Sequence Setitngs

[Tim Kolb]

Keep in mind that Premiere Pro edit sequences have three attributes.

1. Frame size
2. Frame rate
3. Pixel aspect ratio

That’s it. The presets are there for those who feel like they lack the technical knowledge in general…or in some cases, have material from an unfamiliar capture device and “rolling their own” sequence settings seems too technical to make a mistake on.

So then the 1920×1080, 23.976p, 1.0 PAR sequence settings are all identical whether it’s XDcamEX, AVC-Intra, DSLR, etc…

At one time, this was really quite necessary as DVCProHD, XDcamHD (disc-based) and HDV spooked a lot of editors back in the day as these formats don’t use square pixel aspect and when you had 1080 footage, it could be only 1440 wide in HDV or XDcamHD…or it could be 1440 wide in DVCproHD 25fps, or only 1280 in 29.97 fps… Setting the wrong pixel aspect would cause all footage to have to render to adapt the pixel raster sizes, causing very frustrating delays for editors who weren’t universally knowledgeable in every manufacturer’s hidden compromises to make many early HD formats practical to use.

The sequence presets are there for user convenience…whether the codec itself is 4:4:4, 4:2:2, 4:2:0, etc, is all done in the decoding of the video itself and doesn’t have anything to do with the sequence setting.

So…a weird attribute of this system that is very confusing to users (reported to Adobe every development cycle in recent memory by me by the way) is that when you drag a clip and have Premiere Pro create an appropriate sequence, it simply looks for the first compliant preset in the library alphabetically that fits the three factors mentioned earlier. Prior to the existence of an ARRI preset, it would have ended up choosing AVC-Intra (A-R now alphabetically trumps A-V).

The confusing preset choice and naming aside, the specs that Premiere Pro chooses under those circumstances are technically correct in almost all situations…

Hopefully that’s helpful.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Ann Bens]

There can be a difference in the preview codec.

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Adobe Certified Expert Premiere Pro CC
Adobe Community Professional

[Gina Sarentino]

Thanks a lot Tim, you really cleared up my confusion. I just have one more question Ive been reading around and noticed some people for DSLR and other HD videos set their project settings to DV and not HDV, wont that cause issues since the footage is HD or does it not matter?

[Chris Borjis]

I’m fairly certain the DV vs HDV setting has no consequence.
It has to do with the capture module premiere would use if you
needed to capture one or the other.

[Gina Sarentino]

Thanks 🙂

[Tim Kolb]

[Nina Sargsyan] “some people for DSLR and other HD videos set their project settings to DV and not HDV”

If you wanted to “master” to a smaller frame size than you shot (HDV footage in a DV master, 1080HD in a 720p master…RED 4K in 1080HD, etc, etc) you can use a sequence set up for your destination frame format, but the source material size is the size, so HD footage needs to be scaled down to be completely visible in an SD frame, etc.

Since DV’s pixel aspect is either .9 in 4:3 (90% as wide as it is tall) or 1.2 in 16:9 (120% as wide as it is tall) and HDV is either 1.0 (square) in 1280×720 and 1.3333 in 1440×1080, reduction to DV becomes an even “squishier” process over just scaling down.

To preserve your footage quality during the edit, you should use the sequence setting that is correct for the source footage.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Tim Kolb]

[Ann Bens] “There can be a difference in the preview codec.”

The difference in preview codec applies primarily to the DVCProHD presets (preview in DVCProHD), the DNxHD presets (preview in DNxHD) and ProRes (I believe) can preview in ProRes.

For purposes of Premiere Pro’s auto-sequence creation though, frame rate/size and pixel aspect are the key parameters that are used.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Gina Sarentino]

Thanks for the explanation Tim, its appreciated 🙂

[Ann Bens]

[Tim Kolb] “The difference in preview codec applies primarily to the DVCProHD presets (preview in DVCProHD), the DNxHD presets (preview in DNxHD) and ProRes (I believe) can preview in ProRes.”

If you use the New Item Icon you get AVCintra with ist AVCintra preview codec default.
If you set up a dslr sequence you get i frame mpeg only.

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Adobe Certified Expert Premiere Pro CC
Adobe Community Professional

[Tim Kolb]

[Ann Bens] “If you use the New Item Icon you get AVCintra with ist AVCintra preview codec default.”

Um…yup. You caught me red-handed.

I used the word “primarily” as I didn’t have time today to test every preset at that point…and they did change the default preview codec on the AVC-Intra sequence settings to AVC-Intra, and the XDcamHD sequence presets (not EX) to XDcamHD in CC.

Since the preview setting is something that isn’t involved in the designation of what sequence preset will be used, in cases where Premiere Pro can’t identify the codec (unlike some formats, XDcam HD among them, where it does seem to pick correctly as of version CC…).

I suppose I should have mentioned the exceptions, the changes between CS6 and CC (the poster did not identify her version of course) and the differences in many presets, and the nuances of preview file format defaults and the user’s ability to change them and make a custom edit preset…however, the poster’s question was why the preset being auto-generated with DSLR footage was an ARRI preset, and all the rest of that seems a bit ancillary to the point to me.

Maybe I’m wrong?

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor