[Jeff Pulera]

Hi David,

What version of Premiere are you running?

Make sure that for each SD card from camera, you create a New Folder on your hard drive. Name them Card1, Card2, or whatever suits your needs. Then copy entire contents of SD card to that folder. Not using Canon software or anything, just File Copy the whole works over, all folders intact.

In Premiere, use Media Browser as you described. If this technique is not working, then I don’t know what to tell you. I should say to start a New Project before trying this as Premiere may “remember” previous versions of same clips you’d tried to import in original project and could get confused.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

I will add that what a lot of folks are doing these days is to simply create an .mp4 file (H.264) and put it on a USB thumb drive. Should play on most TVs as they have USB ports now, as do many/most newer Blu-ray and DVD players. Plug and Play.

If making a disc that you wish to share with others, then you need to go with a standard they can play on their equipment reliably, meaning a properly authored DVD or Blu-ray disc. Otherwise the “.mp4 on a stick” is pretty standard.

If the “disc” is for yourself only, then that’s up to you to create whatever might suit your needs.

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Thomas,

Honestly, I don’t even know what a “HD video DVD” is. You’ve created some sort of Frankenstein disc.

A “DVD” is by definition Standard Definition only – there is no “HD DVD”. That would be a Blu-ray disc then. Different media altogether.

Really, you have simply burned a video file to DVD-R as data is my guess. That is not a “DVD” at all in the regular sense of the word (must use MPEG-2, as .vob files, it’s all part of a spec).

Where are you playing this? A standard set-top DVD player should not even play this, though I have seen some of the Chinese-brand DVD players that are more like “media players” and will play a range of formats on disc that do not meet the official DVD specification.

We’d need more info to even begin helping.

What were the source video specs?
What encoding settings did you use to export?
On what device are you viewing the “disc”?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Marc,

Looks like you answered your own question for the most part. Most HD cameras recording as AVCHD record at 24mbps, and some might go a little higher and some may have a 17mbps mode, but nothing lower typically. So in that case, yes the MPEG-2 DVD files should be much smaller. However, I don’t know where you got your HD files, but they were already pretty compressed, which is why the file size was about the same.

You are correct that H.264 is a much more efficient codec than MPEG-2, meaning you can push the data rate lower and still maintain decent quality.

What type of content is in your video? If it’s a talking head shot, like a speaker at a conference with very little movement in the picture, then you can get away with really dropping the DVD data rate. However, if there is a lot of movement in the image then it can quickly degrade at low bitrates. I usually don’t go below the 4 to 4.5 area myself (2+ hours), but did do a 3-hour talking head video once and it looked just fine!

You’re using the same calculator I do, works well.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

When exporting short clips for inclusion in final edit, try the DNxHD option in Premiere, which is an .mxf file. Excellent quality, and no problems. I would not be using QuickTime Photo JPEG in this day and age. DNxHD is a great intermediate codec.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Not sure what you mean – the + and – (plus and minus) keys zoom the timeline view in and out if that helps. Maybe rephrase the question?

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

Doug,

Best practice is to just create a NEW thread and not piggyback onto a very old thread, then we have to read through all the old stuff to get up to speed. Just post your question ????

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

Guess I still didn’t answer your question about how to “optimally configure” everything. Probably because I have not in the past used multiple drives. Always had a C: drive, and then a VIDEO drive, typically RAID 0, and left Premiere settings at default.

My new machine has an SSD boot and I don’t want Media Cache going there filling it up, so I directed that to an extra SATA drive, and all Video/Projects go on the external RAID. I don’t break out separate audio/video/temp render stuff. The RAID is plenty fast.

Maybe someone else can chime in as how to divvy things up better with multiple drives?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

I misread and didn’t realize you have TWO of the m.2 drives.

In any case, 250GB or 500GB is nothing in the world of video editing. You will quickly run out of space, unless all you do is :30 commercials.

I would use an m.2 for the OS/boot drive for the extreme speed of boot up and software launches.

Green drive can be used for “storage”, no editing. Could certainly use one or more of the fast, small drives for scratch/temp, but could run out of space with only 250GB. Would need to keep up with housekeeping, clean the Media Cache often.

Would still go with SATA for VIDEO/PROJECT storage myself. Size is king. I have 4TB of external USB 3.0 RAID video storage and am running out of space with multiple HD and 4K projects and exports in the works.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Put the countdown video clip on V2, with jpeg still image under it on V1 track. Then apply UltraKey effect on V2 clip as Alan stated. When the video hits the green part, the green will be keyed out revealing the jpeg image beneath it.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers