[Michael Aghy]

I settled on transcoding everything using mpeg streamclip into H264 1920 x 1080 MOV files. Really slow process and files still had trouble playing smoothly in Premiere (even with 1/4 resolution, 16GB ram, usb 3.0 drive), especially if effects were applied. But it worked out.

[Michael Aghy]

Thanks for all the responses.

Still dreaming of that day where you just drag the footage into Premiere and started editing 🙂

[Michael Aghy]

Ok, great, thanks. I guess thats best I can hope for.

I have a mac and pc. Can use either for editing but any suggestions on what to encode on a windows machine? What does Premiere prefer? AVI? Unfortunately, most the presets I tried wanted to shrink the video down to 1920 x 1080 and didn’t allow me to retain size.

Thanks

[Michael Aghy]

Hello Dave,

Thanks for the response.

I tested the link twice, aside from clicking “I Agree”, there is no email sign up needed to download the file. Anyways, if there is an easier service for sharing content, please let me know.

Correct, I just picked highest quality video size and started shooting. Didn’t realize there are variable frame rates.

Unfortunately, this was a trip out of the country. So I can not reshoot. But good to know that there are apps for next time.

Any suggestions for what to encode media with to retain quality / size and give Premiere an easy time to edit with? Ill likely export out a 1920 x 1080 video, but it would be nice to retain the larger dimensions for cropping into footage. And a more general question: Is there a common format that Premiere prefers to work with? For example, with FCP, I recall Apple ProRes 422 was usually a safe bet for encoding footage.

Thanks

[Michael Aghy]

Yes, I am realizing as I pile on the effects (like VHS effect by Red Giant) and multiple video layers, things get very choppy, even with compressed transcoded files or proxies.

Probably best for a separate post but the Windows machine I have (specs in original post) was a temporary solution between Mac Book Pro laptops. The new Mac Book Pros are out but the max ram is 16GB. I’m sure it will perform better than my current machine but not sure if it worth the money. Unfortunately, switching to a desktop / tower isn’t really an option for me cause I need to travel and edit onsite with my machine.

And I know the other option is decked out windows laptop with 32GB ram but I really prefer the Mac OS environment. Especially since every client I have works with Mac so stuff like Keynote presentations or when they ship a drive to me is all easier with a Mac OS. Yes, there are work around for both those things but it gets annoying. Anyways, that’s my current dilemma.

[Michael Aghy]

Cool, glad you enjoyed working with it. Ya, the 16G chip helped a bit. But still cant work with originals. After trying a lot of options, I ended up making 30mbs Mpeg4 Quicktime MOV files but maintained original pixel resolution. Probably went too small / compressed, but I think its okay for what I am delivering.

[Michael Aghy]

Thanks for this suggestion. Looking into Premiere’s proxie settings now.

[Michael Aghy]

Ya, I anticipated that this might be one of the suggestions. I ordered a 16 GB ram chip last night, should arrive today. I only have one ram slot so its either a single 8gb or a single 16gb. Thanks.

[Michael Aghy]

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, I tried media browser. The footage imports fine and exports fine, its just really difficult to work with in the timeline.