[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

[Greg Andonian] ” I even saw one feature that I wish Photoshop had. In one click, you can create a new top layer that is a composite of all the visible layers.”

Just so you know, Photoshop does in fact have this, but it’s a keyboard shortcut:
Command + Alt + Shift + E

Only weird thing is it places the new layer above whatever layer was selected before, even though it merges all visible layers not just the ones below the currently selected layer. You just have to click the top layer before hitting the shortcut.

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

So the problem appears to be that the default Preview codec that Premiere uses, which they call “I-Frame only MPEG” doesn’t correctly compress the grain in your photos. These were shot on film, am I right?

There are two solutions:

1) Live with it. Since it’s a problem with the preview codec it doen’t affect the final output (as you discovered.)

2) Change preview codecs. On Windows, your options are limited to various flavors of DVCPRO HD, which work fine but leave the image looking soft. (Unless you have Cineform or another AVI based codec installed.) On mac, however, you have every Quicktime codec at your disposal. If you have ProRes installed, go ahead and use that. Avid DNxHD also works, which can be downloaded for free.
To change preview codecs you may have to create a new sequence and copy everything from the old one to the new.

One question though: Why are you rendering preview files? I have no trouble with playback on my 5 year old MBP, though admittedly I do have an SSD installed in it.

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

Any chance you could post one or two of these source frames so we can try mucking aout with them in Premiere?

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

No, not if you save your project files…

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

You have to shoot for longer then 21 minutes in standard AVCHD before it has to span a clip. Thing is though, since the GH2 and GH3 are technically still cameras they might just stop recording rather then span the clip.

Anyway, if everything you’re shooting is around 20 sec then the only reason to keep the rest of the files would be if you want to use he clips in a program other the Premiere.

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

Ok, did it work in the past? When did this start?

Ideas, in no particular order:

Try rendering something, anything, that isn’t rd3 to get that out of the picture.

Try reinstalling premiere.

Have you tried rendering both in premiere and AME?

Try removing any effects and just render the clips without any effects?

Try making a new project, import some of the clips, put them in a timeline and render.

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

When it freezes what happens?

Does it freeze when you render something other then Red RAW?

I had a similar problem years ago that was caused by corrupt frames in the Rd3 files.

JM

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

[Al Jensen] ” I have no idea what any of the other stuff could possibly have to offer.”

Jim mentioned this above:

Because of the 4GB file size limitation of FAT32, AVCHD cameras brake long video clips into multiple files. If you just use the MTS files without the rest of the folder structure these “spanned” clips as they’re called are not reconnected when they’re imported. The files import just fine, but one long clip will import as two or more shorter clips. Placing these shorter clips end to end will recreate the original clip although there may be a faint pop in the audio at the cuts.

The information that Premiere uses to reassemble spanned clips is contained in the other folders.

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

Why don’t you render it out as 720/60p with frame blending turned off? That will give you a Blu-ray compatible file that just has two copies of each frame in a row. Wasteful, sure, but it’s that or frame rate conversion.

[John-michael Seng-wheeler]

My personal guess is that it was actually the jump from XP to Windows 7. Apple didn’t bother making a decent version of Quicktime for Win 7.