[Jon Barrie]

When you say import do you mean copy over a data file or do you mean capture?
PPro can capture HDV from tape. It can also import the mpg files from data based HDV.
If you are capturing from a tape, make sure all the capture settings are set for HDV and not DV. Then make sure the camera is set to HDV out, some HDV cameras can internally down convert to DV which the computer will see the camera/deck as a DV deck and the HDV settings won’t work.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

You will have to render it, hit the enter key to render the audio only.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

If you have a rock solid system and your are not interested in any of the CS4 features then I’d honestly say keep what you have.
But I’d do the research on the features and you’re kind of workflow there are plenty of things CS4 collection will do for you that CS3 didn’t. If the money is not that much of an issue then think of CS3 still running with CS4 too so you don’t lose if clients bring you CS4 work to continue working on.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

If you are in CS4 then create a new sequence in the correct preset for your footage and the 1080 frame size. copy the edit from the original timeline and paste into the new 1080 timeline. You may have to check the scale to frame is off and then make sure you select all your clips to remove effects ‘sacle’ to bring them to fit the timeline frame as they should.

If you are in CS3 then make a new project with the correct timeline frame size preset (1080) and then import the original project. I think from memory the timeline you import will now be the same as the projects timeline and the sizing issues as i mentioned above to make sure the 1080 media is fitting to the 1080 timeline frame properly.

– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

I think that Matrox may have been part of this problem…
Let us know how it turns out as the forums are great for fining solutions to problems others look for in future.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

Does it work with other projects? (recently successful exports)
You could import the project into a Saved As copy of a project that works properly and then export it from there. The settings may be different, HDV settings may have crept in there with a HDV ingest at some point and the deck thinks it’s trying to be exported to as a HDV unit which will create a conflict and not work.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

1. Finding the right export setting/codec. I like the quality of MPEG-2, but the file sizes are enormous (700+ MB). WMV seems to be the only setting in the encoder that produces workable files sizes, but the quality obviously is lacking.

Web is usually FLV or H.264 (PPro2 may only have limited access to these formats as they became prevalent post PPro2 (CS3 and CS4 have access to FLV and H.264 export options and are optimized for low file sizes and great quality)

2. The original footage is in SD widescreen (squeezed) with the hope of it being stretched to a faux HD look when done. When I export in most formats my video looks squished even with the 16×9 mode enabled. Again the only setting that reflects the proper aspect ratio (864×480) is WMV.

Don’t use WMV there are limitations within codecs that won’t allow an non-uniform video size. DV will always limit to the DV dimension frames. FLV and H.264 (QT) do not have these limitations and can set the frame sizes to your own custom needs.

3. I also have to turn a version of my video (native 720×480) into a 800×350 aspect ratio for a specific web page. I am having enormous difficulty doing this inside PP 2.0, with my only option being After Effects. Why can’t I change my aspect ratio in PP’s encoder?

After Effects will provide a better quality stretch. For web you will always need to use square pixel aspect ratio (PAR) 1:1. So you would be stretching to fit 720×480 1.2 PAR to 800×350 1.0 PAR set in the export settings from Render Queue.

Hope this helps.

– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

Sounds like you have a theory to you issue. Why don’t you re-export the audio to the correct length from the premiere project and see if it all works.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

There is a possible way to do some form of batch list export maybe that can bring in each sub-clip as clip to batch capture as seperate clips but the Mac version of PPro can’t support the same PC auto detect as separate captured clips, because Apple wouldn’t allow Adobe into that part of the OS code (from what I’ve heard). So you may need to get used to it.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Jon Barrie]

This might be seen a bit of a work around, but why don’t you copy and paste the audio into the MC edit sequence and then only cut the vision, technically the audio should be same for a multi-cam edit, the only this that’s truely being edited in MC workflow is shot choices. So get the audio in there correctly and just focus on switching your camera angles. (switch off the speaker icon on the audio track that’s part of the nested MC seq).
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net