[Erik Pontius]

Using an NLE like Premiere to do standards conversion, will result in a pretty poor quality result. Premiere does not handle the differences between frame size, frame rates and other differences between the television standards very intelligently…doubling or skipping frames, etc.. causing strobing, jittery video and other problems.
Your best bet on a budget is to purchase a good encoder that knows how to properly do standards conversion. I use Conopus Procoder, which also includes an export plugin for Premiere, it’s probably one of the best encoders for standards conversions…and darn useful for many other tasks.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

Some books I’d recommend if you’re wanting to wrap your head around editing history and theory…this is not a complete list by any means, just what I’ve run across and found informative…read all you can.

In the Blink of an Eye, by Walter Murch

Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple’s Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema, by Charles Koppelman

On Film Editing, by EDWARD DMYTRYK

The Eye Is Quicker: Film Editing: Making a Good Film Better, by Richard D Pepperman

The Technique of Film and Video Editing, by Ken Dancyger

Another is not about edit per say, but is related in concept and theory, many of the rules are just as important to editing:
The Five C’s of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques, by Joseph V. Mascelli

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

Canopus Procoder is invaluable for these kinds of things… I’ve bumped all kinds of content to DV AVI for combining and editing.
I bet you’re going to make sure you get your word in quicker next time…
I’ve also found that people easily confuse CD and DVD… I was asked one time to supply a high level executive with a video presentation on CD. This is a pretty common request since we often distribute WMV’s for meeting presentations and training (majority of our clients do not have DVD drives in their notebook computers). Next day, sure enough their was a complaint that the exec couldn’t wasn’t able to play it on their home theater set top dvd player. A quick encode and dvd author and all was well. Lesson learn, what they ask for is not always what they want.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

Looks like there may be an incompatibility with the dongle and driver, according to Avid’s support site:

https://www.avid.com/onlineSupport/supportcontent.asp?contentID=9781

[Erik Pontius]

Guess that would depend on your definition of “film editing”. Do you mean editing narrative stories as opposed to corporate video/talking head/commercial spots, etc…? Or the methods for editing material that originated on celluloid and will output to film to be shown theatrically? I think that the concepts are the same between the two (the art of it) but the methods can be very different since you will need to work closely with other departments to provide deliverables like Edit Decision Lists (EDL), low rez assemblies, etc… I haven’t done it myself (I mainly do corporate work and shorts that originated on video and output to video), but I’m sure these methods may differ depending on who you are working with…Don’t know of any resources off hand about it.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

You might do a search. Conversions have been covered at length on the COW. Methods will vary depending on what tools you have access to, what budget you have, etc…
The best way, but more expensive why is to take the tape to a dub house that specializes in standards conversion. They have dedicated hardware that will be able to accomplish this better than other methods. They’ll give you a tape that is in your standard (PAL) which can then be edited as usual. If your final material is going to broadcast, this is your best bet.

If you budget is to light to be able to afford that, there are some software packages that might be better than others at doing standards conversion. Canopus Procoder on the PC side does an excellent job at NTSC/PAL (and vice versa) conversions. If you can find someone you know that has it, that might solve your problem.

Like I said, this has been covered at length, do a search on the COW, find out what will work for you with what you have available.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

Depending on how you learn better…I found that the Avid Xpress cert class was good if you really needed hands on training and learn better with an instructor…otherwise the Avid Xpress training book that you can order from Amazon or Avid, is the same material and much cheaper. Depending on how much you know about Avid Xpress already, the class might be a waste, since it’s more aimed towards someone that has had limited or no experience with Xpress. The online Media Composer classes that Avid offers might dive deeper.
The Classes and books will only teach you how to use the tool, they won’t teach you how to edit…the art, which comes from experience, experimentation, learning from others (such as the Creative Cow forums), and watching other’s work. Learning the theory behind editing (the why) is perhaps more important and valuable than learning the tool (the how). Using Avid is different from using FCP, Premiere, Vegas, Liquid or any other edit software, but the theory and art behind the edit is the same.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

I think you might be looking for Jayse Hansens’s tutorial on Growing Design Elements. Real good tut on how to use Photoshop and AE to great the illusion of growing flowers, etc…

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=2&page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/hansen_jaysen/growing/index.html

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

I agree in most cases. I think in the case of h.264 the “export” option is the only way to specify advanced encoding options such as multipass encoding mode…in which the Render Queue does not allow you to specify.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

Actually, maybe I had those two reversed (too little sleep)…someone reported problems with 7.1.3 and AE 6.5 and not 7.1.2

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=887576

E.