[Ron Moody]

I kept 1.5 on the machine when I upgraded. It turned out to be of benefit when 2.0 started stuttering on any rendered video. I took the info to Adobe. They say it’s a hardware issue. One point five works fine though, no problems at all.

The only thing I can imagine is that 2.0 makes use of the video card (I think) and that somehow my video card is flaking. I don’t see any problems though in any app other than PP2. I brought the problem up here with no resolution. Same with Adobe. The only thing I haven’t done is pay out cash for a new video card. It could be something else I suppose, but I don’t seem to have any problems with any app other than PP2.

Go figure
ron from Maui

[Ron Moody]

My two cents.

After using Premiere on Os’s from Win 3.1 or whenever Premiere became usable through 95 and 98, 2000 and now XP, I made the leap to the Mac about a month ago. Just this week I turned out my first 30 minute show… and had a great surprise.

My production flow is based on AVI’s. I capture and output to tape on a windows PC, sharing files via a network running Linux over Gigabit to four striped 250 gig drives. Prior to buying the Core 2 duo Imac, I tested reading and writing to the server. Everything went as planned, better actually, since I was able to get better network performance over the 100mb/s network interface of the G5 Imac I used to test things than the gigabit connections in the windows PCs.

Imagine my shock this week when I tried to turn out a 30 minute show to AVI only to discover that the six gig AVI file wasn’t readable. I finally split the file into three parts, which did work, then joined them back together in the PC via Premiere. Yesterday I discovered that quicktime can only output about a gig worth of AVI. In other words, only the first five or ten minutes of any large AVI are usable, if that. It’s a known problem and I finally discovered the documentation on the Apple support site.

I’m hoping that one of the advantages of Premiere on the Mac is that you will not be bound by this constraint, and in addition, can build on the advantages of OSX. I’m tired of fighting Windows all the time. I finally gave up, only to find another fight was waiting.

The leap to PPro from version six (never got 6.5) was huge. One point five was even better, and two was better than that. I’m much faster on Premiere than Final cut, although some of the tools are amazingly good (like warning symbols showing when you’re out of legal limits and real time Waveform monitoring).

All in all, I would readily move back to Premiere on the Mac. I think I’m done with Windows though.

Ron from Maui

[Ron Moody]

Sorry, I must have responded to the initial message.

Didn’t mean to mess up the nice progression in the message. My apologies.

rm

[Ron Moody]

I’m hoping that Premiere will support avi export beyond 1 gig on the mac. It’s a problem I came up against two days ago and just figured out yesterday. Quick time only supports up to one gig export to avi. It means the production cycle I was hoping to ease the mac into is seriously flawed. Premiere might be able to fix that.

I’m just getting my teeth into FCP, having used Premiere since version three or earlier (I don’t remember exactly). I like PPro2, even though I had an error Adobe wasn’t able to resolve.

I’m sure a whole lot faster on Premiere than FCP. But LiveType and Motion are very nice. The integration between Premiere, Audition, After Effects, Photoshop, and Encore are unparalleled though.

Random thoughts
ron from maui

[Ron Moody]

I’m not sure I absolutely understand your message, but let me clarify mine.

On the mac, Quicktime can only output (by Apple’s definition) roughly 1 gig avi files. In my own experience, I was able to output about double that, slightly over 2 gig, all usable, totaling about 10 and a half minutes. Since I had deadlines, I did not experiment to see what the actual limit was, I was unable to use the fifteen minute files but able to use the ten minute ones. Good enough for me in my moment of need, so I broke my edited project into three overlapping pieces and joined them up on the PC side.

As to avi’s in general, there is (to my knowledge) no hard limit to file size. I’m sure there is one, but I’ve never hit it. I’ve created avi’s of 60 and 90 minutes, topping out at roughly 20 gig with no problem (on the pc). I wouldn’t recommend it, Premiere gets pretty sluggish at those sizes, but it usually works as long as you save frequently.

