[Ht Davis]

So you believe you’ve Identified your problem… …If you have, WONDERFUL!

I used to do IT for a small office, where there were only 2 computers when I started. As more computers were wired in, I was relied on more an more for support, even to the point of HDD recovery. I was also a consult on Server technology.

Don’t forget, a single drive is great, and cheap. The faster the spin, the faster the drive, typically.
However, when reading, the drive is slower than it’s RPM rating (which is usually a measure of the single random write speed), sometimes a lot slower. With RAID drives, you can nearly double the read speed with two drive enclosures and with more drives, you multiply your reads even more, and you can get closer to the speed of your port (plug\wire\connection to the enclosure). That’s why most servers use the SAS SATA RAID, especially when designed specifically for database or document use\storage.

Storage space\speed, ram, system drives, and output were all a part of my consideration at each change I made to my system. I chose HDD internals because I could get 1tb HDD’s cheap, and I needed the space for other suites I use besides adobe. I do maintain internals with major repair\defrags twice a year. I back up to Time machine, regularly (once a week), and to a differential IMAGE once every two weeks (I do the same with my main work files, excluding the Full Format transcodes to pro res). I can continue work after a day’s recovery, and have another machine do the transcode to full res and uncompressed prores while I finish edits with the proxies and previews recovered. I’ve had one drive fail, and recovered it quickly. It kept me on time for my deadline. Ultimately, such considerations allow me to offer an archival to my clients. I can revisit a project at any time. I charge them at the front end a standard fee, if they want, or double that later. Considering your workflow carefully can help your bottom line, especially when your job market isn’t exactly booming.

[Ht Davis]

Might solve problem…

Go to preferences of premiere, find setting that says: “Automatically Generate Peak files”. Turn it off. This will stop generating PEK files, and will draw the WAV as necessary, but you may still get a hiccup due to the growing file… However, it may only be when there is a significant dump to the file, usually in chunks of 512mb or more.

[Ht Davis]

To create a sub clip… …you have to TELL premiere you want to create one. It will treat it like it’s own file, and list it in the program monitor. How to TELL premiere you want a sub clip? open an original clip in the source monitor, go to where you want it to start, mark an in, go to where you want it to end, mark an out, and then you use the command “Make Subclip” from the clip or marker menu (don’t remember which off hand).

Or… …You select the original, in the project panel, and go to the menu and build the sub clip, then open the sub clip in the source monitor and mark in out.

To view where a clip falls in a parent clip, double click it on the timeline, and look in the Source Monitor panel. The blue Highlight area shows the in-out for that particular version of the clip, even if it isn’t listed in the project panel as a sub clip.

[Ht Davis]

I’ve seen this before… …a re-he-healy long time ago. Thought this type of problem was dead and gone. It was with a lot smaller audio files then, but it did happen a lot more then.

Several possible causes:
1. Different audio output modules and gfx hardware (if they are the same, check the configuration and the firmware on them for differences; as newer adobe software is still having CUDA and Mercury issues with some cards; make sure your output card has the same capabilities for sample rates as your sequence; you may want to RE-render just that part of the work area on that machine to be sure).
2. Like I said above, make sure your sample rates for audio output device is the same as your sequence (though this is usually handled by emulation).
3. IF the output devices or wires are receiving undue EM interference, you will have problems. Can also happen with power-shorting (sometimes a power outlet plug will have a bad ground or something, and it can affect certain reads from an external drive). Check your USB cord for breaks. Are there other devices being heavily accessed at the same time with plugs close by?

If it sounds like a digital distortion where the sound seems broken up, it has to do with the data read from the drive, more than likely. This is a result of both hardware and software load on the machine, along with the configuration of the output modules. This means if one machine uses a specific config and another machine doesn’t have the same exact hardware, you will have problems like this. IF it’s the same location over and over, every single time, you are dealing with a file problem, again tied to the read speed of that particular file. Try a defrag. Try a disk check. Hit and miss on this one.

Sometimes, setting the drive close to other sources of EM can corrupt a read or scramble it in the wire. This will have the audio scramble up at different points each time. The same would be true of a bad usb wire or port on that machine. Try different ports.

If the physical hardware of each machine is different, especially the output hardware, you’ll occasionally get audio that cannot be re-sampled down. That audio will come out distorted. Try using USB output hardware with 96k or above sample rates for output. These have advanced drivers that can sometimes do a better job. Try a dedicated audio card with extremely high sample rates. Basically, try to match hardware as much as possible. If that isn’t feasible, create a new sequence matching the video size of your primary, then set the audio to a lower sample rate and NEST your primary into it. Other machines with lower audio specs will be able to play through this sequence.

That’s all I got… I can’t think of any other reason accept a bad port, a bad interface in the offending computer, or the peaks are too high to be output correctly.

[Ht Davis]

“Sync works if the frame rates are the same.”
Yes. True. But is a Variable Frame Rate at 29.97fps the same as a Constant Frame Rate of 29.97fps? (answer: Variable Frame Rate has an Average rate of 29.97fps and will vary in some areas due to natural motion algorithms and stabilization).

“Avid and other editors play it fine.”
They do play, but try to sync and line it up with another clip that has a CFR, it will freeze. Why? It can’t understand what’s happening with the two frame rates. You’ve got one demanding variable, one constant. It gets caught asking which to stick to: <“play, play, play, pl… …um… …this one says 27.6fps now… …this one 29.97fps… …27… …29… …humena, humena, humena, CRASH!”>
These are not designed for post production nesting workflows. They are more broadcast oriented, so you rarely sync two videos for multicaming by nesting. You’re encouraged instead to use clip edits and in\out marks to create sub clips that fit into place. If a camera angle starts to wane off sync, you just put in a different clip. Playing clips at the same rates is easy. Playing back clips at different, but known ratio frame rates is also not difficult, as the algorithm is built in for different combinations. However, if you play several tracks that start at the same frame rate and they drop frames at different times, you’re going to have problems playing back unless you drop from both tracks. If you play according to video frame rates, you’re going to have some problems playing these back if even one of them varies it’s frame rate.

Premiere is Post\EDIT oriented. It can fit multiple workflow styles. Premiere lets you see a problem without crashing as it plays the Sequence frame rate, not the video frame rate. It will play the video frames according to the rate of the selected sequence. Where frames drop in a video, it won’t try to guess the frame, it will simply play the next available frame, keeping the same rate, which will throw off the synchronization for that video (showing you the problem). Other tracks are unaffected. This is how a professional tool should behave. There are also built in ways of fixing this.
There are two schools of thought here:
1. Mark the first visible sync error, and slowly go back until it’s gone. Then blade the audio there and retime the audio to sync for the rest using audition. Works, but the output is then VFR, and may even be faulty when played back in some players.
2. Fix missing frames if possible by transcoding or creating your own blend. In AE you can do this pretty easily if you know which frames are dropped, and the direction of motion of the frames or the objects in them. You can then adjust the objects or frames as necessary, and create a blend here and there to blur them (start by clipping that section out, then adding it to a comp where you split the frames into images, first by rendering out to images; add the missing frames by estimating the movements and using either the frame before or at the end of the drop, one that isn’t dropped, and then add frames between those that are blends in between. The wider the gap where frames drop, the more start points you should fill first, then blend between those all the way through; You should end up with 2x your missing frames +2 for the ends; now export that to a finished product at the proper rate, and turn on frame blending, which will blend them all further; this will give you the proper clip to replace your broken one with in premiere).
OR In AME you can fix short drops with “Use Frame Blending” and a transcode. It really does an excellent job.
Compressor will retime footage if you use the retiming box, stay away. Instead, set your output frame rate exact, don’t use auto. Handbrake does well, also, but I haven’t used it; only seen results from others.

For all NLE’s:
With multi cam footage, you can simply clip to another angle, but your other camera will go out of sync. If you mark the area where the frame is dropped with edits, and delete that whole second, you will get a broken up clip. You can sync the 2nd section of this to the rest of the audio in one operation, by making sure that you clip at the 0 frame of the second, and where the last frame should be (if one frame is dropped, you clip at last frame #-1, if more than one is dropped you just subtract the ones dropped and clip there). If you have to cut 2 seconds this way, do it, but line up the now separated clip with where it should begin (at the 0 frame of a second), and you’ll be back in sync with the audio. Note where this occurs in the sequence timecode, and make sure you work around it in the nested sequence.

[Ht Davis]

Sounds like the card blew a transistor or two, or they got locked in place. Try formatting the long way on your computer in disk utility (applications>utilities>disk utility). Select the card, go to the erase tab, give it a name if you wish (not necessary) and select msdos FAT as the format. This will erase the card and format it with the FAT file system in 32bit FAT. Fat12 is a 12bit system and used by many small unix variants in cameras. When you place the card back in the camera, try recording right to it, no initialize. IF it works, then your card may be fine (to know for sure, take out the card and place in a reader, then import the mxf). If that worked, card is fine, wipe again as before, then put in camera and initialize the card. If it has a problem after that, your camera is the problem (or more accurately, the way the hardware behaves when formatting the cards). Stick to formatting on your computer and you’ll be fine. Have your camera checked out, and look online for solutions or recalls or new firmware, and repair at the earliest convenience. If the card failed the first test, try an initialize in camera, then shoot a few seconds, and try to move the mxf file again. If the same error occurs, your card may have problems or not be compatible with your camera.
Alternate file system:
ExFAT is a larger bit depth file system, and is almost universally accepted, as it has a fat12 file table as well as a 16 and 32 (it carries all 3). It also has permissions attributes but they are not used by most systems (only done on servers where the permissions can be done by a custom automated command). There is little support for Exfat on mac, but you can read and write to it just fine. You could use this in your camera if you wanted to, just don’t initialize it when you put it back in the camera.

One final note:
Some cards are actually just a container for a micro sd card. These require you to place the whole thing, container and all, into a reader when downloading any files from the card. While these adapters will allow you to get huge amounts of space on the little card, there is some space on many adapters that is used for formatting information, so the micro sd cannot be removed when full to replace with a new one, but should remain in the adapter shell until the files have been copied. Even with similar or the same formats, this cannot be done. The formatting is a binary table of where files begin and end on a card. Break that, you’ll break the headers and possibly the files.

[Ht Davis]

It also sounds like you’re doing multi camera from your description. Premiere has this function built in. You enable it first, then begin playing through the sequence using the multi camera monitor (just click the button to start it), and then click between your cameras to choose your view. If you wish to change it, you just go to the multi cam menu on the clip and set a different camera; if you want to split a clip you blade it and set the camera on each clip where it needs to change. If you have a default transition you want to set and use where the edits occur, you can select several clips at a time, and set the transition with the menu option. You can do this for audio as well as video.

If you are using data from completely different shoots or scenes, why attempt a work around? Set an adjustment\transition track up. Create an adjustment layer. Wherever you have a transition, mark with blade, apply the transition to that layer. When you replace a clip, the transition will remain. It doesn’t matter how you replace, the transition will hold, so you can even edit the clip in the sequence without using the in\out control. If you use that clip more than once and there are different lengths of it, the in\out won’t work so well. If you edit in the sequence, it will be tied to the sequence edit, not the clip. You could also use the in\out method to simply create a sub clip in the source monitor, and then drop the sub clip onto the spot you need it. Using the Adjustment\transition track, you can make most of your effects at clip points, and replace those underlying clips at any time by changing angles\cameras or replacing a clip completely. You can even roll an effect one way or another (if you do it at an edit or clip that gets moved), by rolling the edit point on the adjustment layer to line up where you need it to.

[Ht Davis]

First, determine an output size. Is this bigger or smaller than your input size? It should be at least one step smaller for the best result with this one, but it can be of equal size.

IF output is smaller and sequence is set to output size, your video will be bigger than your desired frame. You can have it zoom out to the proper size at the first frame and hold that until you need to move it again. At this point, the process becomes very similar across situations.

If not smaller but equal for output size, you’re looking at doing some cropping, zooming and positioning in your effect controls. Similar for larger output as well, but you’ll have to zoom it where you want.

One standard effect is the top\bottom split of video games. You resize your clips to half the frame, and position one at the top, one at the bottom, over the course of a second or two using keyframes in your effect controls.

Another standard effect is to zoom each to your wanted square view, crop it to a square about half the frame in size, and place one to the right and one to the left. Doing this, you either want to find an area where the color lines up just right, so the split is almost seamless, or you want to place a small gap of a neutral variant color (white, black, or a neon halfway between two of the colors at the edge) that will define the split in the screens, while making sure main subjects are zoomed almost equally. To get black just leave space in between, but for white or neon, you may have to apply another effect or clipping that places a bar where the split is. I suggest using illustrator to make a PNG with an alpha channel and then lay the png on a video track over the split screen area and allow the other videos to show through.

[Ht Davis]

Avid doesn’t care about the sequence frame rate. It plays back at the frame rate of the video you place into it. IF that video varies, it doesn’t show.

Premiere sets all to the Sequence rate. If the video has VFR problems, you can turn on the option in the program monitor to show dropped frames and play it. Areas where there are dropped frames will be marked in the sequence on the render indicator, and the time indicator before and after in the program monitor will be colored different to the others. Premiere will allow it to play back at the rate of the sequence, and won’t freeze.

Avid freezes if too many frames are dropped at once or if too many frames in total are dropped, as it tries to fix it by guessing with a single pass blur frame when more than one clip is on the timeline. When it can’t keep up with the drop, it freezes and even fails.

Premiere doesn’t fail, it just shows there’s a problem, and let’s you decide how to fix it. Use AME with frame blending on, and it will guess a large amount of frames (which, if extreme, will look like a still frame) in order to make your video useable.

[Ht Davis]

Presets are meant to be adjusted slightly… …but that’s not for this conversation.

IF you rebooted and it worked, I suspect certain issues with file access or perhaps disk reads. Run a check at your earliest convenience.

Also, look up how to set your page file to an automatic setting. This works great as of late in windows. Also look up how to schedule tasks in the system. On any windows Machine, I recommend you run an auto-restart on a “Day Off” with a disk check scheduled every 2-4 weeks on drives that are in constant use, and at least every 2 months on your internal system drive.
Mac is always auto for page file, but on earlier macs with anything but an i5 or greater, it lags a bit. If on a mac, turn off anything that accesses your disks for diagnostic monitoring; this has been causing problems with AME and Premiere lately. Run your disk checks for permissions regularly, and do a full repair once every 2 months on your main system. I format other disks with alternative file systems, and if you do, look up the linux or terminal command for running the checks on it. That will allow you to even schedule the check through automator for your alternate drives by running the terminal command.