[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Dale,

This is all handled behind the scenes. You say the frames are “gone” when you make a cut, but in reality, the original file is still intact on the hard drive and is being referenced for playback. Whatever edits you make on the timeline are simply “pointers” to the video clip, you are not altering the actual clip. Just edit and don’t think too hard about this stuff 😉

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Zack,

My advice is always free, but I don’t think anyone is going to able to help for any price without a few more clues, not giving us much to go on 😉

What version of Premiere? PC or Mac?

Project setting? Video format? Are you adding MP3s, or any sound files that might be a different sampling rate than the project?

Export settings?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Gerry,

What is your hard drive setup? All video clips should go to a separate physical drive, not on C: or a “partition” of C.

What video format are you working with, and what is the Premiere project preset you are using?

Is this CS5?

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

For a 90-minute program, encode with CBR 6 setting. Quality DVD media makes a big difference also for reliable playback. I like Taiyo Yuden discs, recently joined with JVC Media.

Jeff Pulera

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Duncan,

Sylvia is correct that uncompressed video offers the very best quality, but it’s probably overkill for most users. Please consider that uncompressed 1080 HD requires roughly 400GB PER HOUR of storage, plus a fast external drive array to play back that data rate.

On a properly equipped system, CS5 will handle AVCHD natively much better than CS4. Another option is to use the Cineform NeoScene intermediate codec. This will convert AVCHD clips to a much more edit-friendly codec, a few times larger than original clips. Much more practical than attempting an uncompressed workflow.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

AVCHD takes a LOT of power to decode for playback, as you’ve found. You may have a better experience using an intermediate codec. This might be the “avi” that was suggested to you, and it also sounds like there may be some confusion regarding this, about “replacing with HD later”. The .avi IS an HD video clip, you convert the AVCHD file to an easier to edit (less compressed) .avi file, and then work with the replacement files all the way through the process.

You can get a free trial of the Cineform NeoScene codec to try for a period, you might want to give it a test. It will convert your raw footage to Cineform .avi files, which will be larger than the originals, but the new files will playback much easier.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

I always thought that H.264 and MPEG-4 were “the same thing”. Just opened up Adobe Media Encoder and sure enough, there are options for both MPEG-4 (3GPP) and H.264 (lots of choices).

I’d say just go with H.264 and pick a preset, customize if you need to.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Mark,

I’m not familiar with the “Red X” you mention, can you elaborate on what that is, and what issues it brings?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor

[Jeff Pulera]

I just checked in CS5 and there is a chain link to the right of the width and height parameters that locks the aspect ratio, click to toggle off/on.

For web display, you may want to choose an H.264 preset rather than QT, and QT players will still play these files, but they may be more compact and higher quality.

Anyway, I chose a 1280×720 preset to match your footage, but then changed the 720 part to 480 and top number changed to 852, so looks like 852×480 is the proper size to export to an “NTSC” size with square (1.0) pixels. Depending on your audience and bandwidth concerns, you might want to go a little smaller yet, up to you.

Sticking with the original HD size of 1280×720 may be more than some viewers machines/connections can handle.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Andrew,

Please tell us what your end goal is – are you trying to create a clip for the web, DVD, archiving, or what?

Your source video is 720p HD, but the NTSC format is standard definition. NTSC is 720×480 whether 4:3 or 16:9 – the number of pixels are the same, but the pixel aspect ratio (shape) changes between 4:3 and 16:9 NTSC.

If you are trying to create an SD clip for playback on a computer or website, square pixels are always assumed by the computer, so you have to change the actual frame dimensions then. I believe the correct number would be 854×480 (with 1.0 pixel aspect) which would then provide proper playback using QuickTime player, iTunes, etc.

Use custom settings to achieve this, as Vince suggested

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor