the OS will have routed the write data into a buffer, waiting for the external HDD to catch up. These buffers are finite in their capacity to store the data, while the OS is waiting. It does not take too long, before the dreaded “Delayed write failure” rears up. This can lead to a catastrophic failure of the external HDD, as the data is only partially written, and the File Allocation Tables are not completely written, causing the loss of ALL data on the external HDD. At that point, all data on the external HDD is lost. It might be possible to do a recovery with a program, like Stellar-Phoenix, but it is not cheap, not is it fail-safe. Depending on the value of the files lost, one might hire a data recovery service, but these are anything but cheap. Probably best to just do a complete low-level Format of the external HDD and then do an OS Format.

Also, while speaking of Format, most external HDD’s come from the factory, Formatted to FAT-32, an older Format type. Besides being slower, FAT-32 has a max. file size of about 4GB, and AV files are often much larger. One needs to CONVERT the Format to NTFS for the PC, or to the Mac OS’s Format, to allow for the larger files, and to increase the speed a bit. On the Mac/PC front, a PC can read/write to FAT-32, or NTSF. However, a Mac can ONLY read/write to a PC external HDD, Formatted to FAT-32. If one is migrating the HDD’s between Mac’s and PC’s, the external needs to remain in FAT-32 with its limitations. Just one consideration, when setting up external HDD’s for use with an NLE program.

For editing Video, I have found that the connection types should be considered this way:

USB 2.0 - archiving for storage only
FW-400 - archiving for storage, and light editing to/from (just very slow)
FW-800 - archiving for storage, and regular editing to/from (fairly fast)
eSATA - archiving for storage, and regular editing to/from (about as fast as an internal SATA)
I have not tested USB 3.0 in editing situations, so cannot comment on their acceptability.

Obviously, a SATA internal is ideal for all tasks.

Now, back to controllers. The real-world throughput of an external can be diminished due to the controller, and the number of chips available. Many MoBo’s have 1 - 2 USB 2.0 chips, and 1 - 2 FW-400 chips. One needs to check the number of chips provided. One might have multiple connectors, either on the computer’s case, or direct from the MoBo. These connectors might go to multiple controller chips, or might all feed into one. The same can be said for add-on cards, PCMCIA cards, or ExpressCards. The number of connectors does not guarantee the number of chips.

The more externals, and peripherals that are connected to the controller chip, the lower the data transfer rates. This holds for hubs especially. One might have various externals and peripherals plugged into various connectors, but everything being fed through a single controller chip. Add to that, the ability to daisy-chain multiple externals through the In/Out connectors on most external HDD’s, and overall performance falls even more. USB 2.0 and FW-400 suffer most from these multiple externals limitations, but FW-800 can too, just not to the same degree.

When one is using an external to edit to/from, there is another consideration. When peripherals with mass storage capabilities are plugged into a computer, a drive letter is assigned by the OS. Most NLE programs, like PrE/PrPro rely on the drive letter to link to the Assets. They do this via an absolute path, including that drive letter. Depending on how many other peripherals are plugged in, and the order that they are plugged in, that drive letter assignment might differ, session to session. When using external HDD’s, one should go into the OS’s Disk Management console and assign a fixed drive letter for that individual external HDD. This would hold for however many one is likely to use, and each should have a unique drive letter. I suggest marking each external with the drive letter that the user assigns to it, say Z:\. Then, whenever Z:\ is plugged in, it will always be seen as Z:\. This way, the NLE can keep up with where the Assets are located, starting with the drive letter. If one is migrating Projects between computers, they will repeat this exact process in the OS of each computer. Note: when doing the migration, ALL Assets, Scratch Disks, and the Project file, MUST be included on that external, or one will spend a good deal of time tracking down the Assets.

External HDD’s are great devices, but some considerations need to taken into account, before one just plugs them in, and begins editing.

Hunt

DVD - VOB Files - The Lowdown

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 16 Feb 2014 15:29:41 GMT

We often see people trying to edit existing DVD-Videos. Some seem to be able to do this fine, while others struggle mightily. What’s the deal? Why can’t one just Import those VOB files and edit happily away?

Let’s go back to the basics just a bit. A .VOB file is a "Video Object File." As such, and by the DVD-specs., it can contain quite a bit of stuff. Some of this is beyond just the Audio & Video contained in the usually present MPEG-2 file, which is hidden inside the VOB. This VOB can contain subtitles, Menus, and ROM content, to name but a few. With simple VOB’s, one can often play them, if they are just renamed to .MPEG, though not always. In the case where this works, one does not need a DVD software player. Any player program that can handle MPEG-2 can play the file.

The structure and elements of a DVD-Video DVD-5 (4.7GB, single sided, single layer) will be in most cases:

AUDIO_TS folder (usually empty). May also not be present.

VIDEO_TS folder, which contains VIDEO_TS.IFO (Video Manager.info), VIDEO_TS.BUP (VMGI.backup), VTS_01_0.IFO (Video Title #1.info), VTS_01_1.VOB (Video Title #1.video), and more of these, incremented by 1. Depending on the number of "titles" on a particular disc, the numbers can range up to the limit of 99. For Projects from most NLE/authoring programs will only have one "title," so you’ll likely not see more than 4 VOB’s and their accompanying IFO’s and BUP’s. The VOB’s will be approximately 1GB in size, the upper limit.

The title of the "movie" inside the VIDEO_TS folder will be contained in the .IFO and the BUP files. If you open up a DVD-Video in Windows Explorer, you’ll see just the folders, and no name, or anything else. The same is for the file names inside the folder(s). They will look the same for all DVD-Videos, though the exact number of these will differ, depending on the structure and number of discrete titles on the disc. It’s not until one opens the DVD-Video in either a software player, or in a set-top player, that the IFO files will play, allowing the player to then access and work with the .VOB’s, via the instructions that are contained in the IFO and BUP files.

Editing a VOB can be a tricky, as it can contain all those different things. Ripping the MPEG-2 file from the VOB is usually the best approach. That is what PrPro, PE, or other NLE’s (Non Linear Editor) attempt to do. Sometimes, it works fine, but sometimes it does not. Another problem can be when there are multiple VOB’s, as the MPEG-2 files can span multiple VOB’s, as they cannot contain more than about 1GB of data. This is why a DVD-Video can only have 1GB of space for ALL Menus and their elements.

As VOB’s can contain the full menuing structure (this will be the first VOB), unless this structure is done 100% by the DVD-specs, there will be issues. Most DVD-recorders include some form of menuing, and most do not do it perfectly. This WILL create issues. Ripping via software will likely be the only answer, or doing a manual capture from a set-top DVD player, hooked up appropriately to your computer with a capture card, or bridge, and using the software that came with that device. You will not have any "device control," so you must start the capture software, hit Record, and then start your DVD in its player. If you do this, make certain that you capture to DV-AVI Type II w/ 48KHz 16-bit Audio.

Once one has edited the Audio & Video contained in the .VOB(s), the process to get the resulting Project back into DVD-Video form is to Burn to DVD. This is the authoring process.

Three things happen:

1.) The edited file is Transcoded to MPEG-2. If you were working from a VOB already, the Audio & Video material has already been Transcoded to MPEG-2, in which there will already be compression of the data. If you do this again, there will be more compression of the data, resulting in a loss in quality. Some NLE’s can do "smart rendering/encoding." None of the programs from Adobe can do this, as they are designed to work with material captured from a miniDV tape camera. While they can handle other footage, there will be compromises. When designed, DV-AVI Type II was chosen as the base workflow, because that was what most miniDV tape cameras produced. The introduction of flash memory, miniDVD, and hard drive cameras, plus the introduction of HD, has changed things a bit, and will continue to change them over the next versions of the programs.

2.) The folder structure and the necessary files are created.

3.) The above material is then physically Burned to a DVD-Video, or is copied to a folder on the computer in the required, and necessary form and structure.

In the case of the former, one can then play the DVD-Video via a software player on a computer, or on a set-top player hooked to a TV or display device. In the case of the latter, one needs a software player to play the files in the VOB, with the instructions coming from the IFO, or the BUP files.

Hunt

[PrE 12] Differences Between PC & Mac

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 15:46:55 GMT

There are some aspects of PrE 12 (and some earlier versions), that differ by platform. Steve Grisetti has published a list of those differences: http://muvipix.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=12342

Most of these differences are with Effects that are available in the PC version of the program, but missing from the Mac version.

Hunt

Large Still Images into PE - One Workflow

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 23:02:36 GMT

Everyone wants the highest quality that they can obtain when doing their videos. It’s natural to want the best. Well, when dealing with still images, bigger is not necessarily better, for two reasons. First, overly large still images can really tax a system and second, one is limited to the frame size of the video, so these have to be resized somewhere - this resizing can be in the NLE (Non Linear Editor) program, or in an image processing program like PS (Photoshop), which does a better job anyway. Doing this in PS, or PSE, will result in better resized images, and they are easier for the NLE to work with. Quality is as high as your Project’s Preset will allow, and you are more efficient, with fewer crashes, slowdowns and hangs. It is a win-win situation.

Here is my normal workflow when dealing with still images. This workflow is for NTSC 4:3 720x480 with a PAR (Pixel Aspect Ratio) of 0.9. If your Project’s Presets are different, use those specs to resize to.

Since I shoot my still images in RAW, I Copy my files from the CF card to my system and catalog these images by location, subject and date (if necessary). I’ll do a quick conversion and Save_As Adobe DNG for backup. I then process these RAW images in PS with the ARC (Adobe Raw Converter), correcting them and then doing a Save_As PSD into a sub-folder. All of this is in my still photo library.

Normally, I will edit these PSD’s to find the images that I wish to use in a Video Project, and will Copy the selected images to another folder. You’ll see that I work with a lot of Copies, so my original files are always untouched and stored elsewhere. This guards against anything happening to them.

At this point, I’ll decide how I wish to use these selected images in my Video Project. Let’s just say that they are all horizontal images, and are still full-size from my camera. As stated, my Video Projects are DV-NTSC 4:3 720x480 PAR 0.9. [Remember, your Video Project may vary, so you will need to plug in the dimensions for YOUR Video Project in that case.] I also will have done my Cropping on each image individually, to get them to 4:3 Aspect Ratio. I do this my eye and by hand, rather than via an Action, because I want full aesthetic control.

In PS, I have a set of Actions for Video. An Action is like a Script, but less powerful and less involved in the writing. As I have already done all of my image enhancements and additional processing before I did my Copy to the selected folder, I only have to worry about my Action resizing these selected images for use in my Video Project. My Action here is to resize to 720x480 with a PAR of 0.9, and I normally use the Action that does this with a particular resizing algorithm, Bicubic-Smoother (though I also use Bicubic-Sharper on occasion).

For the next step, I go to my folder structure (remember, this folder contains copies of my selected still images in PSD format), and create a new sub-folder "[Project Name]_720x480." Back in PS, I choose File>Automate>Batch. Here I set my Source Folder, my Destination folder and the Action to perform. In my case, it’ll be the Destination Folder, that I just created, [Project Name]_720x480, and my Action will be my NTSC 4:3 720x480 Smooth. I check to have the Open command by-passed, because I do not need to see this take place on my monitor. When I hit OK, PS grabs all files in my Source Folder, runs the commands of my Action and does a Save_As for all files into my Destination Folder. I can process hundreds of large images down to a great 720x480 PAR 0.9 via Bicubic-Smoother interpolation, in moments. Now, I’m ready to go. Last, I Copy my Destination Folder to my Video Project’s folder hierarchy (usually on another HDD), and then Import these processed stills into my NLE.

What if I need to pan on one, or more of these images, while they are zoomed out completely? I don’t have enough pixels in my horizontal dimension to do this. I am just filling the frame with my still. Well, if I find that there are such images, I go back to my folder with the full sized images in my still images library, and select the ones that need to be larger. I run another Action on these, but it’s one that resizes to something larger than 720x480, say 1000x750. Now, I have another Destination Folder with the name [File Name]_1000x750. I’ll Copy this over to my Video Project, and Import these into the NLE. Here, I can go to Project Panel and remove the 720x480 versions if I so choose, but since a Premiere Project file (.PRPROJ or .PREL) is only an XML database, I may just leave them. It does not contain any media files, just links to where they are on the system and to what operations are performed on them.

By doing my resizing in PS, rather than in Premiere, I have accomplished two things:

1.) I have better quality resized images, using the algorithms in PS, plus have a choice of several interpolation methods to work with.

2.) I have lessened the processing load on my NLE and on my system, while doing the editing

I get higher quality and lower resource overhead - hence my reference to "win-win."

Now, back to my aesthetic control. I do not do any automatic zooming or panning. If one allows the NLE to do this, then they will want to probably process all of their images to 1000x750 (remember, this is for an NTSC 4:3 Project, so you will need to calculate what YOUR Project will require).

The two programs that I use are Photoshop and Premiere Pro, but Photoshop Elements can do the same things, though the exact commands might be different. Premiere Elements will handle the resized still images, just like Premiere Pro and the only difference will be the terminology used when one wishes to Import the still images.

I also keep all of my images in .PSD (the native format of PS), and do not convert to JPEG, or other. If one’s camera shoots only JPEG, I suggest writing the Action to do the Save_As to .PSD, as another JPEG compression will cost one quality. Yes, the JPEG’s will be smaller, but remember we are looking for the ultimate quality, so larger file sizes are just part of that equation.

One does not have to deal with all of the Copies, as I do. However, this allows me to go back to the originals, or to the processed full-sized .PSD’s at any step along the way. There is only one thing worse than not being able to go back to an intermediate version with full Layers and Adjustment Layers, plus any Alpha Channels, and that is finding out that you’ve lost your original RAW and DNG backups! That’s why I do a lot of Save_As and also work from Copies all along the way.

Hunt

Quick Links to Elements Adobe TV Tutorials

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 15:35:03 GMT

Note that in many cases tutorials from earlier versions will still be applicable to later versions.

Premiere Elements

Version	Link
12	http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-premiere-elements-12/
11	http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-premiere-elements-11/
10	http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-premiere-elements-10/
9	http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-premiere-elements/
8	http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-premiere-elements-8/
7	http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-premiere-elements-7/

Photoshop Elements

Version	Link
12	http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-photoshop-elements-12/
11	http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-photoshop-elements-11/
10	http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-photoshop-elements-10/
9	http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-photoshop-elements-9/
8	http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-photoshop-elements-8/
7	http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-photoshop-elements-7/

Cheers,
--
Neale
Insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children

Adjusting Audio Volume Levels

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 18:32:24 GMT

Often, one has Audio that is too loud, or too soft. Sometimes, they have added a music Track, that needs to drop down to clearly hear the dialog from another Clip. While there are Audio-editing programs, like Audition, SoundBooth, and even the free Audacity, PrE, or PrPro can handle such adjustment just fine. These adjustments can be made for the entire Clip, or can be Keyframed over time.

First method, and not one that I recommend, is to adjust the Audio Gain of the Audio Clip. This is done by either Rt-clicking on a separate Audio Clip, or by first Alt-clicking, and then Rt-clicking on a Muxed Audio Clip (Multiplexed with both Video and Audio in one file). Then, one would choose Audio Gain, and adjust that. This method will also allow one to then adjust the Volume by a greater amount, and has the bonus of increasing the Waveform Dislay vertically.

The next method is to look at the Audio Clip (or the Audio portion of a Muxed Clip), and click-drag on the yellow-orange “rubberband” for Volume, and move it up, or down. This can be Keyframed, but the next method is much better and more precise, in my estimation.

My first choice is to adjust the fixed Effect>Volume. This is done from the Effects Control Panel, and it is very easy to Keyframe these adjustments over time. This is much more accurate, and actually easier, than click-dragging the rubberbands in the Clip itself. Accessing the Effects Control Panel is slightly different, from PrE to PrPro. In PrE, one would Select the Audio Clip, then go to the Effects Tab, and choose Edit Effects, locating the Volume Effects and twirling it open to view the slider. In PrPro, if one does not already have the Effects Control Panel in a Pane in the GUI, it would be accessed from Window>Effects Control Panel. With the Audio Clip Selected, one would locate the fixed Volume Effect, twirl that open, and make the same adjustments, including Keyframes, if necessary. These will be Clip Keyframes, and will follow that Clip, where ever you move it. This is a difference from the next method.

My other choice would be to use the Audio Mixer (Window>Audio Mixer, if not open), and to automate the Volume settings. This is accomplished by playing the Timeline and adjusting the sliders for Volume for each Track. In PrPro, one would first set the Send to Write, or Touch, to make those adjustments, then switch back to Read, when done. There are no adjustable Sends in PrE, so one is always in Read, until adjustments are made, and then it’s set to Write, but you will not see this change. After you are done, you can playback the Timeline, and watch the slider(s) automatically move. These will be Track Keyframes, and will remain on the Track, regardless of what Clips you add/remove from that area of the Track. Unlike the Clip Keyframes, these will NOT follow the Clip.

One can toggle the Keyframe of an Audio Track between Clip, or Track. Also, the default frequency of Audio Track Keyframes in PrE & PrPro is a bit high, in my opinion. I drop these down a bit in Edit>Preferences.

For the Keyframing, one can alter the Velocity of the Keyframes to Bezier from Linear, and the adjustments will be a bit smoother. Besides the Bezier, one can use Ease-Out and Ease-In, which are Bezier, but basically in a Preset. In PrPro, one has several different Bezier options. In PrE, one is a bit more limited.

For setting the Volume, I recommend that one only glance at the Levels Meters (unless they are peaking in the red), and instead use a pair of high-quality headphones (noise canceling models are worth the money), or fully calibrated studio monitors. Let your ears make the decisions for you, as the dB settings should only be a starting point.

In PrPro, one can also Rt-click on the Audio Clip, and choose Edit in Audition (if you have it installed), or Edit n Soundbooth (if you have one of the suites).

Here is a look at Audio Keyframes in PrPro 2.0. Things are similar in PrPro later versions, and also in PrE, with the above noted differences:

Audio Issues? Some Troubleshooting Tips

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 16:24:28 GMT

Audio issues have plagued many and for different reasons. Unfortunately, they can come from many different sources: the system, the Assets or from various settings in the NLE (Non Linear Editor) program. There are just so many places to look and things to consider. This is a general step-by-step troubleshooting guide. It’s basically for Adobe PrElements and PrPro, but much will apply to other programs. Because there are differences in how PrElements and PrPro handle some aspects of audio, I’ll try to define when some tip is for one, but not the other.

First thing to consider is your system. Check first, whether you have sound in other program, like players. [Note on that later.] If you do not have sound in, say Windows Media Player, then you need to troubleshoot with your system. In your OS, go to Control Panel and check your Sounds & Audio Devices (or similar syntax, depending on the version of the OS that you have). Is audio Muted, or turned down? Correct it, if so. Are speakers plugged in, turned on and powered up, if they require power? Correct if necessary.

If all is good there, check to see if your audio card has a console/control panel. Check the settings there. Along the way, make a note of the mfgr. and model of the card, plus check to see which driver you have installed. If all checks out there, move on to the driver.

Audio and video drivers can be rendered obsolete with just a simple OS update, or hot-fix. These might be installed without your knowledge, as the default is usually to automatically install all OS updates. Some people have this set to semi-automatic, or fully manual. Those people will at least know that an update has been done. Now for that “note,” that I promised. With audio drivers, some programs, like simple players, can still get audio from an obsolete driver. NLE programs often cannot, because they interface much more closely with the audio (and video) driver, and will require an updated driver. Download and install the latest one. I update about every release, whether I have issues, or not.

If all still checks out, but you do not have audio yet, think about your Assets. Does the audio play in a simple player? If not, then that could well be the problem. If it does, you can probably move on to the NLE and its settings. Also, in the NLE, check the audio in the program’s Source Monitor, to make sure that the audio got into the program, whether it is muxed (contained in one audio and video file, or is a separate audio-only Asset. Too often, users will not wait for the audio files to be Conformed and their PEK (Audio Waveform Display) files to be generated. This can result in a loss of all audio.

Here, PrE and PrPro are very similar, in that they each have both an Audio and an Audio Hardware settings screen under Edit>Preferences>Audio and Audio Hardware. Remember that audio card, that you took down the make and model for? You will want to make sure that it is the chosen device in the Preferences screens. Check very carefully.

In Audio Hardware, note the ASIO Settings button, or tab. Go there, and check all settings carefully, making sure that they match for your audio card - perfectly. ASIO settings can be a bit tricky, and the ASIO interface can be fragile. Some cards and devices do not provide full ASIO support and you need this badly. In case your card/device does not, you can use a free driver, ASIO4ALL. You will need to download, and install it, and then point both the Input and Output to ASIO4ALL. This little free driver has solved all sorts of ASIO issues from simple cards and chips to esoteric studio equipment. It works great in 99% of the cases.

Now, we’ve ruled out things like system settings, and audio card/chip drivers, plus the Preferences in your NLE. Everything is set correctly, but there is no audio in your NLE, and we know that it is NOT your Assets, because we’ve checked those. It’s gotta’ be somewhere else. This is where it can get tricky, especially as there are several differences between PrE and PrPro here.

Fist place to check is the Audio Mixer (in either program, Window>Audio Mixer), and check that the Mute is not ON. While there, play your Audio and watch the meters. Do they show a signal for that Audio Track? Now, go to your Timeline and look at the Audio Track. Can you see a Waveform Display? You might want to zoom in both horizontally and vertically on that Audio Track, to check.

In PrPro, check to see if the little “speaker” icon is on in the Audio Track Header. If not, turn it ON. Also, Rt-click on your Audio Clip and see if Enable is checked. If not, Enable it.

In both, Rt-click on the Audio Clip and choose Audio Gain. Is it set to ~ 0 dB? If not, you have attenuated your audio. Is that what you intended to do? If not, correct this.

Now, Volume is a fixed Effect and will appear in the Effects Control Panel. This can be set, or Keyframed. In PrPro, look at the mini-Timeline in that panel to see if you have any Keyframes. Explore them, as they may have been set improperly. In PrE, look at the Keyframes (and the orange line in the Timeline) in the Audio Clip. Similar for PrPro. That orange line should be in the middle of the Audio Track, unless you had a good reason to drag it down. It’s easy to accidently drag this down, when trying to move a Clip around. Check carefully.

In PrPro, you can toggle the Audio Display between Track Keyframes and Clip Keyframes. Check both. PrE does not allow one to toggle this type of display, only whether the Waveform is displayed, or not. The Track Keyframes can adjust Volume, and are most often added via the automation in Audio Mixer. These Keyframes stay on the Audio Track, and do not move, as one moves Clips. This can get in the way, if one has attenuated the Track’s Volume, and then replaced the Clip(s) there with others. Clip Keyframes stay with the Clip(s), as it’s moved about the Timeline. Those are most often added in the Effects Control Panel, though can also be added in the Timeline.

Once one has checked their system, the Assets, all possible hardware settings in the NLE and then checked each of these locations, where audio attenuation can be set, they will usually have located their problem.

Hunt

Fixing Background Noise in Audio

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 14:24:13 GMT

Users often encounter situations, where there is much background noise also recorded along with the human speech, that they are attempting to capture. This can be heavy ambient noise from near-by traffic, and A/C unit, wind, birds in a park, or others speaking close enough to the mic to be picked up. Most of the time, these extraneous noises are unwanted in the audio portion of the AV file.

Unfortunately, the best solution comes before one captures the footage. A good mic, good mic’ing technique, quieting the environment, or moving the taping to a quiet location are the best practices. Sometimes, many of these “cures” are not possible. Still, they are where one really needs to start.

When the audio has been captured, there can be major issues, when trying to remove the unwanted noise. There are some programs, and techniques that might be helpful at reducing these noises, but remember, these will only be so effective. If the noises are isolated to particular frequency ranges, outside of those of human speech, the prospect increases of success. A 60Hz hum is a good candidate for removal. Other human speech is certainly not. Wind noise can be broad spectrum can be very problematic, as if you remove it, for all overlapping frequencies with the human speech, those will all be removed, leaving the desired sound removed too. This is not what you want. One’s success will depend entirely on the frequencies of the undesirable noise, and how much of it, one can live with.

Now, there are some tools, that can be very useful, but only within the realm of the parameters discussed above. Regardless of which tools you use, you had better plan on spending a lot of time with a good set of headphones, and a lot of listening and testing.

The first tool that I turn to is Adobe Audition. It is a pro-level audio-editing program, and is not inexpensive. It is very powerful, but with that power comes both a learning curve and a lot of manipulation. One of its Restoration Effects is Noise Reduction (Process). This is used in conjunction with the Capture Noise Reduction Profile, which, when applied to a section of the offending noise, without the human speech, will map the audio profile of that noise. This profile will then be loaded into Restoration>Noise Reduction (Process). There, one has many controls for the application of the Effect, and the ability to Preview those settings. Plan on spending some time with this Effect, as it can be very easily overdone. When this happens, the human speech will take on a strong echo. As you reduce this undesirable effect, the ambient noise level will increase. Make settings, test - repeat - repeat - repeat. When you have balanced the noise reduction vs the distortion, that is as good as it gets.

From that point, one would then look to Effect>Parametric EQ (Equalizer) or Effec>Graphic EQ, to manually reduce certain frequencies (outside of the range of human speech), and also pump up certain frequencies that make up human speech - 125 - 250 Hz is about where most human speech occurs. These can be increased, but if your noise is full-spectrum, remember you will also increase any part of that noise, that resides in this range too.

After all has been done here, there are three Filters, that might help too: Low-Pass, High-Pass and the Notch/Gate Filters. Again, these can be very useful if there is zero overlap from the noise to the spectrum of human speech. Again, apply, test - repeat, etc.

One very useful Effect in Audition is Repair Transient. This can be used to remove pops, clicks and other transient noise. Many bird calls are Transients, and with a bit of work, can often be eliminated completely. I could not live without this Effect, as it can clean up so very much, leaving the noise floor untouched, but completely removing the Transients.

Now, buying Audition is not in everyone’s budget. One good freeware program for audio-editing is Audacity. It can work with many VST’s, and there are VST versions of several different EQ’s, plus High-Pass, Low-Pass and Notch/Gate Filters. I have never seen a noise-reduction VST that really worked, nor a Transient Removal VST, but they might exist. Note: while Audacity is free, only some available VST’s will be free. Some are more expensive than Audition.

Some years ago, I was working on a particularly badly degraded piece of audio. It came from a VHS tape of an old TV show, and apparently the tape deck had major problems, and maybe the signal was poor as well. This piece of audio just did not exist beyond this VHS tape, so I had to work on it. I spent a full day in Audition, and really was not doing well. It seemed that if I reduced part of the noise, some aspect of the audio disappeared also. Months before, I had purchased one of the Magix Music Studio programs. It came bundled with a little program called Audio Cleaning Lab. I installed both programs, but never touched ACL. It just languished on my Desktop. As I was about to give up on the restoration, I opened up all of my Magix programs, hoping to find a “magic bullet.” Nothing in the usual suspects, and then I opened up ACL for the first time. It had a simple little interface and looked more like a toy, than a serious audio program. There were default presets for several parameters, but not much more. Out of curiosity, I grabbed my WAV from Audition and ran it through ACL with the default presets. I was amazed at how much it improved on my day’s work. When the shock subsided, I decided to try it on the un-altered WAV. It was amazing. I then worked on the output from ACL, back in Audition, and got a useful file. That little “toy,” had done a fabulous job within the parameters and limitations of a program that does only one thing - cleans up audio. If one does a little additional work in a full-featured audio editing-program, like Audition, things can be amazingly good. Even then, one still must be ready to adjust, test, and repeat.

My audio “toolbox” runs from Audition to Audacity, and includes several of the Magix programs and many others. When trying to “clean up” existing audio, I am ready to use any/all of those, and be patient.

Still, recording the cleanest audio initially, will pay dividends. Cleaning up poor audio in post-production is limited and is very labor-intensive.

Another “fix” for bad audio is “dubbing.” This is the process of re-recording the audio in a quite location, with good mics, and the actors watching their performance on a monitor. This is the opposite of lip-syncing, but can be very effective, and is done in Hollywood often. Once a good clean dub has been recorded, it would be Imported into one’s NLE (Non Linear Editor) of choice and aligned with the Video portion of the Clip, that was used as a visual for the dub. The original Audio would be Deleted, or Muted. One of the nice benefits of doing things this way is that one can dub to an edited visual. If necessary, one could also do a tiny bit of Time Stretch on the dubbed Audio, to get perfect sync. This does get involved, but can be done. Many programs will allow one to alter time, but maintain pitch.

If necessary, other audio, besides just the dubbed human speech, can be added, where necessary. If one needs certain SFX (Sound Effects), to match visuals, these can be added. A second similar method is to do Foley Sound, where one finds items that will sound “like” what appears on screen. These range from things like “creating” thunder by shaking a sheet of aluminum, or similar. If one’s dubbing is also missing wanted sounds, using SFX Clips (either recording these, or finding them online) or doing Foley Sound can replace those audio elements that are now Muted, or Deleted.

I also highly recommend that one use a good pair of noise-canceling headphones, and apply a liberal dose of patience, when doing any audio work. Often, it can take far more time, than either setting it up correctly in the first place, or just doing a reshoot.

Hope that this helps someone,

Hunt

New to Premiere Elements? Some Resources

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 23:04:12 GMT

The question "how do I get started with Premiere Elements?" comes up quite often. I have decided to put together a list of resources to help one get up to speed with the program, and even take it beyond normal video editing.

One of the first places to learn how to do things in PrE is this sub-forum, Tips & Tricks. However, that might not be the best place to start. I'd suggest "walking before one attempts to run," and then to come back to this sub-forum. It's the same with reading the posts in the main PrE Forum - lot of great discussions no how to do much in the program, but they are usually around one operation, or revolving around a particular problem, so probably not the ideal start either. Let's look at some great resources, beyond this forum, but do keep it, and the general PrE Forum in mind for later studies.

Steve Grisetti, our MOD here, has put together a great Basic Training Series, that is available on Muvipix.com (more on Muvipix.com later). This will provide the new user with a great foundation for using PrE, and can help refresh the memory of even a seasoned user. This series is free.

Next, Steve has a continuation of that Basic Training Series, in his Learning Series, which is free to subscribers (more on that later) of Muvipix.com. This is a perfect and logical "next step" in the process.

Steve has also written several books on PrE, and one that combines PrE & PSE in one book. These BOOKS are available from Amazon.com, or from Muvipix.com. Along with the general books on PrE, he has written a Tips & Tricks book, that will help take ones' video editing to a whole new level.

Adobe has released Adobe Classroom in a Book for Premiere Elements 9.0, Adobe Press. I have not seen this edition, but love the CiaB series for many other Adobe programs, like PS, AI, InDesign, PrPro, AE and others.

There are other books, but I have no direct experience with them. Perhaps others can add their recs. for books that they found useful.

Now, let's talk about Muvipix.com. It is a multi-tiered Web site, with a very active forum, for everything from general video production and editing, to program-specific fora, and other topics. While many of the fora and also the users there, are on Adobe programs, the site is not exclusive to Adobe programs. The forum, Steve's Basic Training Series, and some Functional content, are all free, for just signing up. There are more articles and a lot more functional content, and most is available for a price to download, or free if one subscribes to Muvipix.com. It would not take too many individual downloads, to pay for a subscription. Some of the additional Functional Content is: Stock Motion footage, Motion Backgrounds, Menu Sets, original Music, and much more. Just the fora are worth the time to read, as there is some great info in the threads, and they are broken down by program, or by operations, such as music production.

Hope that these resources provide a good start to the wonderful world of video production and editing, and especially with PrE.

Hunt

[Edit] As Adobe has released PrE 11, and as there are some changes, I have added some updated links at the bottom of this thread, that should be specific for PrE 11.

Got "Error Compiling Movie?" This Might Help

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 15:08:14 GMT

Have you just gotten an "Error Compiling Movie," when you were Exporting/Sharing, or Rendering your Timeline? If so, this Adobe KB Article might be useful in fixing things. Though written specifically for Premiere Pro, much will apply to Premiere Elements, as well.

Good luck,

Hunt

Interlaced Scan & Progressive Scan Defined

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 17:37:21 GMT

As the topic of Interlaced vs Progressive Scans, come up frequently, and often from different directions, I wanted to point to a good discussion of the differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlaced_video

Also, there are some good examples shown for both Interlaced and Progressive Scan material, and a bit of history.

That Wiki-article might well answer questions that video editor and videographers encounter often.

Hunt

System Setup Tips for Video Editing

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 14:12:00 GMT

As we often get questions on how to set up a computer for Video editing, I wanted to point to a great resource, The Tweaker's Page: http://ppbm7.com/index.php/tweakers-page

There are lots of great tips and suggestions, with charts to show the reasons for chosing one setup vs another.

Hope that this is helpful.

Hunt

Premiere Titler - a Powerful Tool

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:39:02 GMT

The Titler in Premiere is basically a sub-application, within Premiere. It is a little bit word processor, has some of the attributes of Photoshop and Illustrator, with a tiny bit of InDesign, built in, and is very useful. It’s a very powerful tool, and is handy for adding Text, usually, but also Shapes and Lines to a Video.

Premiere comes with several templates for Titles, and though pre-made, can be altered in an almost limitless fashion, with the Tools in Titler.

Starting back a bit, Titles, created with Titler are not really images, though they have some attributes of a Still Image. For instance, their Duration can be set globally in Edit>Preferences>General>Still Duration, but can also be adjusted, by click+dragging on the Head, or the Tail of the Title, just like with a Still Image. Also, they are really synthetic video, so when added to the Premiere Timeline, will have a red line above them, indicating that they need to be Rendered (hitting the Enter/Return key) for smoothest playback. If they are placed over a Still Image, or Video, the same red line will appear, because they are basically an overlay, and their pixels will have to be blended with the pixels from the Asset underlying the Title. If the Title is the only Asset on the Timeline, at that point, then playback is probably not an issue, unless one animates the Title, with either Keyframing, or by applying an animation Preset. Then, to see that animation in the smoothest manner, Rendering might well be needed. For more information on Rendering, see this article: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3484339#3484339

When one creates a Title with Titler, they do not exist as physical Assets, like a Video Clip, or Still Image. Instead, they are just XML code in the Premiere Project file (PREL for PrE, or PRPROJ for PrPro). That means that they are forever editable, unlike a Title created as a Still Image, in say Photoshop, and Imported into Premiere.

When a Title is created, it appears in Premiere’s Project Panel. It can be used many times, as an Instance of that Title is what is placed onto the Timeline. That means, however, that if one uses multiple Instances of a Title, any change made to any of those, or the Title in the Project Panel, will be made to ALL Instances.

Often, one will create a Title, and then wish to create others, based on that first Title. The method is to create a New Title, but base it on an existing Title. The exact steps differ between Premiere versions. In Premiere Elements, one would go to that Title in the Project Panel, Rt-click on it, and choose Duplicate. This will do just that - duplicate the Title, but instead of being an Instance of it, it will be a separate, unique Title. It can then be edited, as is needed. Titler will require that this Duplicate be named. In Premiere Pro, there is an icon in Titler, New Title Based on Current, that does the same thing, and the user will be required to name that new Title. Again, it can be edited, as necessary.

In Titler, everything that one sees is an Object, whether it is a Type Object, or a Shape Object (which can be a Line, as well). The Objects can be Selected (the Selection Tool is the “arrow” in the Titler Toolbar), Deleted, Moved, Copied and Pasted, or adjusted, say altering a Stroke, or a Fill, and with Text, the font, color and Styles.

One can also add Clip Art, or Images, into a Title. Those will be Objects too, and can be moved about, or deleted, as is required.

With a Type Object, one can also Select Text with the Type Tool. That can be used to Select and alter one character, or entire lines of text, by click+dragging.

As text can be either Point Type, or Paragraph Type. On the surface, they look the same, but behave in a slightly different manner. They are also created differently. With Point Type, one selects the Type Tool, clicks in the Title, and begins typing. To wrap Point Type, one needs to add a line break. With Paragraph Type, one selects the Type Tool, then click+drags in the Title, to create a Type Block. As they type in the text, or perhaps Paste it from a word processing document, the Type will Wrap, at the boundaries of the Type Block.

Now, various versions of Premiere offer some animation Presets, for Titles. However, those can be limiting, such as being limited to only one line of Text in PrE. One can create the same animations, but with much more control, if they Keyframe the Fixed Effect>Motion>Position (one can create Rolls and Crawls with this one Fixed Effect), and maybe others, depending on what one wants. Many, if not most, of the added Effects can also be added to Titles, and can also be Keyframed, to change things, over time.

One can also create Titles in Photoshop, and Import those into Premiere. In PrPro, there is an extra benefit from this, in that the Photoshop PSD can be created and then Imported, with the full Layer structure. In PrPro, this Import would be “As a Sequence,” where each individual Layer is Imported as a Clip (each can be animated separately), in a new Sequence.

The Premiere Titler is a very useful and versatile tool, and one’s use of it, plus Keyframed Effects, will only be limited by one’s imagination.

Marking Replies as "Correct," etc.

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 21:45:40 GMT

Adobe is monitoring the support provided by the Adobe Forums. Part of that monitoring is data gathering on how effect the Replies and the forums are.

When one posts a problem to the forums, they, only they (or one of the MOD's), have the ability to mark a Reply as "Correct," or "Helpful." If "Correct" is chosen, then the thread is marked as "Answered." This does two things:

It provides the Adobe Forum Support Team with info to go to the upper-management of Adobe, to prove that the forums are viable for support.
It also provides users, who visit the forum later on, with the same, or similar problems, with knowledge that a particular threads HAS an answer, that was useful to the OP.

There is also a little set of buttons in the Replies, "Was this helpful? Yes - No" that anyone can choose. This also provides data to the Adobe Forum Support Team, as it shows that others, viewing the thread, found the Reply to bue helpful to them.

To all OP's, please stop back by your threads and mark Replies as "Correct," or "Helpful," when they are That will mean a lot to the future of the Adobe Forums.

To all, who read threads, if you find a Reply helpful to you, please take a moment to let Adobe know that it was helpful - anyone can do this, and not just the OP.

Thank you,

Hunt

Setting Up Project Folders & Sub-folders

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 14:52:25 GMT

There have been several questions on how to structure Project folders for the best editing, and then clean-up, when a Project is completed, so I am going to offer my normal scheme, with comments on why I have chosen this folder structure. In my case, I have one more level, than many users employee (the “Client” folder), but with that exception, this structure should serve most users well. My folder structure is created, before I begin any Project. I also use a convention for most Assets, that allows me to first group all necessary Assets, but leaves the originals safe and away from the Project’s folders, so that a simple Delete cleans up the system, but does NOT affect any originals, with the exception of Captures from miniDV tape, which will be separately archived, and never reused - I would do the Capture again.

XYZ Advertising (client)

Project Name (my Project "root folder")

Captures (if from miniDV tape, and set in Edit>Preferences)

Video (for Copies of any stock Video files, or perhaps intermediate Video files)

Audio (for Copies of any stock Audio, and also for any edited camera Audio)

SFX (for Copies of any Sound Effects)

Music (for Copies of any Music files)

AutoSave (created automatically, and located via Edit>Preferences, which I leave set to

“Same As Project”)*

Renders (created automatically, and located via Edit>Preferences, which I leas set to “Same As Project”)

Stills (for Copies of any Still Images)

Titles (for Copies of any Titles, generated in other programs, such as Photoshop)

Finished AVI’s (destination folder for Exported Video)

Finished AC3's (destination folder for Exported Audio, which is usually DD 5.1 SS AC3 in my case.)

When the Project is finished, I will Archive it (Archiver in PrE, or Project Manager in PrPro), test the Archived Project, and then go to the Project Name “root folder” and Delete that, taking all of the sub-folders with it. The above structure also helps the Archiving process gather up all Assets. When they are scattered around a system, they can be missed by the Archiver. This keeps them together, so they are seldom missed - but still I Open the Archived Project and test, before I Delete anything.

