[Ht Davis]

Why did you split into three sections?
IF you wanted a single master, I would do this with camera files:

Use Prelude, which reads most, if not all file trees from the camera cards, place the clips there on the timeline how you want them ordered, export to premiere, then export that to a master file in prores. This does not drop quality but instead increases it. It gets choppy because you use the full format file rather than compressed camera file. When exporting, select QUEUE option at the bottom when you have chosen your settings to go to AME program, then, right click the little lines that show your settings and save location, and select duplicate, then click the settings words on the duplicate (if it says apple prores, click that), it will open a new settings box. Now set it to Apple Prores 422 proxy. Set everything else the same. This file plays back easier, and has great quality for edits.

Open premiere, import the big Prores LT file, and create your sequence from that. Then right click the clip in the project panel and Make offline. Right click again and Relink. Choose the proxy file. Make any edits and render effects as you wish. For output though, right click your clip again, make off-line, right click and relink, choose the big LT file. Now export the file to an output prores LT file. Compress that down to h264 for youtube etc with excellent quality.

USing pro-res, you don’t lose quality, you regain it. Cameras compress (lossy when editing) the info. Edit in fuller format, already blown up with non-lossy pass of algorithms, then compress down again from that, to lose the least amount in compression. Any modern compression is LOSSY for quality, but when done right, the algorithms work great. Start with a fuller file format (non-lossy), and the algorithm will lose less quality but squeeze the file smaller. Visually 7% quality loss is the start of degradation. This method will get you to that after several runs of blowing up then compressing again or just 2 trying to edit a compressed and output compressed.

[Ht Davis]

Simplest way to explain:
After effects sees your clip as nothing more than a clip, similar to premiere seeing a file as a clip. You’ll need to create a new COMPOSITION, and set it accordingly, then drop your footage on it and interpret that to retime it.
For your first change, it would be: Drag clip to AE window from Premiere, create a comp with the retiming, place your file in there and interpret the footage for the timing the way you want
Drag the composition to premiere, and place it. This is the initial workflow, and dynamically links without much trouble, but you also need to make sure you save the AE file first, so it links to an AE file name and the comp within.

You can retime in AE for the second timing by dragging your footage out of the comp, then retiming the comp and dragging footage back in. Save the file. Open Premiere, it may have a message about the comp being changed, select okay or update the file, and save premiere project. TO ensure it shows on the timeline, you need to select the comp in project panel, select the comp in sequence, right click in sequence and replace with clip from bin. This will update the sequence with the comp, so render the effect and save premiere project.

[Ht Davis]

Sounds about right.

Composite devices have to go through the system pathway, especially when multiplicatively accessed by software (by that I mean with several separate but simultaneous inputs). Got that from a mac guru I met in a shop, passed that idea by him first.

[Ht Davis]

Heh… …Must be nice… …Yeah, that will do it. If you have 2xgfx and CUDA capable windows system, you should fly right through. Just remember to get 2gb gfx cards or higher for 4k throughput and make sure their data path is wide enough for the playback of the video. Alternatively, render out a preview first thing. That will give you iframe playback speed in premiere but let you edit away at similar to native quality. Ram to 64 is probably a bit much, but you might be glad you have it when multitasking your edits.

[Ht Davis]

1 last alternative.

Dupe the sequence, Zoom to the projector, output that. Drop it in ae, and see where the dropouts are. Have it drop those frames by cutting the frame rate in half. You’ll have to really clip this well, and it might take a few tries to get it to drop the right ones. Render that out to a video. Now export that to the right frame rate, and turn on frame blending in AME, blow it up to the right size (actual pixels it filled in the original video if you can find out, the math should look like (n x (blowup percent\100) = original whole video size, find n). Now you can place it in its proper position in an new track, and move it into place over the other screen.

[Ht Davis]

Did you test areas of motion?

By the way, if you take a 720 sequence to a 1080 encode, you are scaling original footage down if interpreted, or clipping 1080 if not, then upping back to 1080. Some quality difference either way, but a lot less with your Punch In. With a punch in style drop in, you are not scaling down first, so no quality loss at that stage, only some effect quality adjustments if done gradually (with motion zoom; ken burns). So your quality will look very close going back up to 1080 on a full export. I suggest using LT for pro-res. Best file size for quality balance (along with compression speed when dropping a h.264 for youtube or an mpeg2dvd\x264 blu-ray in avchd raw stream). I shoot 60fps a lot of the time and transcode that.
However, I’ve come to appreciate a good 24p drop from that on occasion. Since I shoot singers and they are kids, parents love the sharp motion and clarity of the 60p, and for solos I usually drop down to 24 and telecine it with twixtor in a nested clip. The results are dashing. I keep the 60 and produce everything from disc to F4V-usb and YouTube screenings for output.

[Ht Davis]

For echo-delay, you can use audition to create the echo\delay in the audio with an effect. The bigger the delay, the bigger the separation. You can also add more voices, with splits between each voice (delay). Smaller delays sound like many voices singing in unison, while larger delays will result in a “repeat back” kind of echo.

To make a more definitive effect, dupe the audio track, then clip the area where the double effect occurs, and take it out of sync by a couple of frames (the delay). You can do this for several tracks, and even have the echoes trail and grow so they pile in mid sentence but trail off at the end if you double, then triple and quad the effect (delaying each one by a few frames from the last one)

[Ht Davis]

He’s had issues? What issues? Choppy playback? etc?
If so, he’s fallen into the old problem of data rate dropage. Start sending him Pro-res proxy. IF his avid can pick it up (if it’s installed correctly and the codec as well), he should be able to edit with that. AVID is processor hungry. Send him a Pro-res Proxy. Quality will be very close, and he won’t have to learn new software the hard way. Also, just because he doesn’t like your codec, doesn’t mean you can’t love his. IF he encodes the file correctly (blows it up correctly), it should work superb with any effect you use. However, if he still has his druthers about green screen usage, suggest AVCIntra. It’s a nice middle ground. Similar to prores by design, but compatible with just about everybody. Use the 100 for the full file, use the 50 for the proxy.

[Ht Davis]

As far as capture goes, you should be able to do a Live capture with that deck. However, I don’t know how the controls would fare in later machines (the software based ones). It would be able to capture the dub, though. Get a big enough drive to hold that on, and you’re golden. I also recommend getting a GUI for x.264 streams if you decide to do blu-ray encoding. You’ll be able to use encore and output to x.264 with an AVCHD style x264 raw stream, that encore will recognize, and you can output higher quality video. Other than that, I suggest you remember to use full format files to compress, while using proxies to edit.
When you capture, capture to h264 or the like with a variable high Bit rate (20-30 on max, target 25). When you’ve captured, use an AVC intra or similar codec to blow it up to full format, then link that in premiere when you’re ready to output a file, and output that full format type first, before compressing it down (the algorithm is faster, more accurate, and gets better quality).

[Ht Davis]

Whoa! EXTERNAL audio? Did you sync with internal audio? IF so, then yeah, you have either a frame rate problem, a sample rate problem, or a hearing problem…
Exporting a proxy, turn on Use FRAME BLENDING. This will BLEND several other frames with an algorithm that will guess the motion and will fill in any missing frames, so the audio will match. Your other audio will also be re-synced to the solid frame rate. You can set whatever bit rate you want. That’s not the issue. The issue is that your audio and video from your capture are synced just fine because your video just drops a few frames and samples (variable frame rate if the processing isn’t fast enough or perfect enough for the full freight frame rate for longer play recordings). With an external audio source, where the sample rate is the only rate (no frames to mess with it), you don’t drop any samples or frames, so it probably slides out of sync.
Make sure your audio samples are compatible. 44.1khz is not compatible with much. 96 and 48k are very compatible with one another. Best to match sample rates though. Finally, if all you have is the audio from external, but captured and synced, and still out of joint, it’s still your frame rate changing on you. Set it with a proxy and frame blending.

No matter how it happens, a variable frame rate is an unprofessional mess in premiere. In cameras, it happens with OIS (or EIS) image stabilization most often. With capture cards or hardware hardwired to a comp, it happens due to the hardware dropping frames when it isn’t fast enough to encode them, or the computer dropping them when it can’t ingest them fast enough.