[Jeff Pulera]

Atomos makes external recorders for DSLR cameras and I often refer to their Supported Cameras list for reference. Supported means the camera has a CLEAN HDMI output. They list the D3200 and D3300, but not D3100. Quite possible that Nikon did not offer “clean output” on the D3100, but here is the D3200 link and instructions –

https://www.atomos.com/cameras/nikon-d3200

Please note: It is not possible to record beyond 30min on Nikon cameras. Please press “Info” button to enable HDMI clean out. When recording internally to the SD card, output changes to 720p out. “PAL” output for recording not possible. 1080 24p cannot be output over HDMI. Also note that the internal recording can be different to the external recording – the user needs to set the internal and external recording mode independently.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi John,

Are you saying that you have one stereo audio recording (camera?) and that each person was miked on their own channel, L and R?

There are different ways to handle this, but what I would do is copy/paste the stereo track so you have 2 copies on 2 tracks. Use FILL LEFT on one, and FILL RIGHT on the other. Then you will have 2 stereo audio tracks, one being Person 1 on both channels, and other being Person 2 on both channels (L and R). You can alter volume independently then for each person and the results are mixed into final stereo export.

I never did learn to use the Premiere audio mixer and do everything in the timeline ????

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Jan,

You’ll typically get better quality on the DVD if you skip Dynamic Link and just export the proper assets right from Premiere, then use those assets in Encore. Meaning export as MPEG-2 DVD, which results in .m2v and .wav files, then Import those into Encore using Import as Timeline and selecting them both.

Using the auto-trancoding in Encore is said to produce a lower quality than using Premiere/Media Encoder. Plus I prefer to control the MPEG-2 settings (bitrate and such) rather than it being automated.

Whatever method you prefer, good tip about the GPU preview. I’ll share my blog post for the benefit of others that may wish to enable this setting in Encore – https://blog.sharbor.com/blog/2013/03/adobe-encore-cs6-preview-quality-fix/

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Teresa,

The official DVD specification does allow you to add other files to a DVD, but you cannot access them from the DVD menu interface – rather, the user would access the extra files on disc manually using Finder (Mac) or Explorer (Win).

So yes, you can add the .pdf book to the DVD disc, but the user will not have access to the book from the DVD menu interface. You have to forget that DVDs can be viewed on the computer and think of it like all users will be viewing on a set-top DVD player and TV set. They would not be able to access a .pdf or other “computer” files from that menu interface which only shows video content.

Only when the DVD is read by a computer would the user be able to “open” the DVD as a data disc and find/access other files on it.

Please see attached screen shot of where you can add “DVD ROM Content” in Adobe Encore.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

I should add that I’ve not had to collaborate with other editors, in which case Shane’s conversion workflow may have its merits. But again, have had no issues over the years editing AVCHD natively for myself.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Duke,

I had the same experience recently, intermittently the audio was very weird, like you say in YouTube and such, so it’s not you! I don’t even know the current status, not allowed near by own computer with family always on it…

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Here is the workflow for AVCHD that works and Adobe recommends –

1) Copy ENTIRE contents of SD card to new folder on hard drive. Copy EVERYTHING, not just certain folders from card. For each card you copy, make a new folder of course like Card 1, Card 2 and so on. Make backups of all data of course, always.

2) In Premiere, only import using Media Browser. This will properly handle “spanned” clips that are broken up on card, they will import into Premiere as one long continuous clip.

Using this workflow, I’ve never had any issues working with AVCHD footage, no clips getting switched or anything like that when using multiple cards in same project.

I would also disagree with “how difficult” it is to edit AVCHD. Until getting a new PC recently, I’d been using a 5-yr. old model with 16GB and it worked just fine, thank you. Everyone has their own opinions.

Don’t be scared into converting all your footage, just edit.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Duke,

I don’t know the cause of your errors, but I did notice that the file export path went to the C: drive. Never, ever export to C: drive (or keep video sources there either). That’s what the other, faster, dedicated drives are for. Best practice = no C: drive media.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Uncheck the Max Quality option – that only benefits scaling of video, which you are not doing.

I would also uncheck MAX DEPTH as that is more for 10-bit sources and such. You are going to H.264 which is definitely 8-bit. Most likely doing nothing more than increasing render times with both boxes checked, with no benefit.

I don’t follow the logic of having the same value for TARGET and MAX – the idea is to have the AVERAGE (Target) bitrate, and then lower and higher values. Maybe having Target and Max the same is messing with the encoder on complex scenes?

Have you simply tried using the YouTube 1080p export preset? More is not always better.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Rotational speeds are not the determining factor they once were – due to changes in drive designs, many 5400rpm drives can move data as well as a 7200rpm unit.

The bigger question is what is the transfer speed of the drive, and what kind of footage are you editing? If cutting AVCHD for instance, that runs about 24mbps typically, and the MiniDV of yesterday was 25mbps, so that is a very low demand for bandwidth.

My advice is to simply TRY the drive you have right now. If it does seem to be an issue, then add a faster drive, not a big deal. Not necessarily an SSD because they are still far more costly per GB than a spinning drive. Look to a vendor that specializes in drives for video/media, such as Glyph, G-Tech, or LaCie for instance, and not something from the local big box store which may be more for “storage” than “performance”.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers