[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Brandon,

There is only so much you can do in post if the subjects are really dark. I’ve been shooting weddings for 20 years, and I always shoot to properly expose the couple and just don’t worry about the background. Learned this the hard way, courtesy of second cameraman.

Many times I’ve had to really blow out the background to where it is just white, but the important thing is that the couple is more than a mere silhouette. Of course you can sometimes pick a happy medium where the couple is bright enough that you can give them a bump in post without having a totally blown-out background. Comes with experience I guess, no easy answer as every situation is unique.

As I use Matrox color correction plug-ins, can’t say which is the best native Adobe tool for the job, but probably a 3-way color corrector that will allow separate adjustment of shadows, midtones and highlights, or curves may even be better.

Good luck with your fixes

Jeff Pulera

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Mark,

With AVCHD, or any tapeless format, the best practice is to copy the entire folder structure from memory card to hard drive – do not pick just the video files. Then in Premiere, use Media Browser pane to import clips.

Hope this helps

Jeff Pulera
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[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Alberto,

To begin, the GTX 580 is natively supported by CS5.5, so you should NOT be tampering with the text file, not necessary at all. To see if the GPU acceleration is enabled, in Premiere simply go to Project > Project Settings > General and then look at “Renderer” and it will either say “GPU accelerated” or “Software render”.

If you want to compare between GPU and Software render output times, then switch to Software (disable GPU render) – again, no need to mess with text file.

Regarding the test you did – H.264 source material takes the most resources for playback, as well as encoding, so it is going to take a while either way.

When you mention a 12-minute encode of a 2-hour movie, that could be me. A 2-hour standard-definition timeline will export to MPEG-2 DVD in under 15 minutes. Exporting an HD timeline to DVD is closer to realtime probably, and exporting to H.264 for Blu-ray might take 1.5x realtime, using a Core i7-2600 and GTX 470.

Here’s a list of the GPU-accelerated effects: https://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WSE04091E3-79C1-4014-B4F5-681A65A9AC80.html

Hope this is helpful to you

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Amir,

First off, update Premiere to 5.0.3, this will add bug fixes. Next, you say you are using the 8.0 drivers, but those say they are for CS5.5, the last driver I see for CS5 is 7.9.6 version, so you may need to step back.

You might also want to try updating the Nvidia display driver if not current.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Elwin,

Maybe try the Matrox MPEG-2 I-Frame HD + Alpha codec, available here: https://www.matrox.com/video/en/support/downloads/

In “Product” column, scroll all the way to the bottom and choose “VfW codecs”. Must be installed on any machine that you want to play the clips on. Data rate between 100-300Mbps, user selectable.

PC only I believe

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Jason,

In Preferences, there is a checkbox for “Scale to frame size”. Check this, and then all clips will scale to project size upon import. Note this does NOT affect clips already imported, you would need to remove from bin, then import again, or just right-click clips on timeline one by one and select scale to frame there. No need to use “motion” effect if that is how you are doing it now.

You didn’t say if working with a 4:3 or 16:9 DV project. If 4:3 and you don’t want letterboxing, then you would need to use Motion and scale the clips up a bit to fill the screen. This can then be copied/pasted across multiple clips easily.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Devin,

Please share the following: Source video format and project preset used, and what size do you want the final output to be? Too much guesswork, we don’t know what you are working with. Are you starting with 16:9 and want it to look like 2:35 cinema or what?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Bruce,

I saw your post the other day and did not reply because I just am not clear on what the issue is, maybe I’m not understanding? If you need to remove part of the beginning of timeline without messing up any sync down the line, mark IN and OUT and use EXTRACT (all tracks highlighted first). So, if you mark 10 seconds at the beginning and extract, that first 10 seconds is gone and everything else shifts left. Keyboard shortcuts are I, O, and ‘.

To re-insert black or something at the beginning, hold the CTRL key (on PC, not sure on Mac) and then drag clip from bin to start of timeline. New clip is inserted, everything after shifting to the right. Again, be sure all tracks highlighted first.

From Premiere, you can use File > Export > Media to encode the MPEG-2 DVD clip direct from the timeline, and using this option, you will be able to “Export Work Area” only, and in that way you could also not encode the beginning of actual timeline. I believe these are solutions to your issue.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

On a 4.7GB DVD, a 2-hour program would fit if encoded at 4.5 bitrate. For dual-layer, the “max” is about 8, but many people like to use 7 as a max to maintain compatibility with all players.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Bob,

Not sure why you had jitters, could be field settings. If encoding with Adobe Media Encoder, for your 42 min. video, just use CBR 7.0 encode rate (good for any video 60 min. or less).

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers