[Angelo Lorenzo]

That camera uses AVCHD. You need to transfer the memory cards entire contents to your system (the entire folder structure from the memory card/hard drive). You can then navigate to that folder on your local system within Premiere’s Media Browser panel. Drag from the media browser to your project library and cut away.

https://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WSd79b3ca3b623cac9-6a7330b81235841ab3b-8000.html for more info.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

I’d ask the post house. Why? Because they have their own software and workflow. Are you getting the program captioned? They may want a proxy for the captioning program. Are they color grading as part of the mastering process? They may like ProRes HQ or DNxHD 220, or they may prefer a TIFF sequence.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Yes, CS 5.5 does it the same way: if you cut with the multi-cam monitor the audio track stays locked on audio one (or, more likely whatever camera you start the recording with). If you adjust clips later on by right clicking and assigning new cameras, if the audio is linked, then the audio will be assigned to the new camera; i.e. if you right click and select camera four and the audio is linked then the audio will switch to audio track 4. If you noticed my original post, it’s why I unlink the audio as part of my multi-cam workflow.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

GoPro footage is h.264 and, for all intents and purposes, should perform in a similar manner to DSLR footage.

In terms of deinterlacing, once you have your segments cut, right click them in the timeline and select Field Order… and you can select “Always deinterlace”

Premiere discards one field of each interlaced frame, and then fills in the gap. You’ll lose a little quality in terms of horizontal resolution, but you’re also downconverting to SD, so I don’t think you’ll really notice any real hit to quality by the time you complete processing.

Alternately, you can deinterlace in After Effects with some more robust plugins like Fieldskit or Magic Bullet Frames. Some PC users also use something like AviSynth or VirtualDub to process deinterlacing as an intermediate step. Just food for thought, but I don’t think you have to follow this more advanced path for your situation.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Oddly, it does seem like a timecode drift, as 12 seconds every 4 hours works itself out to 1 frame every 1000 (approximately). I wonder if iMovie/Compressor is burning in wall-clock time and not actual timecode.

Does FCP have a “timecode overlay” effect? You could try burning in TC as 24 or 30 non-drop frame, as Premiere can monitor a 23.976 timeline as either. It would remove whatever funkiness Compressor is doing by burning in a true timebase.

It may even be worth burning in a true frame count. Frame 275 is frame 275 no matter what the timecode or playback rate.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Sony = PAL HDV @ 50i
Canon = PAL @ 25p
GoPros = PAL @ 25p

All sound about right?

Because going from HD to SD isn’t an even conversion, you’ll need to deinterlace the 50i footage before resizing to SD.

I would simply use an HD timeline at 25p, deinterlace the Sony footage and then downconvert to standard definition on export, and let that conversion handle the re-interlacing.

I don’t understand what you mean when you say you want to avoid DV. Is the broadcaster looking for delivery on DV tape and you don’t want to use a DV tape deck?

You’ll need to adhere to the delivery specifications of the broadcaster/network. If you know they run on Avid, offer to deliver with an Avid encoded file, you can get the codecs here and they are compatible with Premiere when exporting to MOV https://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Compatibility/en372311

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Premiere treats 23.976 as 24 and displays full non-dropcode timecode.

While we get the number 23.976 from inverse telecine from 29.97fps video, it’s not subject to dropframe timecode which is specific to NTSC at 29.97fps and you’ll see why from the quote below.

24fps timecode is only an “approximation” of real time for 23.976fps, and there is no official drop-frame version of it.

It also sounds like this might be a bug with Compressor (from 2009, but who knows if it’s ever been fixed; there are steps to recreate and confirm) https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1872384?start=0&tstart=0

This is a quote from wikipedia:

————————-
Drop frame timecode dates to a compromise invented when color NTSC video was invented. The NTSC re-designers wanted to retain compatibility with existing monochrome TVs. However, the 3.58 MHz (actually 315/88 MHz = 3.57954545 MHz) color subcarrier would absorb common-phase noise from the harmonics of the line scan frequency. Rather than adjusting the audio or chroma subcarriers, they adjusted everything else, including the frame rate, which was set to 30*1.000/1.001 Hz.

This meant that an “hour of timecode” at a nominal frame rate of 30 frame/s was longer than an hour of wall-clock time by 3.59 seconds, leading to an error of almost a minute and a half over a day. This caused people to make unnecessary mistakes in the studio.

To correct this, drop frame SMPTE timecode drops frame numbers 0 and 1 of the first second of every minute, and includes them when the number of minutes is divisible by ten. This almost perfectly compensates for the difference in rate, leaving a residual timing error of roughly 86.4 milliseconds per day, an error of only 1.0 ppm. Note: only timecode frame numbers are dropped. Video frames continue in sequence. i.e. – Drop frame TC drops two frames every minute, except every tenth minute.
———————————–

[Angelo Lorenzo]

It ships in May (I’ve heard as early as the 6th, but I’ve heard late May as well). Should be available as a free upgrade if you just recently purchased 5.5 (there are cut-off dates listed in the press releases).

[Angelo Lorenzo]

The waveform monitor is a better tool for video. You get two measurements, where the histogram you get one.

What do I mean?

The waveform monitor not only gives you a distribution of brightness from bottom to top, but matches vertical sampling so you see a representation of the frame left-to-right. You can’t tell how bright someone’s face is by glancing at a histogram, but you can certainly do so in most situations with a waveform monitor.

It’s also far easier to match shots to other shots in terms of brightness with the waveform in comparison to the histogram.

Histograms are vague. Sure you can get an idea of average contrast and glaring exposure problems, but a waveform monitor is like a microscope. I think you’ll agree once you get over how alien they feel initially.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

I don’t think there is anything you can do really, short of sitting down and cutting it yourself. iMovie probably isn’t able to spit out anything useful like an EDL… you have no real way of taking useful information into Premiere to figure out the cut.

Try this:
Render out a high quality workfile WITHOUT timestamping or other markets. If you’re on Mac, then ProRes422, or Avid DNxHD 220.

Why? Then you can watch the story editor’s cut, write down your in and out points and in Premiere bring the work file into your source monitor, type in the timecode spots and place all your edits. No real need to copy/paste from one sequence to another… saves yourself some keystrokes but it does generate a pretty massive work file.

Food for thought.