[Mike Velte]

While there is only one firewire connection to your deck, many decks have internal settings in the menu for choosing DV or analog IN or OUT. You want DV-IN.
I suspect Premiere’s settings are fine, but check Playback Settings>Export Device= DV 29.97i (720 x 480).

[Mike Velte]

The blue screen is normal…it is exporting to your external device and not displaying in the monitor window. I suspect a setting on your deck is the problem…”DV-IN”

[Mike Velte]

In AE look into the Fractal effect (not fractal noise).

[Mike Velte]

Make sure “Default scale to frame size” is deselected in Preferences>General prior to importing the stills.
Then;

You probably cant see the bounding box around the still in the Program monitor…the stills are so huge. An easy method to resizing stills in the timeline is to select one and in the Effect Controls palette, change the scale to 25-35%, then select the remaining stills in the timeline and choose Edit>Paste Attributes. Make sure the stills are the same size to begin with. For 8 MP photos (3264X2448) 25% scale will leave enough in excess of 720 X 576 to do pan/scan AND still see and manipulate the bounding box in the Program Monitor.

[Mike Velte]

Putting a VIDEO_TS folder on a CD creates what was called a cDVD. This will play fine on computers that can play DVDs, but not at all on standalone DVD players.
Also remember that Windows XP cannot play DVDs without additional DVD player software added.

[Mike Velte]

You could create a short loopable clip where the beginning and ending keyframes match. Save it as a dv.avi and then drop as many iterations on the timeline as you need.

[Mike Velte]

Recompressing any highly compressed file will result in a big hit to quality.
Windows Media Encoder 9 (free from MS) ships with a very crude File Editor utility which can trim a file and save as a new file without recompression.
There are a few apps that can join wmv files without recompression, such as Movie Joiner from Rejump.

[Mike Velte]

Any firewire device attached and turned on? If not, try deleting Premiere’s preference file by holding down the Shift and CTRL keys while launching Premiere.

[Mike Velte]

Most digital camcorders have a “pass thru” capacity. Connect your DVD player to your camcorder via s/video or composite and then your camcorder to your PC and via firewire and capture as dv.avi in Premiere.
You may have to fiddle with the cams menu to enable this.
OR buy an analog/digital converter.
Either of these methods results in real time conversion.

[Mike Velte]

How are you going to deliver the project?? CD,DVD,web,VHS,video tape?

24 does a lot of PIPs (picture in picture). Put one video clip in track V1 and another in V2 above the other. Position the CTI over the 2 clips. Select the clip in V2, open the Effects Controls Palette and click on the word Motion. In the Program monitor you will see a bounding box around the clip in V2 with handles. Use the handles to change the size and your mouse to postion the clip in V2.
Next you will need to learn about motion keyframes.