[Norman Frizzle]

I called my dealer to learn how to turn off multi-threading, assuming it was an operation I would have to do in Windows. He didn’t know, so I’m guessing it is a Premiere Pro setting. But where?

[Norman Frizzle]

I am being facetious.

It is demeaning to NEED to resort to the likes of an MPEG editor when Premiere Pro’s implementation of Media Encoder is NOT doing the MPEG output I need except in fits and starts.

Thanks for tip 3 though. This is not an option suggested to me over the hours and hours and hours of useless Adobe telephone support I’ve logged on this one maddening matter that had cost me incalculable productivity time.

[Norman Frizzle]

The two Craigs:

Craig Bryan–

Your outline of my method is close up to a point. Let me give a clearer picture.

I normally import raw footage in 15-minute contiguous chunks. I assemble the whole thing on the timeline then rough cut my sequence by using a razor cut at every point that strikes me as an appropriate IN or OUT point. I subsequently go thru and delete every other portion. Next I drag the pieces individually to meet end-to-end.

But that is just the rough cut. From here I fine tune my rough cuts and add composite effects, overlap individual clip soundtracks, etc. (I use the Track Select tool a lot, frequently dragging the entire multi-track balance of my sequence to meet up with the portion I’ve just fiddled with. It is usually these dragging operations that start to screw things up. Not too surprisingly, it is not just occasional, but common, for me to leave unintended gaps on the timeline.

What with multi-layering of NTSC’s 29.97 fps 2-field video, it is a wonder to me that any NLE ever manages to deal with drop-frames!! I feel sure that they are the ultimate gremlin that mitigates against my turning out a smooth-running, no hassle project.

In this respect, maybe numeric IN and OUT points are the only sure means of ensuring multi-layer timeline harmony.

Craig Howard–

As you can see from the above, my method introduces easy opportunity for timeline gaps. That is a definite down side. Still, as a legitimate and common editing technique, it certainly entitles the user to expect ADOBE to provide a utility to detect gaps.

BTW, how do you feel PREMIERE PRO compares with AVID in general. What in particular made you switch? (Truth to tell, I’ve had so much aggravation with PREMIERE PRO, its compression applets and ENCORE that I do from time to time entertain the notion to switch.) For you, it must have been serious enough a consideration to switch not just applications but operating systems!

[Norman Frizzle]

When I examined the two procedures, yours and mine, it appears that the number of actions required for both are, essentially, two. This fact may be misleading, however, since the actual amount of work required in the ‘numbers’ method (what with the all the scrubbing to actually arrive at your edit point) is probably greater.

Whatever else good this method may be, intuitive it ain’t. Even so, I’ll give it a whirl. After all, my ultimate goal is a project free of bugs, and if your method acheives this, then it is worth any amount of extra work.

In any case, I very much appreciate your your feedback, Craig, and look forward to trying it out.

[Norman Frizzle]

Craig, my only reason for using the razor tool, not to mention the track select tool, the ripple edit and the rolling edit tools, is that it is the fastest, most intuitive way of editing.

I might add that use of these tools is not only the prefered editing technique of the vast majority of PREMIERE PRO users, it is the way ADOBE and TOTAL TRAINING demonstrate the program’s use. I don’t know many instances condusive to edit-by-numbers.

What you seem to be suggesting is that the user twist his editing technique to accomodate ADOBE’s shortcoings.

Sorry, but no.

If I have misunderstood you, by all means correct me.

[Norman Frizzle]

That’s a help. It sure beats dragging the timeline in a zooned-in mode which takes an eternity and makes it STILL easy to miss a gap.

[Norman Frizzle]

I use the razor pretty much exclusively.

[Norman Frizzle]

I always have SNAP turned on. There are innumerable other ways to accidentally shift material and inadvertently leave a gap. Ironically, having SNAP on is one of them!

Let’s say one of your audio tracks is a frame past the start of a video gap you want to fill by shifting your video tracks. The SNAP will find the audio end point before the video and if you don’t notice and adjust accordingly, you are going to have a gap.

A utility to detect it would be nothing for a software engineer to program. There’s just no excuse for Adobe NOT to provide the means to troubleshoot errors like this that can make life hell because they are so easy to make, but a nightmare to detect manually.

[Norman Frizzle]

I’m always skeptical of the word ‘can’t’. Thanks, Serge!

[Norman Frizzle]

Thanks, Mike. The PSDs are often in 3K pixels both ways. Huge.

After the problem, I maxed out on memory and got an nvidia card also maxed out with memory. Neither was much help.

Your solution sounds good, presuming I can get it to perform this function before crashing.

If I were to flatten to an AVI, I presume you mean uncompressed? Is there any reason to favour an uncompressed AVI over an Animation MOV?