[Jeff Pulera]

Don,

Media Browser in CS6 most definitely supports AVCHD but I don’t know exactly what type of footage you have or from what camera model, you didn’t say

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Don,

The solution is simple – import into Premiere using the Media Browser (the tab for the panel is usually at lower left in Premiere). This will intelligently recognize spanned clips and import as one long clip.

Important – copy entire contents of SD card to your hard drive, intact, do NOT copy just the video clips. The original folder structure is important to have for proper results.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

CC should open project files from older Premiere versions without issue, but never the other way.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

On a PC, you would hold the CTRL key while dragging footage to the timeline

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Paul,

I’ve been editing 480i (NTSC) and 1080i footage for years, and when I export for the web, I just choose a Progressive preset and the results look fine to me. Whether there is a better or more correct procedure, I can’t say, but I have not had to de-interlace in the timeline.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Kathie,

What Ryan said. Seems that you are starting with PAL-format video, but I don’t get why the 768×480 conversion – for what purpose? 768×480 is not any type of standard format. HOW are you converting the size in Premiere and for what end purpose? More info required, screen shots helpful (Sequence settings, export settings)

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Scott,

I’ve seen this reported when importing a single multiplexed file into Encore (audio and video as one file). Encore prefers separate assets.

When you created the “MPEG-2 DVD” file in Media Encoder, you should’ve got TWO files, .m2v video and .wav audio. Is that the case?

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

As discussed earlier, transcoding your source clips into something else will never “improve” the quality – all we can do is “maintain” quality – so no, there’s no obvious reason to transcode prior to editing in most cases.

The exception is that some older machines may have issues decoding the newer AVCHD codecs and such, and converting to a “less compressed” format allows for smoother timeline playback. But newer machines should be just fine.

One more exception – I have seen certain kinds of GoPro footage bring Premiere to its knees even on a fast machine. GoPro provides a utility to convert native clips to QuickTime or AVI files and that is one case where I would typically go ahead and transcode prior to editing! Anyway, the utility also can remove the fisheye common to GoPro footage, so that makes it a no-brainer to pre-process most of those clips right away.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Tom,

I’ve never been an FCP editor, but my understanding was that pretty much all sources got transcoded at ingest, prior to editing, so sources were already bumped up to a better format. Then I believe there was also some smart-rendering going on, so that not everything in the timeline would get re-encoded upon export, it would just keep unchanged portions “as is” and copy those parts over without recompression, within the QuickTime environment.

So yes, definitely a different workflow with Premiere now, editing the raw camera files. Glad I could help clarify. You’re lucky to have ProRes to work with. PC guys have to install a third-party codec to have something comparable, no ProRes option (without jumping through some hoops at least) for PC editors.

Cheers,

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Tom,

XDCAM-EX (HQ) records at 35Mbps, using 4:2:0 color, and uses Long-GOP MPEG-2 encoding. Long-GOP means that to save space (compress the video more), rather than each frame being encoded individually (Intra-frame), Inter-frame recording is used. There may be just TWO full frames of data recorded per second, and the rest of the frames only record changes from one frame to the next basically. A little more involved than that, bi-directional stuff, but that’s it in a nutshell. But anything with a lot of detail and motion is going to suffer from compression artifacting. Think of a fountain or waterfall for example. Look at the still frames and the video can get very blocky.

So, do you want to take your edited work and create a “Master”, from which other formats will be encoded, and use an inferior codec to create that master?

Not saying your raw footage doesn’t look good, but we’re talking about generational loss, copies of copies – you want to maintain the quality as best you can.

ProRes is an Intra-Frame codec, so each frame is compressed individually, no borrowing from neighboring frames. It’s all there! Color is 4:2:2, not throwing away data. Why does this matter if the source was 4:2:0? Do you add any titles or graphics to your edits? Wouldn’t it be nice to at least keep those at full 4:2:2 fidelity rather than immediately dropping them to 4:2:0?

ProRes is not going to improve the quality of your source, but it will MAINTAIN the quality. ProRes uses 150 or 220Mbps (422 or HQ), but which to use is up to you. It may be overkill to convert HDV for instance to ProRes HQ – it may look no better than using 422 for mastering, depends on the source camera and codec quality.

And yes, it is standard practice to use ProRes as an intermediate codec/master file for video post production. Camera formats are almost always inferior since the camera makers want to increase record times by increasing compression as much as possible.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers