[Jeff Pulera]

If you hold down the CTRL key while dragging the IN or OUT point of a clip, it will move everything else accordingly. When putting mouse cursor over end of clip, it should turn to a red bracket when in position to extend clip end – press CTRL and it turns yellow and then it will ripple. If you make a mistake, CTRL-Z undo, so no worries.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Jonas,

I’m not a Mac user, so I don’t know what else might be out there. On the PC, I use the free HC Encoder and that does a great job for MPEG-2 DVD encoding.

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

Disregard previous post, getting inconsistent results now that may not match my comments. Definitely an issue with my CS6 but CC 2014 is behaving differently on another machine.

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Paul,

Unfortunately, this has been a “feature” since CS6. Dissolves are not smooth unless Mercury Acceleration is set to Software. I leave GPU acceleration ON for editing, then switch to SOFTWARE for the export so dissolves come out looking correct.

Nothing to do with graphics drivers or Premiere version, it’s just the way it is. Crazy, I know!

Thanks

Jeff

[Jeff Pulera]

AVCHD, MP4 and in fact most common camera formats are heavily compressed using Long-GOP. Without going into too much detail (you can Google it), a GOP is a Group of Pictures.

Using the HDV format as an example, there is only one “full frame” of video every 15 frames. The frames between the full frames contain only partial data – think of them representing the difference in the image from that full reference frame – what is changing in the picture.

You have a camera locked on a tripod pointed at the street. Nothing in the frame is moving, so basically no difference frame to frame. Then a car drives by left to right. From one frame to another, the car is changing, but the rest of the image is still static. So only the data for the moving car needs to change from one frame to another – the background is the same and that data does not need to be encoded/saved for every frame, as it can be borrowed from neighboring frames. Encoding only the changes between frames saves space = compression.

So for playback, most frames need to reference other frames (preceeding and following) to put a full frame back together from bits and pieces. This is called an inter-frame format. The problem is that with high detail and fast motion, the codec can’t keep up. Think of shooting a water fountain or leafy trees blowing in the breeze. Basically every pixel is changing from one frame to another, and then the image starts to get full of artifacts/blocks because the partial-frame scheme is not able to fully encode all that ever-changing data and it just gets sloppy.

So as others have stated, if you have the chance to go from 25Mbps to 35Mbps, every bit helps!! Besides losing parts of each frame to compression, color data is also thrown away to save space. AVCHD is going to use 4:2:0 color. The human eye doesn’t notice the missing color fidelity (the “0”), however when you try to do chroma keying or color correction, it doesn’t work as well since a lot of color data is just not there for the NLE to work with!

Now let’s talk ProRes. It used Intra-Frame compression, meaning every single frame contains all the data to rebuild that frame – it doesn’t need to borrow info from any neighbors. And the data rate is much much higher, again increasing the fidelity of the image, being much truer to what the camera saw (when recording direct to Prores such as using an Atomos recorder). You are not “throwing away” tons of data and averaging things out and compressing into the “blocks of similar color” that you might view as compression artifacts with lesser codecs. Full HD ProRes might run roughly 100Mbps to 220Mbps depending on quality level chosen – quite an improvement from 25Mbps!

Another benefit of ProRes is 4:2:2 color, much truer to the original, providing more color info that really benefits keying and color correction. Can also be 10-bit, representing millions more colors than the 8-bit of AVCHD, to lessen color gradient banding and such.

So you asked if a 35Mbps codec stays 35Mbps when converted to ProRes and the answer would be no. You are taking those Long-GOP partial frames of AVCHD and converting each to its own unique full frame, fully encoded to stand on its own. Basically “uncompressing” each frame to a large degree, so obviously that will use more data. It’s not going to make any individual frame look any better than it started out, but it will play back easier since it doesn’t have to look back/look ahead at multiple surrounding frames before it can be played/viewed.

And you still only have the original 4:2:0 color data to work with. However, if adding color effects, titles, etc. to a ProRes clip then those will benefit from being done in the 4:2:2 color space with higher fidelity. And then if you do any compositing, such as exporting your edits to a new ProRes clip, and then doing further work in the new clip, you have the unique frames at a high data rate and with 4:2:2 color, so it all holds up so much better over multiple generations, unlike AVCHD that is so highly compressed that all the artifacts (quality issues) just pile up and get worse with each copy.

So, if you don’t plan on doing multi-generational compositing and such – you’re simply going to do some editing (cutting) of clips, add some transitions – and then just export to the delivery format, converting to ProRes probably isn’t going to make any difference, other than taking time and filling up your hard drive. If you have an older, slower computer that chokes on AVCHD, then ProRes should be easier to play back, but again as others mentioned ProRes needs faster hard drives to keep up, so there is a trade off.

Hope this kind of puts things in perspective. Do some Google searches for “4:2:2 vs 4:2:0” and “Long-GOP” and do some reading, it will really all make more sense then.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Steve,

Something that might help your edit workflow is the FILL LEFT and FILL RIGHT audio effects. If your LAV is on L channel and you apply FILL LEFT, then you will hear the LAV on both the L & R channels and the Shotgun is then muted. And vice versa for FILL RIGHT.

I use these effects a lot with wedding ceremony footage. Two ways I do it.

One is to make Razor cuts at each point that I want to switch mics, then apply FILL LEFT or RIGHT to each segment as desired to switch between Lav and Shotgun source. I drop a quick Audio Dissolve at each cut to avoid pops.

Second way I might use is to Copy/Paste the audio track so I have two copies of it. Apply FILL LEFT to one and FILL RIGHT to the other. Now you have independent clips for each mic and can easily mix volume between the two by adding keyframes and ramping volume as desired.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Shane,

Please post a screen shot of the Export Settings panel so we can review both the Source and Export settings.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

In years past, DVD-R had shown better compatibility than DVD+R, but that really shouldn’t be a factor with newer DVD players these days. Either should be fine.

The problem with Verbatim is you don’t know who actually made the discs…they put their name on media from a variety of manufacturers and I’ve been burned with bad batches before.

For the best media, look at JVC/Taiyo Yuden. I’ve burned thousands in my duplicators and they just work.

The -RW and +RW discs are ReWritable, never deliver those to customers.

With Encore, I usually Build to an IMAGE (.iso) and burn with Burn Aware Free app on my PC. The .iso file also serves then as a backup if the Encore project and/or assets get deleted.

Not saying this has anything to do with the playback issues, but for future projects, you may get better quality rendering the MPEG-2 DVD assets from Premiere, rather than using Dynamic Link to Encore.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Jerry,

My first thought would be to try a different brand of DVD-R media. What are you using currently?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Duke,

Simple question, what is your budget for a new editing PC?

Your idea of a basic machine, and the ideas of professional post house editors may not match up, different leagues. Don’t jump into anything just yet.

Thanks

Jeff