There are some performance aspects, that I give up, but it makes housekeeping so very easy, when done. For ultimate performance, one would locate all Assets on one HDD (probably a RAID array), the Project on another, and then the Export/Render files on yet a third (probably a RAID array). Though this will yield some performance benefits, housecleaning will require that I go to three different HDD’s. I sacrifice some performance, to keep all sub-folders together.

Note: in the case of most Assets, I populate those sub-folders with ONLY Copies of the Assets, and the originals stay safe on my NAS.

For additional info on Saving a Project, see this ARTICLE.

* This allows me to have a separate sub-folder of all AutoSaves, and as I do several Save_As operations, as the Project grows, I have a “breadcrumb trail,” going back for many edits. If things get corrupted, I can always step back, and should have an AutoSave, that will “save” me. It does create more files, but Project files (PREL’s for PrE, or PRPROJ’s for PrPro) are really quite small.

As a sidenote, I also use Adobe Encore for Authoring most Projects to DVD/BD, so I locate my Encore Project folders and sub-folders under my Project root folder. That helps with full cleanup, when the Project is finished.

Adding an Arrow or Other Shape/Character to Video

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 16:54:16 GMT

Often, one needs to add an element to “call out” a person, or object in the video. There are several methods to call attention to the person, or object, but one way is to just add an “arrow,” pointing to that person/object.

This can be done easily in the Titler, and one can use Shapes, or characters in a particular font set. Wingdings and Webdings are two font families with all sorts of arrows, and other symbols, that can be very useful.

To accomplish this, one would Open Titler, and then choose a character in a font family, that has the right look. That character would be added in the Text box, after one deletes any “placeholder text” from the Title. For this example, I used Wingdings 3 arrowhead, and chose a font size that was adequate for my image. I adjusted the Stroke and Fill to suit. Note: in PrE’s Titler, one must first add a Style w/ Stroke and Fill, before they can make the adjustments. In PrPro, Titler will add, and allow adjustments to any selected object, without the need to first add a Style.

In Titler, one can position, scale and rotate, as is needed. That Title is placed on a Video Track above the Video Clip. Then, if necessary, they can animate the fixed Effects>Motion>Position (to track with a moving subject), or Rotation, if necessary. This is done by adding Keyframes to make changes over time. Note: in PrE, one goes to Edit Effect with the Clip Selected to access the Effects Control Panel. In PrPro, with the Clip Selected, one just Opens the Effects Control Panel, Window>Effects Control Panel. Also note: this is NOT the Effects Panel, but the Effects Control Panel.

One can also create these Titles in Photoshop/PhotoshopElements, and can use the included Shapes. In PS, one would choose New Image, and then choose the Preset to match their Video Frame Size, say, NTSC 720 x 480 Standard/4:3 w/ Guides, and a Transparent Background. When done, they do a Save_As PSD, to be Imported into their Project and would drag that from the Project Panel to a Video Track above their Video Clip. That PSD can also be animated, and the Scale can be tweaked, if necessary, by Effects>Motion>Scale.

One of the beauties of using Titler is that they can work on the Title with the underlying Video Clip visible (can be toggled ON/OFF in PrPro). If working in PS/PSE, they might want to do a still capture of a Video Frame, to use as a guide. This would be placed on a Layer below the Shape’s Layer, but would need to be either Deleted, or have Visibility turned OFF, prior to doing the Save_As, since one would NOT want that to appear in the PSD - it is only a reference to be used for the layout of the Title.

Here is a look at a Title with an "arrowhead" used from the Wingdings font family:

The program, in this case, is PrE 4's Titler.

Here is a look at the partial character set of Wingings 3:

Hope that this is helpful.

For other methods of highlighting a moving subject, see this ARTICLE

Hunt

Note: this general technique can also be used to "draw" onto, say a map. In that case, one might want to add an animated Crop Effect, or an animated Wipe Effect, to simulate the "drawing" of the line, or Shape.

SmartSound - What Is It & How Do I Use It?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 07 Aug 2013 13:42:36 GMT

For some time, there has been discussion on the use of SmartSound® with various versions of Adobe Premiere®. Often, there is a bit of confusion, as to what SmartSound is and how best to use it. I hope to provide some information on both the programs as well as the "Series," that make up SmartSound music.

First, here is some background. SmartSound’s programs come in basically three "flavors" now. First, there is QuickTracks for Premiere®. This is a plug-in for PrPro/PrE. It works from within the NLE program itself. Then, there are two versions of Sonicfire Pro®, which is a stand-alone program that is similar to QuickTracks, but offers so very much more in the way of power with the Strata Series® (and other Multi-track music) Series. One of these is the ExpressTracks® version, which is free with the purchase of any Strata Series disc., and the other is the full Scoring Edition®, which can be purchased separately, or upgraded free, if one has a registered copy of Sonicfire Pro 4 with S/N. While the basic function of the programs is similar, the mechanics can differ, as well as the final output.

Second, there is the music. It is grouped into several Series. All can only be used in the SmartSound software. The SmartSound® Music library is a very creative and flexible collection of royalty-free* music. It's the only music that gives video editors access to perfectly edited music from any SmartSound software or embedded technology.

Looking at it from one side, the Series are grouped by style, theme and mood. On the other side, they are grouped by the type of discs. At a basic level, there are three types of these discs:

Single Layer tracks: no Mood Mapping capability, however there are 22KHz, 44KHz and 48KHz single layer tracks (the Classical Suite albums are single layer 48KHz. Note that single-layer music cannot be used with Mood Mapping.

Multilayer tracks: all multilayer tracks have Mood Mapping, and there are only 44KHz and 48KHz multilayer tracks.

Some of the recent releases of the Strata Series discs, only contain the 48KHz versions Remember, only the 48KHz can contain Mood Mapping, and can only be used with Sonicfire Pro. For the QuickTracks plug-in, one would use the 44KHz version, and of course there is no Mood Mapping in QuickTracks.

All of the various Series also contain several variations on each "cut." The vast majority are original creations and the few that are "public domain" are original performances.

Generally, the price of the music Series goes up with both the quality (sample-rate) and with the multi-layer aspect. Still, "sales" do happen from time to time.

Ignoring the Mood Mapping feature for a moment, I’d like to talk about what SmartSound and Sonicfire Pro do, when used with the SmartSound music Series. These programs and this music will allow one to exactly tailor their soundtrack, and far beyond what one can do using loopology. The intros and outros can be specified. If you know the exact Duration of your Video, you can tailor your resulting score to that Duration.

With Sonicfire Pro, and a Strata Series multi-layer disc, one can tailor much more, than just the Duration of the music. This is where Mood Mapping comes in. With Mood Mapping there is almost unlimited control on what the same piece of music can sound like. Within the Mood Mapping control panel, one can use many Presets, but can also control virtually every aspect of the music. Imagine being able to take a full orchestral version of a piece of music, and then separating out just the violins, or just the brass section. Both versions of Sonicfire Pro can utilize Mood Mapping, but there are limitations on the ExpressTracks version, and even more power in the Scoring Edition, including Timing Control.

Now remember that I mentioned that QuickTracks for Premiere was a plug-in and that both versions of Sonicfire Pro are stand-alone applications. How does this affect how one uses them? Because of the plug-in nature, QuickTracks is launched from within Premiere via the New icon and SmartSound from the drop-down menu. This brings up the QuickTracks interface, where one can tailor the Duration, and the variation, of the piece, but also contains a link to a browser. In this browser, one can sort by various criteria, plus are also allowed a text Search function to use the notes with each music cut. There are also filters to limit ones view to criteria, such as Music on My Computer, Music Owned by Me, Music On SmartSound’s Web site and All.

As Sonicfire Pro is a stand-alone, one would first Export a "reference" AV file, to use when scoring. One day, I would love to see Sonicfire Pro as a plug-in for Premiere, so that this one step would not be necessary. The next best thing would be for Adobe to do a Dynamic Link to Sonicfire Pro. There is no need for any reference file with QuickTracks, as one is working in the Sequence’s Timeline.

When the purchased Series have been installed on one’s computer, it will contain a preview, regardless of whether the actual sound files are copied to that computer. One can work from the copied music files, or from the DVD discs. [Note: because of the limitation on QuickTracks to just the 22KHz and 44KHz music, installations usually do not have to be done separately, unless the user wants both the multilayer version installed and the single layer versions installed. Any single layer albums will only need to be installed once (with the exception of Classical Suites, since they have 48KHz and 44KHz, but if installed in Quicktracks first, the 44KHz versions will be available in Sonicfire Pro.)] Personally, I copy the DVD’s to my HDD’s, for quick and easy access. However, that is not necessary, if one does not mind placing the DVD into a drive.

If one does not wish to purchase one of the discs, the full library, they can still listen to the cuts, via the preview, and can purchase much of the music, by the cut, directly from SmartSound for download. This can allow one to use just the right cut, without having to invest in the full Library.

One of the real advantages to registering one’s SmartSound, besides notification of updates, is the notifications of the "sales." These usually offer select Series at greatly reduced rates. I find the "regular" prices to be in line with what one gets, but a sale makes it even better. My biggest problem has been that I now own most of the Series, and the ones that I do not own are ones that I will likely not use. It’s getting more difficult to take advantage of these sales, no matter how low the price has dropped - I already own it.

Last, SmartSound also has several Series of SFX too.

* Excludes public performance as part of a film released through major theatrical distribution or broadcast on national television. See our Professional Music End User License for details regarding these uses.

Note:

SmartSound, QuickTracks, Sonicfire Pro, ExpressTracks, Mood Mapping and Scoring Edition are all registered property of SmartSound Software, Inc.

Adobe Premiere is a registered property of Adobe Software, Inc.

SmartSound's Web site

Fonts & Crashes with Titler

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 22:11:53 GMT

Fonts are a subject that comes up often. When things work fine, a user will often ignore them. When something goes wrong, or a font is not available in a program, the search for answers begins.

Where are the fonts?

Fonts can be in at least two places:

1.) installed on the system, and located in the C:\Windows\Fonts folder

2.) in separate folders, often, though not always, associated with particular programs

With Adobe fonts, they are now most often OTF fonts (Open Type Fonts), and most Adobe programs, that have fonts, will just install them into C:\Windows\Fonts folder. You will usually not see them elsewhere, i.e. they will not appear in any other folder, as they were installed on the system, when the program was installed. If, when you open Control Panel>Fonts, and see any OTF fonts, these likely came from your Adobe programs. This indicates that they are in C:\Windows\Fonts and are installed on the system. In the past, Adobe programs would locate the Fonts in the program’s folder structure, and would often install some/all onto the system. This became a bit confusing, if one had many Adobe programs, as each program could have separate folders of fonts - some installed, and some just residing on the system. Back then, computers were a lot slower, with fewer resources. Having any more fonts installed, than was necessary slowed things to a crawl. Adobe refrained from automatically installing all the fonts provided with the programs. Now, computers, in general, are more robust and with better handling of resources. Fonts do not strain a system, like they once did. [Too many certainly can, for even the most robust workstation, but in very general terms, most people do not have enough fonts to worry much about.this] Adobe also found that many people were purchasing suites of their programs, so having the same fonts in separate folders for, say Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Acrobat, Premiere and Encore was a waste of HDD space. Now, most included Adobe OTF’s are installed, and do not appear elsewhere - usually.

With some Adobe programs, there is often additional Functional Content somewhere on the installation DVD set, often in folder named something like "Goodies." This Functional Content can be things like 3rd party plug-ins (some totally free, and some in demo mode), additional Menus, Title Templates, and fonts. In the case of these "bonus" fonts, you need to copy over their folder from the installation DVD to the location of choice. Note: doing this will NOT install these fonts on the system. One would use Control Panel>Fonts to navigate to that folder to do this install. Control Panel>Fonts is the mechanism for getting fonts into, or out of the system. One can use it to remove installed fonts in two ways: uninstall the font, but leave the file on the system, or uninstall the font and remove the file from the system. The differences are obvious.

Usually, fonts are not thought about much, other than trying to pick the right one for a Title, or to use on a Menu. So long as one finds them when necessary, they are otherwise out of sight and out of mind. Then something happens. Titler crashes, or will not launch.

What has happened? Well, Titler, in both PrE and PrPro, is really a sub-app. nestled within the editing program. Unlike all other Adobe (and other software companies’) programs, that use fonts, it is VERY sensitive to any problem with a font that is installed on one’s system. Remember, those are the ones in C:\Windows\Fonts, that have been installed. When Titler starts, it surveys all installed fonts, not just the ones that you are likely to use - all of them. If one is corrupt, it can crash Titler in an instant. This most often happens when the sub-app. loads, and before it is even used. Some fonts, just do not work with Titler. Deja Vu, loaded by SunMicro Systems’ Open Office is one of these. Some do not display in Titler. This is a function of a poorly formed font, and these will usually not crash Titler, but just display boxes, or other cryptic symbols.

Now, there are a couple of ways to address corrupt fonts. This is only for the fonts that are corrupt. For the ones that will crash Titler, that are not corrupt, there is a method for them too, and it will appear at the end of this article.

1.) I use Extensis FontDoctor to locate, repair/remove corrupt fonts. For me, it’s part of my Extensis Suitcase suite. I use Suitcase to dynamically manage all of my fonts, so I only need a few hundred installed at one time, but still have access to over 12,000 residing on my system, but not installed. This font repair utility can scan the entire HDD structure, looking for any and all font files. I have the majority of my uninstalled fonts in a folder hierarchy below a main folder, Fonts. I have these grouped by type, PS Fonts, TT Fonts, OTF Fonts, etc. Of course, I also have my installed fonts in C:\Windows\Fonts.

There is a freeware program, FontFrenzy, that will also manage fonts, and has a repair utility in it, as well. I have not used this program, but it comes highly recommended. Note: there are other utilities, some freeware, and some for-pay. I have not used any current ones, so I cannot comment on them. Google will be your friend, as will recs. for various fora.

For problems with Titler, one is ONLY concerned with the fonts that are installed on the system, i.e. those in C:\Windows\Fonts. Now, I run FontDoctor on my entire system, as I do not want to dynamically install a font for a job, and have it crash Titler. I want clean, well-formed fonts only in any folder where I am likely to store my fonts.

2.) There is also a manual way to find corrupt fonts, but it takes some time, and one should exercise caution. First, there are fonts, and then there are fonts. Some fonts are "system fonts," and Windows relies on these being installed to run. You will want to make sure to NOT include these in this next operation. Then, there are "program fonts." These are fonts that are necessary for certain programs to run. They are almost as important as are the "system fonts." I advise one to exclude these from the next operation too. Unfortunately, there is not really any sign on these "special" fonts, when one is viewing C:\Windows\Fonts. One just has to poke around and try to decide which fonts are "system fonts," which fonts are "program fonts," and which are plain old fonts. It’s the latter that we want to address now. We will use the "rule of halves." I won’t explain that now, but you’ll see what I’m talking about in just a moment. In some ways, this is like Calculus, but with fonts.

To do this next operation, we will remove one half of the regular fonts in C:\Windows\Fonts. I recommend that anyone doing this first makes a copy of their C:\Windows\Fonts to a safe place. If we are careful to NOT remove "system," or "program" fonts, one of two things should happen:

1.) Titler will open and run fine. Then we know that our corrupt font(s) is/are in that half that we removed. More on tracking down the corrupt font(s) in a moment.

2.) Titler will crash, so we know that we have not yet removed ALL corrupt fonts. There could be a bad one in the group that we did remove, so we do not know if those are clean yet.

With #1 above, we would then replace one half, of the one half that we initially removed and test Titler again. If it still runs fine, then we go with one half of the remaining fonts. We do this, until we get the crash. Then we know that somewhere in that last batch is at least one corrupt font. We do the halves again, first removing one half of that last batch and testing. We then zero in, by using the "rule of halves." Repeat, until we have isolated any/all fonts that are corrupt.

With #2 above, we continue removing half of the remaining fonts, until Titler runs, and then using the "rule of halves," replace until it crashes. We narrow down that batch of fonts, until we have isolated the corrupt font(s).

As you can see, this is tedious work, and one has to remember to step around all "system fonts," and should stay clear of all "program fonts." Obviously, the hope is that one, of either sets, is NOT corrupt. Usually, if one of these is, the OS, or the program, that relies on them, will have already given you an error message. We will assume that all of these are good.

It should also be clear why I chose to purchase FontDoctor to do the "heavy-lifting" for me. Depending on the number of installed fonts, this manual process could easily take a full day. Also, it’s highly repetitious and if one get interrupted, they could easily forget which "half" they are now dealing with.

After one has isolated all corrupt fonts (remember, there can be more than one), it’s best to uninstall that/those font(s). Repair might be possible with a utility, but for now, we just want to get it/them out of C:\Windows\Fonts, so we can run Titler.

Now, this does not address those "problem fonts," like Deja Vu. The only way to track them down is to first look to see which program installed them, or again, apply the "rule of halves." This is not at all easy, as one usually has to look in the particular programs’ documentation to see if there is a font list - often there is not. Various fora will often yield clues as to which fonts cause problems for Titler. I picked up on Deja Vu from a post by Jeff Bellune in the PrPro CS4 forum. He had stumbled upon it after he installed Open Office and Titler always crashed afterwards. He tried repairing any corrupt fonts, but none were. He then had to systematically remove all new fonts (installed with Open Office), until he hit on Deja Vu. There could be hundreds, or even thousands of "problem fonts" out there. When installing any program, that also installs any fonts, or when installing fonts from any source, one should immediately check Titler to see how it behaves. Because of its high sensitivity to installed fonts, it will act like the canary in the coal mine, warning of a lack of oxygen and a presence of deadly gasses.

Hunt

Intermediate Files - Maintaining Ultimate Quality

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 15:40:16 GMT

Once, most people were shooting to miniDV tape, and then capturing from that to a DV-AVI file for editing. In that Capture, it was a byte for byte transfer of data, and then written to a DV-AVI file, with very light compression.

Now, nearly everyone is editing some form of highly-compressed Video file. At some point, after the image being recorded strikes the sensor, and the final file on the camera's memory card, or similar, there is compression being applied to the data, and it's much more significant. Often, it's a form of the H.264 CODEC, but not always. Still, some compression is being applied. This compression goes pretty much unnoticed, since the material is HD to begin with, but it is there.

Once edited, if one then goes directly to BD (Blu-ray Disc), there will be one more layer of compression, either to H.264, or HD MPEG-2. Still, quality is quite high, and seldom calls attention to itself.

What does one do, if they need to edit, then output to an intermediate file, work on that in another program, like Adobe AfterEffects, and then will need to do additional editing to the output file from AE, before going to that BD? If one continues to do a succession of heavy compressions, quality will go down, and rather quickly. The degrading will most likely be seen where there is rapid motion (either camera or subject) and also in the form of artifacts, which will grow with each generation of compression. It's like looking at a FAX, of a FAX, or a FAX.

This is where using a lossless CODEC to create an intermediate file, can be very useful.

If you are in need of an intermediate file, to do more editing on, about the best that you can do is use one of the lossless CODEC's, like Lagarith Lossless, or UT Lossless. Both are free, and both are good, but the file sizes WILL be large. Prepare for that. One would just download and install one of those CODEC's, and reboot. Then in Export/Share, they would choose MS AVI, and under Compressor, would look in the drop-down list for the Lagarith, or the UT Lossless CODEC. The file format will be .AVI, and contain the lossless CODEC. Those files will then Import into the video-editing program, or compositing program, with no loss in quality. This will eliminate one compression stage, and improve overall quality. The fewer compression steps, the better the final output.

Note: if one is sharing the .AVI's with either of those lossless CODEC's, then the recipient will need to have that CODEC installed, as well, or they will not be able to even play the file, much less edit it. Remember, these CODEC's are for intermediate files, and are not ideal as final delivery formats.

Both of those lossless CODEC's are fairly quick to both Encode and Decode, but there IS some processing necessary, so they might not Import, or edit as quickly as the original material, and certainly not as quickly as using a DV-AVI in an SD Project was - but still fairly fast.

If you are in need of intermediate files, give either the Lagarith Lossless, or the UT Lossless a try. Remember, after installation, and rebooting, they will then be found in the MS AVI (not DV-AVI), and then under the Compression/Compressor choices for the CODEC inside the AVI wrapper.

Hunt

Sonicfire Pro Scoring Edition Reverts to Express Tracks

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 21:37:12 GMT

Did your SmartSound Sonicfire Pro 5 Scoring Edition revert to the Express Tracks version, after you installed Premiere Elements 11? If so, read on.

First, a bit of history. SmartSound has been included in PrE for many versions, and available for free in some other editing programs, like Premiere Pro, Pinnacle Studio and a few others. For more general information on SmartSound, see this article: http://forums.adobe.com/message/4912568#4912568. Back then, there were two totally different SmartSound programs, the free QuickTracks plug-in, and a stand-alone music editing program, Sonicfire Pro, which was not free. A few years ago (about the release of PrPro CS 4), Sonicfire Pro was reworked into two versions: Sonicfire Pro 5 Express Tracks, which is free, and replaced the older QuickTracks Plug-in, and Sonicfire Pro Scoring Edition, which is not free but offers a lot more power, and especially with SmartSound Multi-Track music libraries. Sonicfire Pro (both versions) were ported for PrPro, PrE, After Effects, AVID, Pinnacle Studio and FCP. Sonicfire Pro 5 Express Tracks is now the SmartSound option for PrE, and can be installed from the PrE download, or the physical media discs.

I had Sonicfire Pro 5 Scoring Edition (the paid version with more power) on my laptop, and it was updated. I installed PrE 11, and the Sonicfire Pro 5 program, plus the included SmartSound music included. I went to use my Scoring Edition, only to find that it had reverted to the Express Tracks version - all of that extra editing power was gone.

With a pointer from the SmartSound Support Team (always quick and great), I just went to my Sonicfire Pro 5 Scoring Edition information and got my S/N (I have two, as I use Sonicfire Pro 5 Scoring Edition on two computers, because I like it so much), plugged that back into the now blank S/N box, and got Scoring Edition back.

If this happens to you, it is because, with the installation of PrE 11, that existing S/N has been cleaned out. A simple fix, but one that you should be aware of to get Scoring Edition back and functioning.

Hope that this helps.

Hunt

How to Delete a Project

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 22:42:03 GMT

The question of how to Delete a Project, comes up with some regularity. People will complete several Projects, and realize that a lot of disc real estate is taken up by the files involved in the Project, and they will want to free up that space for new Projects.

The answer is simple, but the actual operation of Deleting everything associated with a Project, might require some Searching, and work. It all depends on how one set the Project up, to begin with. One highly recommended structure is outlined here: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3998053#3998053

Such a folder structure makes Deletion of a Project very easy - in, say Windows Explorer, just navigate to where that Project's main folder is located, and Delete it. All of the sub-folders, and files will be Deleted, as well.

If one have Projects scattered about, and they have not created a concise sub-folder structure, or they have Imported Assets from all over their sytem, things become a bit more difficult. One has to match Project names, with several Scratch Disk folders, such as the Media Cache, AutoSaves, and the like, then they have to find where there Assets are. Warning here: I only work with Copies of my Assets, so the originals are safely stored on my NAS. When I Delete a Project, I am only Deleting the Copies of those Assets. Consider Deleting original Assets, before you do it.

Also, one should take something else into consideration - "Will I ever wish to revisit this Project again?" If the answer is absolutely not, then Delete away. If there is even a "maybe," consider using the Project Archiver function, to make a copy of the Project, with Assets, and store that on an archive drive.

Remember, the PREL, the Project File, does not have any of your media, but only links to where that media was stored, when Imported. See this article for more background: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3392837#3392837

Hunt

Got a Problem? How to Get Started

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 17:42:39 GMT

Getting started on fixing your problem:

Working with video editing on an NLE (Non Linear Editor) program can tax the most robust computers. Depending on many factors, this can be a daunting task, at best. Many of the components of one’s computer can be stressed, more than with almost any other operation, that it will ever perform.

Getting help on the forum can seem almost as daunting, as the first thing that a poster is likely to encounter is a list of questions, before any answers. This is the natural flow, because people are trying to help remotely. They cannot come to your office and sit behind you to determine your computer system’s capabilities, and observe just what you are doing, when and how you are doing it. Do not be put off by these questions, as they are very necessary and will very likely give the respondents some clues on where to look for your problem.

Problems can normally be broken down into these categories:

1.) System

2.) Assets (the Audio, Video and still images)

3.) Project (how it is setup and with which Preset)

4.) Workflow (what you are doing, and how you are doing it)

If you prepare a checklist, before you post your problem, it will save everyone a great deal of time, and will likely yield your answer much more quickly. The more detail that you furnish, the fewer questions will remain, that have to be asked. Remember, you have to be the "eyes" for the others on the forum, if they are expected to help you. They could be thousands of mile away, in other time zones, and will not know about your system, your Assets, your Project or your workflow, until you tell them. Help them get started quickly, by telling them in your first post. Do your "homework," so they do not have to ask questions for the first five responses, and can start giving you answers much more quickly.

System:

Be very specific about your computer. Just saying that "I have a Dell" doesn’t tell them much of anything. List your CPU type and speed, i.e. Core2 Quad Q6700 2.3GHz. Same for your RAM, i.e. 4GB of DDS. Also, list your Video Card, type, connection and driver number and date. Same for your Audio System. Note: most of this data can be found in Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager. Pointing people to a URL on your computer company’s Web site isn’t a bad idea, but giving the exact details of your system is far, far better. It is likely that that Web site will have the general configuration, and who knows if that is exactly what you bought. List it for them, so they do not have to go and guess, and write down the specs. of your system.

One of the most important aspects of your system will be the I/O sub-system. What is that, you might ask? Well, it’s your HDD’s (Hard Disk Drives). The important info is how many physical HDD’s do you have. List their size, their speed, their connection, the amount of free, defragmented space and how they are allocated. This would look something like this: "3x 200GB SATA II. Drive C:\ OS, programs and Windows Virtual Memory with 185GB free, D:\ media with 120GB free, E:\ Project files, output and Scratch Disks with 150GB free." If you have any drive partitioned (not a good thing nowadays), let everyone know and give details. If you have a RAID, give full details on how it is managed, the type and how it is used in your system. [As an aside, most RAID’s should not really be considered for a system drive, unless one has built in redundancy in the RAID, i.e. 3, or more, physical disks. Remember, this info can be critical. If you have CD/DVD burners, list them and their connections. If you have external HDD’s, list them with the same details as for your internal HDD’s.

Next, tell about your Windows Virtual Memory (Page File). How large is it, where is it located on your system and how is it managed, i.e. dynamically by Windows, or static? Again, this can be critical. For info, you will need to go to Control Panel>System>Advanced>Performance and look. In the Settings>Advanced, you should see things like Process Scheduling, Memory Usage and Virtual Memory. This is where you will find the answers. Note: depending on which OS one has, the exact location and syntax may differ.

While we’re on the OS, list the exact OS that you have, i.e. Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP-2 with all updates and hot-fixes.

What version of the NLE are you using and has it been updated, i.e. PE3.0.2.

Finally, list any other programs, that might be in use, while you are editing, such as MSN Messaging, etc. These can be critical, even though you are basically editing video.

Assets:

Give full details on your Assets. Just saying "a bunch of .AVI’s" tells people nothing. Be very specific with the details. See this ARTICLE on what info to give, and how to obtain it. Same for your Audio and for your still images. Size in pixels, file type, etc., are very important for the stills, and file type. Sample-rate and sample size are important for the Audio.

Project:

How is your Project setup? Which Preset did you use? What is the Duration of your Timeline. This gives someone the "lay of the land," so to speak and is very important. Note: your Project Preset should match your Video Assets. You can always Export/Share to some other frame size, or format, but your Project should match your Video Assets.

Workflow:

How have you arranged your Assets on the Timeline allows someone to "see" your Project in their mind. Information such as one 00;10;00;00 AVI (remember, you will have furnished complete details on those AVI’s, or MPEG’s when you listed your Assets above) on Video Track 1 (VT1) with its Audio on Audio Track 1 (AT1). One AVI used as a PiP (Picture in Picture) on VT2 with its Audio on AT2. One MP3 soundtrack for the full Duration on Soundtrack and my Narration on the Narration Track. List any Transitions, or Effects used. If you have Titles, list them. If you have any Keyframing used, list where and what they control.

List exactly what you are doing and to which Asset you are doing it, when your problem occurs. If you are doing something like Export/Share, list the full settings (Presets) used, and be sure to mention any other tasks being performed by your computer, while you are doing the Export/Share.

If you have already done some trouble shooting, list what you have done and the complete results. Were there any error messages? If so, give the full description. To say, "I had error messages," tells people nothing. What exactly did they say?

This information will help people get right to your problem and will get you up and running much more quickly.

As an aside, think about the title of your post. Saying "Problem" is not good enough. Instead, something like "PE7 Fails on Share to MPEG-2" would be better. First, you are trying to let everyone know something about your Problem, so they will see it, and be interested in helping you. If you are having an Audio issue, mention "Audio" in the title, so the right people will find your post. Not everyone knows everything about all aspects of Video. You want the right people to see your post and to be working with you, to fix your problem. Also, later on, it is good to have a title that will be easily found by others, who may have the same exact problem. If you get an answer that works, please post back that success, so others, finding your post, will know what worked, and what did not. Note: do not put your entire post into the title. That is just tough to read and understand. Use a few words, but make them the right words.

Installation Issues? A Checklist

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 28 May 2013 21:26:23 GMT

Many folk seem to have issues, when attempting to install Adobe products. This is a checklist of things to do, prior to attempting to install. It's general, and covers most Adobe programs.

run as Administrator
Extract any archived downloaded file, including the FULL folder structure.
install to C:\ only. You can do custom folders, from the default, but install on C:\. Also few Adobe programs do well with a full network installation.
turn off all AV, pop-up blockers, spy-sweeping software
turn off all firewalls, and lower the security settings, if necessary. Look for individual "safeguards," and turn those off - differs by OS
have plenty of free space on your C:\
check your OS's language and keyboard language against the language that you are using to install, and also the language that you DO install
If installing from physical media, and you are having issues, try to Copy your DVD to your computer's HDD, and attempt to install from there.

Good luck,

Hunt

Failure of Premiere to Launch - One Possibility VST's

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:09:34 GMT

It can be very frustrating, when a program fails to launch. First, one cannot work in the program, but then it’s also difficult to troubleshoot, because you cannot get it to run. There can be various causes of failure to launch, but one culprit can be a plug-in getting in the way of the launching.

One type of "plug-in" that causes a crash/hang when loading is the VST. These are often from audio-editing programs, and appear as .dll's in most cases. When the Adobe program encounters the VST's that it finds on the system, it attempts to load them, even if they did not install with PrE. There is a very quick and tiny line of text on the Splash Screen, indicating which are being loaded. One has to watch very closely to see this text, and as it goes by quickly on a fast computer, can be tough to read. One idea is to set up your video camera and record the loading process, focused on the Splash Screen. Then, when the launch fails, just rewind that tape and shuttle through it, until the Splash Screen disappears. Go back one Frame and pause. What is the very last line in that text? It is likely that that is the problem - that, or maybe the next one - the one we have yet to see...

There are three things that happen with the VST's:

1.) The Adobe program loads them successfully and can use them.

2.) The Adobe program loads them successfully, but cannot use them. In PrPro, the user gets a one-time warning message to that effect. One only sees this message once.

3.) The Adobe program cannot load, nor can it use, the particular VST(s).

With PrPro, the program writes a "blacklist" of the ones that cause the crash. If one has many of these # 3 VST's, the blacklist grows, on every attempted launch, until all are on the blacklist. Then, the program can launch. It will take one launch attempt for each of the offending VST's. On a DAW with tons of VST's (especially the "instruments" VST's), this might mean 20-30 aborted launches, before all are blacklisted. I mention PrPro here, because I have no idea whether PrE does the same thing. Possibly, but I just do not know. I did not realize that PrPro did the automatic blacklist until recently. Most people would only try to launch a couple of times, and then give up.

If one knows which VST's are getting in the way, they could address those. Hence, reading that little text line might be very useful.

Good luck,

Hunt

PAR - Pixel Aspect Ratio - How Does it Affect Me?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:26:46 GMT

Many users are baffled by Aspect Ratios, and then Pixel Aspect Ratios (PAR). As Video can use square, or non-square pixels, it is easy to get confused. Then, one might begin talking of Aspect Ratios, but not know how those can relate to Pixel Aspect Ratios. Adobe has put together a help page, and has provided a chart of allowable PAR's, found HERE.

Note: Adobe adopted the BBC standard for PAR's with non-square pixels. Before, those were rounded off to 0.9 and 1.2, but as of CS4, PrPro now extends the PAR calculations by one more place. PrE still uses the older, one-place figures. The differences are slight, and would likely never be noticed, as one is talking about just one more place in the figures, but it's worth noting, especially if one is moving Assets between the two programs.

Hope that this helps with the confusion,

Hunt

Flip Video- Possible solution to importing in Premier Elements

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 13 May 2013 01:59:19 GMT

After spending an entire day trying to figure out how to import Flip Video files, I think I have come up with a possible solution. This solution involves using Windows Movie Maker to convert the file so that it can be used in Premier Elements. Since Movie Maker is free and available on most computers this should be a possible solution for most people. I read on one site to uninstall Internet Explorer 7, but I would encourage you to try this solution first since that did not work for me.

The Flip video uses mpeg4 files which it calls .avi, but apparently there are lots of different avi files. I read to think of it as a container that says avi on the outside, but inside it can be many different kinds of files, in this case mpeg4. A lot of programs do not like the mpeg4 files. One solution seems to be to use Windows Movie Maker (not media player) to convert the files to DV-AVI format so that other programs such as Premier Elements can recognize them, however if you just try to import the video without making a simple change to the program, MM might crash depending on the codecs installed on your computer. Here is how to get the file into MM so you can convert it:

1)First connect your Flip video camera to your computer and download their software. Save your videos to your hard drive following their instructions.

2)Open Windows Movie Maker (MM)

3)Choose Import video from file. Now here is where everything went wrong for me and I thought my MM program was corrupted. When I would import the video file, Movie Maker would crash and ask me to send a report to Microsoft and then it would shut down. If this happens, restart MM and before you import video, go to Tools, Options, Compatibility and uncheck all the video filters (it seems to bring in the ones it really needs) and then try to import your file. It may take some trial and error to figure out which of these the program really needs and which are making it crash. If you want a better explanation, go to microsoft.com and search for Movie Maker video filters and there is a good paper on it. By unchecking the filters it is supposed to only prevent them from working in MM and not in all your other programs. If you have removed the right filters, your video will import as it should. You can then drag it to the storyline at the bottom of the screen. If it gives you some other error message, try adding one of the filters back by checking it until the program works. One time I got an error message and another time I tried to recreate the problem, but it worked fine with none of the filters checked.

3)Edit your movie if you want. I didn't try this step because I want to do all my editing in Premier Elements.

4)Under Finish movie click Save to my computer.

5)Choose where to save and click next.

6)Under Best Quality for Playback- click SHOW MORE CHOICES.

7)Choose OTHER SETTINGS. From drop down menu choose DV-AVI (NTSC). Click next and it will save it to the file you chose in step 5. Now you have an AVI file that Premier Elements will recognize.

I hope this will help someone else.

Partitions and Video Editing - A No-No

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:45:35 GMT

The use of partitioning of HDD’s (Hard Disk Drives) is a hold-over from decades ago, when the OS’s could not see large HDD’s. This is now not a problem, up to 2TB.

Partitioning basically tells the OS that one has more physical HDD’s, than are actually available. The OS will now call for read/writes simultaneously, not realizing that it’s dealing with only one physical HDD. One of the first laws of physics is that an object cannot be in two places at the same time. In this case, it is the heads over different places on the platters at the same time. The OS expects this, and gets very confused, when there is a big hold up.

Partitions slow down the transfer of data and by a very large amount. They also cause much more wear and tear on a HDD, leading to premature failure. Because the data is spread much more with partitions, than if it had been written to a defragmented single HDD, even just the process of moving the heads is amplified - they must now travel over much larger distances, than without the partitions. This also leads to increased heat production, affecting everything in the case.

Especially with video editing, one wants to spread out the HDD workload (the work of the I/O subsystem) as much as is possible, and this spread needs to be over physical HDD’s and not logical HDD’s. That is why having more than one physical (very important) HDD is highly recommended. Two physical HDD’s is a start, three is better, and four would be excellent. This allows one to spread the workload over multiple HDD’s, increasing usable throughput.

The only reasons in this day and age, to use partitions, would be for system backup, or dual-boot setups. In the first, one would have a tiny partition holding an image of the OS, but this would not be accessed during normal work. The same would be for a dual-boot system, as one would have the programs installed on each partition for their respective OS’s. Both partitions would not be accessed at the same time.

Partitions are best done away with, especially if one wishes to have good I/O performance, longer HDD life, and a cooler case.

Hunt

Capture Problems with SD and HDV miniDV Tape Cameras

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 23:53:16 GMT

Though written for Premiere Pro, most of the possible solutions in this Adobe KB Article will apply to PrE, as well.

http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/kb/cant-capture-dv-hdv-video.html

Hunt

WAB - Work Area Bar - What's That?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:37:54 GMT

We get a lot of questions on the WAB (the Work Area Bar) in all versions of Premiere. Many of those questions come when someone has accidentally reset the WAB, and cannot find out why parts of their Timeline are not Rendering, or maybe Exporting. Though there are some subtle differences between versions, it basically works the same way.

It can be used for several functions:

It can limit the area of a Timeline, that is Rendered
It can limit the area of a Timeline, that is Exported, with most Export/Share formats
It can act as a ruler to tell you how long, say 4 Clips, plus two partial Clips will be - useful for things like adding music to just part of the Timeline

It has some dynamic features, and Stan Arthur covers many of them in his TUTORIAL on using the WAB. His example is done in PrPro CS 5/5.5, but the functions are almost identical in earlier versions of PrPro and also PrE.

As Stan did not cover using the WAB as a "ruler" I have added an image showing how to access that function - just hover the cursor over the little box in the middle of the WAB and read the info shown. I find this particularly useful, when I need to know exactly what Duration I need for a particular part of the Timeline, when doing a SmartSound music piece.

Hope that this helps answer the questions on the WAB.

Hunt

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sharing large [3.5 gb] videos for viewing on other computers [for sending overseas on flashdrives]

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Revert movie back to home

"free list canary is damaged"

Alignment Grids for Titler in PrE & PrPro

Go-Pro Helmet Cam Footage Editing Tips

PrE 12 - Titler/Styles Bug

Sound Effects & Music - Possible Sources

Using External HDD's for Video Editing

DVD - VOB Files - The Lowdown

[PrE 12] Differences Between PC & Mac

Large Still Images into PE - One Workflow

Quick Links to Elements Adobe TV Tutorials

Adjusting Audio Volume Levels

Audio Issues? Some Troubleshooting Tips

Fixing Background Noise in Audio

New to Premiere Elements? Some Resources

Got "Error Compiling Movie?" This Might Help

Interlaced Scan & Progressive Scan Defined

System Setup Tips for Video Editing

Premiere Titler - a Powerful Tool

Marking Replies as "Correct," etc.

Setting Up Project Folders & Sub-folders

Adding an Arrow or Other Shape/Character to Video

SmartSound - What Is It & How Do I Use It?

Fonts & Crashes with Titler

Intermediate Files - Maintaining Ultimate Quality

Sonicfire Pro Scoring Edition Reverts to Express Tracks

How to Delete a Project

Got a Problem? How to Get Started

Getting started on fixing your problem:

System:

Assets:

Project:

Workflow:

Other useful links:

Installation Issues? A Checklist

Failure of Premiere to Launch - One Possibility VST's

PAR - Pixel Aspect Ratio - How Does it Affect Me?

Flip Video- Possible solution to importing in Premier Elements

Partitions and Video Editing - A No-No

Capture Problems with SD and HDV miniDV Tape Cameras

WAB - Work Area Bar - What's That?