This is also assuming that you’re using the NTFS file system rather than FAT. Under fat all files are limited to two gig, irregardless of file size.

At one point, I thought it might be something related to my linux file server or conflicts between Mac, Linux, and XP OS’s or file systems. Troubleshooting as I did, it became pretty clear that the problem was related to file size. And once I found the apple listing of this wonderful quicktime ‘feature’ of limiting avi output to a gig or so, it all seemed to come together.

Kind of makes you wonder what other ‘features’ might be lurking in the shadows.

Clueless no more, in Maui
Ron Moody

[Ron Moody]

I discovered an answer but I don’t like what I found.

I realized that I had gone to Creative Cow before I looked into Apple support archives. What I found there saddened me greatly.

While quicktime can read very large avi files, it can only output a readable avi to about one gig. In other words, while you may have a file that reports the six or so gig that a 30 minute avi should be, only the first gig of it is readable (if that). That works out to about four and a half minutes.

My own experience varies slightly from that, I was able to write files of about ten and a half minutes; slightly over two gig.

The only option as directed by Apple is to output in either mp4 or quicktime format.

Not at all what I wanted to hear. No other option is given. Sounds like a done deal.

I just read that Adobe is going to release Premiere for the Mac again. I wonder if they will get around this limitation somehow?

Sorry, but that’s it.
ron from Maui

[Ron Moody]

At least I know I’m not alone.

thanks
ron

[Ron Moody]

I don’t see a place appropriate for this comment so I’ll attempt it here. If this is the wrong place, perhaps you will move it to the right place on my behalf.

If I’m not mistaken Tim, you wrote an article in issue two of the magazine that looked at Premiere, Final Cut, and Avid’s editing software. In that same article, you focused attention on the confused state of video editing related hardware. You summarized by stating that you do and would continue to use Macs as your editing tools.

I am in the process of moving the production facility here on Maui from PC based using Adobe tools to Mac based. What motivates me to this end is to main factors. First, I’ve been using my own personal hardware and it is now being replaced by my company, so there is no real installed base of hardware/software to influence the decision. And second, Microsoft’s Vista and Adobe’s forced move to XP when Premiere Pro came out scares me. It scares me because I still remember how much slower XP is that Win2K was. It scares me that this is Microsoft’s trend and they seem to push that trend even further than in prior cases, with Vista. And it scares me that Adobe may attempt to remove my choice in the matter. I don’t think they realize that some of us won’t go kicking and screaming this time. We just won’t go at all. If they try, they will lose me as a customer.

Back to the reason for this post. You stated several things in your article, but ended focused on the Mac. This is the way I am leaning (I’m actually in the process of leaping at this very moment). After reading the above, do you have any additional comments related to your article?

[Ron Moody]

Speaking to the first part of the initial question, you can drag edited clips intact from one sequence to another, I just did it yesterday. I’d never tried it before that.

In the destination project, import the source project. In the project window, you should now see the source project in a file folder. Open that folder and double click on the sequence. It will open up as a new tab on the timeline. You can copy and paste from one tabbed sequence to a second sequence. When I did that, it copied the files as they appeared on the source timeline, transitions and all.

You have to keep the source file folder in your project window after you import, at least the ones that are now on your new timeline. If I remember correctly though, you can now delete the second sequence once you’ve pasted what you need.

Hopefully I said that in a way that makes sense. If parts of it are blurry, it’s only because I am on occasion (blurry that is.)
ron

[Ron Moody]

One more bit of info that I just realized that I hadn’t included…

The affected video discussed in earlier posts is viewed on another computer after rendering to an avi file on the original computer. The same affect is seen on both source and destination computers. So, it’s in the actual avi file output. This is not a simple display card driver artifact (since it also is seen in an exported file).

That should get somebody going. You’d think this would catch some budding tech PI’s curiosity.

Oh, and since the last post, I have re-installed PPro2. Then, when that didn’t change anything (after rebooting of course), I also un-installed it from the control panel and reinstalled it from the DVD. Still the same.

Go figure…