[Daggamut]

Aanarav, does this link work for you? It doesn’t for me and I tried to play with the URL and couldn’t find a combo to make it work….Getting 404 page not found.

Thanks.

[Daggamut]

Well, there’s any number of ways to accomplish final volume levels, but I’ve always watched the footage enough times by the end of the project, that simple volume settings are usually sufficient.

With regard to drums, live drums punch through just about any setting and you can find audio editing programs for free (depending on your Premiere version, platform and OS) that include simple peak limiters. If you[‘re going to view the footage on a high dynamic range system (like a home theatre system) you might want to peak limit loud passages, so as to avoid startling volume changes. A “compressor” may also be helpful in bringing voices up to better audibility in some situations.

“Normalize” is a function that should be used sparingly. This will level your sound output to your input specs, but here again, you main find yourself defaulting to using your own ears once you hear what the final output becomes on some lower volume talking passages with background music or noise. Depending on your version of Premiere, you may already have these in the audio effects panel or clip menu. The only trouble with these limiting and compressing solutions is that they tend to take the “life” out of the sound track unless used with great caution.

Premiere has what USED to be thought of as “state of the art” automated mixdown…. that is, the ability to set volume at any point in the track and have the track “remember” your setting as it plays. In the hardware version of this feature, you’d actually see the mixing board sliders moving up and down by themselves and in a dimly lit studio control room, you’d actually see 48 channels of automated controls moving soundlessly through the mix on millions of dollars worth of hardware.

Now, we’re able to do that on our computer screens, and I wouldn’t minimize the power you already have with “plain” Premiere.

[Daggamut]

“There is a reason why many of us have a small fortune invested in these edit systems…I just purchased a drive array that cost more than the last car I bought…”

Lol…… Tim, your comment caught me right in the middle of a similar decision. I’m afraid my “going green” is going to be delayed by my “need for speed”. 🙂

[Daggamut]

I thought it was just me, but the Bridge search function is GLACIAL on my box, beside ignoring apparent file matches to my search words. I don’t think it’s just avi file matches. I workaround by leaving a windows search box open on my second screen, then drag and drop into Photoshop (which I use more than Premiere these days.) Much faster.

Another problem you may run into….With a lot of files on your content drive, Bridge doesn’t seem to want to QUIT searching until it’s done. (Esc doesn’t do anything) So you can be stuck waiting while your whole system tries to do a search you really don’t want. This is on cs2 suite.

[Daggamut]

Forget DRM. It’s useless, expensive (depending on method used) and worst of all……TOTALLY ineffective. Breaking DRM is TRIVIAL with free software tools available for free download just about anywhere.

Depending on the popularity of your content, you’re going to be widely distributed in pirate venues. (but not necessarily watched….lol…..another topic entirely)

You might take a look at some content providers that have approached the copy protection scheme from different angles. Total Training comes to mind and software vendors that only provide part of the program and NO documentation on disk, then require onsite login to get the rest.

Another solution is to “release” your OWN content onto pirate venues, but cripple it or make it flawed and unwatchable. That destroys the fun for kids. But it also degrades the reputation of your product. (possibly)

Good luck with copy protection. You’re going to need it! 🙂

Edit: didn’t mean to sound euphoric about your dilemma. But some content creators have found that illegal distribution of their product actually sold MORE because of the industry “buzz” created by people actually seeing it. Think this over carefully before consigning your prospective customers to the ranks of the untrusted. Sony Corp. recently had one of those “oops” moments with DRM in federal court.

[Daggamut]

Many of us use Steve Gibson’s GRC.com for “Shields Up”, the security website that allows checking a firewall for leaks to hackers. But Steve’s main stock-in-trade is his disk utility “Spin-Rite” which is hard disk troubleshooter that is almost magical in it’s ability to diagnose and repair hard disk problems. It’s EXTREMELY important to run error checking before defragging a disk, since defragging always writes over areas that could be recovered prior to the defrag. Standard defrag programs like Diskkeeper Pro and Perfect Disk often just use the cli utility chkdsk for checking before defragging.

Take a look at this website and look for the podcast area where there are several free podcasts on how the Spin-rite software works and why it’s better than the usual chkdsk /f for fixing disk problems.

It will recover just about anything, plus find problems in the making waaaaaaaaay before any other disk utility I’ve found. It’s rumored to be the tool of choice for many of the top $$$ disk recovery businesses. But you must use it BEFORE attempting huge volume defrags!

Disclaimer: No connection whatsoever with GRC, but have had many long nights of wishing I had backed up/ diagnosed/ done things differently. 🙂

[Daggamut]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, as I originally stated, I’m using a Control-K, Control-D sequence, so cut alignment is not the problem. This also presupposes that the target track is selected and both are on the same track. (otherwise I wouldn’t be able to control-k,d and have the transition appear.

I’m wondering……….is it POSSIBLE that the “Cross-Dissolve” transition algorithm (which is not tweakable other than in the preferences along with the global transition prefs, right?) is somehow corrupted???

The reason I ask (at the risk of seeming to repeat myself) is that so many people have written on the various forums about this problem and no one seems to have an answer for it. (Which is what you’d expect if only some people saw a BUG emerge, but couldn’t figure out the problem)

Remember: This only happens on CROSS DISSOLVE….The other transitions work just fine, and if I change the Control-D default keyboard shortcut to the other transitions, they work fine with the keys or dragging.

Just to restate the problem:

When I control-k, control-d (default cross dissolve premiere pro transition) on the TIMELINE, the razor cut appears, the cross dissolve appears, but playing back the transition back doesn’t take frames from either side of the cut, thus there is NO dissolve in/out from one side of the footage to the other. In the past, this feature has worked properly without dragging the footage manually in the “effects controls” box, but does not seem to work the same now, and must be manually dragged for every transition. Additive dissolve and dip to black, BOTH work without further configuration when used as the default transition. Changing the transition length in general prefs has no effect (unless of course, I manually drag the footage in the effects control, as previously described.

Thanks,

Richard

[Daggamut]

Hi Aanarav,

Thanks for the reply. There’s no way to show you a picture of the problem, first because it’s a dissolve (motion picture problem) but also because it’s NOT working. (IOW, how do you show a picture of something that isn’t happening? 🙂

Richard

[Daggamut]

The first responder is right about the steady state noise being easiest to remove using audition. The best 3rd party noise reduction modules are the Waves Restoration Tools (pricey but excellent) and the newer Sony Oxford NR, which I understand is even easier to use……no noise profiling required.

But simply zooming in the audition timeline, selecting the area where “kitchen noise” occurs, then reducing the volume of just that section will be amazingly effective. You can also use ring modulator plug-ins for rejecting metallic noise, but you probably want something simpler.

One caveat, just reduce the volume, don’t cut the section out, unless you want sample length problems when you get back to PPRO. 🙂

Audition was bought from another company……forget the name now, but it’s FORTE was old 78 record and cylinder restoration. It was probably the best restoration package on the market at the time.

[Daggamut]

Don’t know if this’ll help, but I had some problems with Title frames created in photoshop that were auto-resized by PPRO. Once I deleted them (or moved them to a different location temporarily) the problem cleared up. If PPRO does seem to be willing to look for them, make a dummy picture file with the same filename that’s much smaller and won’t have to be resized in the timeline.

Like I said….just something to try.