Using imovie files in Adobe Premiere

[Bob Bonniol]

This is a bit off topic for an FCP forum, but what the heck, it’s an NLE right ?

So, first in a case like this, you have to ask what KIND of Quicktime are they ? What is the codec ? If they are uncompressed or animation at 100% quality, they might just be a bit too beefy for your PC to play well. Conversely if they are one of the apple proprietary codecs (like H264) then your PC might be ‘grouchy’ about playing them as well.

One useful thing to do when posing a question like this is to provide your platform specs. What kind of PC are you on ? How much RAM; what processors,;what kind of video card ? Any and all of this can have an impact on your performance in Premiere. If you are serious about using Premiere you might look into having a robust I/O card helping out (if you don’t already). Matrox in particular makes fantastic cards for PC that are very attuned for use with Premiere. There are many other manufacturers with other options as well. But I digress…

Have you tried transcoding to AVI, perhaps in the DC codec ? This should work smoothly on most PC’s set up for editing. Usually you can’t go wrong with the DV codec.

And one other basic question: Did you render a preview on the timeline before you scrubbed around ? Sometimes the computer just needs to process it all before it can playback smoothly.

Sorry if any of this seems oversimplified.

Good Luck,
Bob Bonniol

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Jerkgirl]

thanks Bob! Your response gave me a lot of insight (I haven’t done this in a while so I’m a bit rusty). Also, sorry for posting in the wrong forum…I didn’t realize 🙂

[Bob Bonniol]

Oh… where I say DC codec, I assume you figured out I meant DV. As in DV NTSC 29.97 .9 pixel aspect, 720×480. you know…

And no worries on posting here ! It’s all of a kind so to speak !

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Jerkgirl]

hi again,

After examining the PC that I’m using as well as the Quicktimes, I’m unsure of as to why the videos that I’m editing and using are sputtering and skipping around like crazy.

Here are some specs:

The computer:
Microsoft Windows 2000
5.00.2195
Service Pack 4
523, 740 KB RAM

X86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 6
AT/AT Compatible
Matrox Video Card

The Quicktimes:
Compressor: Radius SoftDV-NTSC
Frame Size: 720 x 480
Frame Rate: 29.97 FPS
Audio: 48000 Hz, 16 bit-stereo, Uncompressed

I did a few tests of exporting sample clips of the video to a smaller resolution at different compression settings and unfortunately, the video still sputters and skips around (I’ve set the project settings to match the Quicktime properties)

Also…
The video is currently running off of its own drive on the PC (not running over a network and the drive is solely used for the video with 50.7 GB of free space) and the scratch cards and storage space run from this same drive.

The video sputters in the Premiere previews, the final export of the sample clip, as well as in the original source file that I

[Richard Harrington]

Is the drive connected to a USB1 port? try copying media to your internal drive and see what happens

Richard M. Harrington, PMP

Author: Photoshop CS for Nonlinear Editors, Understanding Adobe Photoshop, and ATS:iWork