Scot Sheely
Forum Replies Created
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I found a static tutorial I made for creating quick and easy photo montages using Encore DVD:
Hope that helps. The version displayed was 2.0, however, the process is the same with later version such as CS3 etc.
It’s always harder to do the right thing, but you’ll be glad you did in the end.
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Just a personal suggestion: perhaps exporting an EDL would be the smartest way to work, and recapture footage using a Windows-compatible CODEC.
I agree with Alex, I think this is going to be your biggest issue.
As far as transferring media, you could always try using FAT32 formatted drives, which will be compatible with both Win and Mac OS’s, however, you will have a 4 GB file size limit on individual files to contend with.
It’s always harder to do the right thing, but you’ll be glad you did in the end.
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John,
Is the content actually zoomed in, or only your monitor view?
If it is the latter, then you can click on the drop down context menu on the monitor and choose FIT or 100%.
As long as you are using a 16:9 project, which I assuming you are doing, I wouldn’t see why replacing assets with HD content should change the physical media size.
One last question: did you pre-render your video from your NLE, and if so, what CODEC / format did you choose?
You have the option in PPRO to export straight to Encore, render as an AVI (if using Windows OS), pre-rendering as an MPEG2 file or even using a frameserver. How you proceed affects not only the quality of the finished video, but could possibly result in an errant CODEC issue that could be the source of your problem if your video issue is more than just a zoomed in monitor view.
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You can comfortably and easily get a 2 hour program onto a standard 4.7 GB SD DVD.
Try an encoding rate around 6 Mb/s, that should be a decent trade-off between quality and space limitations.
Of course, you could simply allow Encore to use its automatic data rate settings, which will probably squeeze just a little more quality out of your video by raising the bitrate a little more.
Keep in mind, the higher the data rate, the smoother and less pixelated your content will look, but your file size will also increase.
My personal preference is to try to get as close to 7 Mb/s as possible, depending on the overall duration of the content on the DVD. I never go over 8 Mb/s, as I have discovered that not all DVD players are able to accurately play back the DVD’s without stuttering or video freeze issues.
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China,
With great respect to Steven, perhaps I am reading your original post differently, but I am thinking that it is not a vocal performance that you wish to remove but rather actual BG noise. Is that correct?
If this is the case, then Audition does have a unique set of tools that have only recently started cropping up in other audio production suites.
The process involves finding a ‘clean’ noisy section of your audio (I realize that seems to be an oxymoronic statement, LoL!), then selecting that specific area and ‘sampling’ it using Audition’s CAPTURE NOISE PROFILE tool. Once you have defined that noise (people speaking for example, often referred to as ‘walla’), then you can highlight the entire audio clip, or the areas most affected by the noise, and use Audition’s NOISE REDUCTION filters.
You can remove individual clicks and pops or use the previous sample as the basis for the noise reduction.
Its rather pointless to go into the specifics if you don’t even own the program, however, for your own edification, I wrote a great tutorial on this noise removal process a couple of years ago and posted it on the Digital Juice forum. It can be found here:
https://www.digitaljuice.com/community_forums/tm.asp?m=55773#
I give a fairly comprehensive look at what the entire process looks like. Also, there are other tools that can be utilized, such as the spectral wave analysis view, to remove noise found in certain bandwidth regions.
All of these techniques are still far from perfect and require practice to master them. There still is no ‘magic bullet’ panacea tool that will fix audio for you automatically, although Audition’s still comes the closest of all so far IMHO.
Good luck! And FYI, Steven is right that Audacity is a GREAT free program. Download it and play around with it for a while, it may do all that you are needing for most of your audio scrubbing tasks.
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Any Sans Serif font, regardless of your platform (OS).
In other words, Arial or Helvetica, depending if you are using Windows or Apple OS, respectively.
Also, depending whether you used imported objects from Photoshop, or the built in title generator, graphic objects are handled differently. If coming from PS, try to always use .PSD files if you are in PPRO, then .PNG, in that order of priority. You will find the greatest clarity that way in the image quality.
Something else to try that never fails: if you need a nice title roll or fly-in text, AE is the way to go. You can use the Dynamic Link feature found in PPRO’s File menu to create or import an ultra-clean title that isn’t rendered until you render your timeline.
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Just curious why you wouldn’t have used 720×480 project settings. That is standard for NTSC video in the USA.
.9 pixel aspect ratio is used for 4:3 screen size, and 1.2 aspect ratio used for 16:9 screen size.
My suggestion is to either reset the AE project settings to reflect one of these screen resolutions, or try rendering your DVD as a 16:9 project instead.
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Julio,
Although you did not specify which version of PPRO that you are currently using, there is a way to apply a single transition to multiple assets all at the same time. This makes it relatively easy to create a basic photo montage, for example, that dissolves between one pic to the next.
The following tip will work with CS2 & CS3, and I feel confident that it is probably still available in the latest versions as well.
Open up a new timeline, import all of your assets into a new bin (‘Photos’, for example), select all of the assets inside that new bin (selecting the first item, holding the SHIFT key, then selecting the last item is probably the fastest method to do this).
At the bottom of the PROJECT window you will see several icons. From the far left, they are LIST VIEW, ICON VIEW, then one that looks like a bar graph called AUTOMATE TO SEQUENCE. Click this last icon, and a small window pops up with your options.
Towards the bottom of this pop up window you will see check boxes that say APPLY DEFAULT VIDEO TRANSITION. You probably don’t need the default audio transition, so de-select that. Above these checkboxes is a section that says CLIP OVERLAP. Select SECONDS from the drop down menu and type in the amount of time for the dissolve to occur.
I suggest that you try values anywhere from .5 seconds, to 1 and 2 seconds. In some cases, even 5 seconds is appropriate, it really depends on your content, overall intent and accompanying music.
If you feel more comfortable using it, you can try using frames instead of seconds. Remember that 30 frames = 1 second, so 15 frames is half a second. As I recall, the default transition time is set to 2 seconds when you first install PPRO and any CS suite on your system.
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Remember the following tips when using this process:
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1) You may want to use SCALE TO FRAMESIZE before importing your photos. Sometimes this is appropriate, but not always. To do this, select all of your photos in you bin (or on the timeline), right click on one of them and select Scale to Framesize.2) When you using the Automate to Timeline feature, where ever you have your CTI (Current Time Indicator, the red and blue pointer) is where the assets will be placed on your timeline. This is useful to know if you get another batch of photos or videos later on and want to add them in using the same process. You will, however, have to manually add in the one cross dissolve between the last asset in your original group and the first item in the new group.
3) You can always manually tweak and adjust the dissolve properties for a specific area using the Effects Controls panel, once that dissolve is selected. This is necessary sometimes to make a section flow better visually, always use your eyes and best judgment as the guide.
4) Although you will have a default Cross Dissolve effect using this process, you can always choose a different effect and set that as your default by going to your Effects panel, selecting a transition, then right-clicking on that same transition and clicking on SET SELECTED AS DEFAULT TRANSITION. This is easy to change at any time, you are never stuck with your new choice.
5) You can also add a little motion to your photos to give them that ‘Ken Burns’ style pan and scan effect. Select the very first photo in the first frame of its position, open up your Effects Controls panel, click on the POSITION stopwatch (pops up as TOGGLE ANIMATION when you mouse over); this sets the first frame’s keyframe.
Now for the fun part: click on the word MOTION at the top of the Effects Controls panel. Notice that in your program monitor that a selection box appears. Use your mouse to left click and HOLD on your photo in the monitor and drag the photo to where you would like its starting position to be. Don’t worry if you accidentally release the mouse button or don’t get the position exactly right the first time, you can keep tweaking its position until you are happy with the results. This is how you set your new starting position for your photo.
Use the PAGE DOWN key on your keyboard, then the LEFT ARROW key. This repositions your CTI to the end of that same photo, one frame back from the end, so you will be able to see what you are adjusting.
From there, repeat the left-click and hold process on the photo in your program monitor and adjust the desired ending position of your photo. This will place another keyframe at the end of the photo’s duration.
Playing back your results will show a smooth motion, and you can also go to the Effects Controls panel, select the beginning and last keyframes, right-click on one of them and choose from a couple of EASY EASE options that will make your motion appear even smoother. This is found under the TEMPORAL INTERPOLATION menu selection. Play with the options found there to see which works best for you in your project.
Last step: RIGHT-CLICK on the word MOTION again in the Effects Controls panel and choose COPY. Then select your next photo and right-click anywhere in the blank are at the bottom of the Effects Control panel. Select PASTE, and your motion is now copied to the next photo.
Although it is a bit labor intensive to COPY and PASTE this same motion to each photo, it can still be done rather quickly and offers a nice variation to the dissolve only version. You can also mix it up by creating a second motion set and copying that to every other photo in your sequence, which gives a nice pleasing to the eye effect and helps prevent viewer boredom.
All of this last process of adding motion sounds complicated and time consuming, but let me assure you, once you learn how to do this, it is very fast and very easy to do. From the moment you have imported all of your photos into your project, the whole automate to sequence and adding motion can be done in only a couple of minutes, even for a lot of photos.
Play with this effect; you can also adjust the first keyframe (photo’s starting position) very quickly, and this also looks pleasing to the eye, much more so than the last keyframe.
One last tip: If all you need to do is go straight to a DVD with a photo montage, I suggest you look into using Encore DVD instead. It has a wonderful automatic photo montage generator built into it. You can choose random transitions, random pan and scan, sync the visuals tightly to the music automatically, and adjust each and every photo’s transition or motion very quickly and easily. The whole process in Encore is a matter of a couple of minutes and a few checkboxes. You can put together groups of 99 photos at a time, and there is a way to do multiple groups for nearly infinite photos, limited only by space on the DVD.
If you are interested in learning that process, you can e-mail me and I will gladly do a free one-on-one phone training session with you. It is far faster that way than typing everything out here.
There you have it…two ways to skin a cat! And don’t get me started on using After Effects for this….there is already a free tutorial here on CREATIVE COW describing that process using AE that is excellent.
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Joe is exactly right!
Of course, there IS a way to have your cake, ice cream and eat it too!
I think I know what you are trying to accomplish with this, and here is the work-around”
1) Create a standard menu either in Encore from their presets or in Photoshop. You can customize the preset menus in PS by right-clicking on the menu once it is added into the project and choose “Edit original” from the drop down menu if you need to do so.
2) Import your .AVI from your AE project (render it out if you haven’t already done so) or use the dynamic link feature in Encore from your AE project. The trick is to overlay and link the video as a motion menu into your exisitng menu so you can position the menu buttons correctly. A bit of trial and error in Photoshop and / or AE for positioning the static buttons is required to make this work correctly.
You will need to render a preview to see if you have everything lined up correctly. Tweak and adjust the static buttons’ positions to match that of your AE project pseudo “buttons” or vice-versa so that they line up in the exact same final positions.
3) Make a copy of your finished menu in Photoshop, save as “Transition Menu”, “First Play” or something similar. Before saving, remove all of your static menu buttons, but leave any of the other graphical content unless all of that appears in your AE video, in which case, you simply want a blank 4:3 or 16:9 menu.
4) Use the End Action feature in Encore to create the illusion of your motion menu’s buttons flying in. Specifically, choose your “First Play” or “Transition Menu”, set it as your DVD’s First Play by right-clicking on the menu and selecting that feature. Then, with that same menu still selected, go to the end action feature on the Properties panel and point the end action to your “static” main menu.
The static menu doesn’t actually have to be static, only the menu buttons have to be static (except for Blu-ray titles; more will surface on those advanced features in later BD specs). You can still use your motion menu that you created in After Effects, obviously minus the menu buttons part of that animation, which means that you will have to tweak your AE project a bit to suit the Encore project’s requirements.
With the main “static” menu selected, go to the PROPERTIES panel and click on the MOTION tab. Then, link in your Dynamic Link AE project or the AVI or MPEG2 animation using the pickwhip for the VIDEO section. If you have accompanying audio, link that as well.
The net result is a cool looking motion intro that resolves into a similar looking menu with a (hopefully) animated background.
Of course, you could actually skip the first menu and simply use a video set in a timeline, with the end action pointed to the main menu. This will give you the same type of result, but I have noticed in past projects that this is not always desirable, as the straight video doesn’t seem to line up exactly right in line with the main menu’s motion video background. That is why i suggested that you use the first method instead, which should yield the exact type of results you are looking for.
This is a lot less succinct than I would have preferred, but if you get confused or have any questions, you are welcome to contact me via e-mail or phone and I will gladly assist you further on this.
Scot Sheely
Interactive Media Gurus
https://www.imgvideos.com
E-mail: scot “at” imgvideos.com
803-708-8043 -
I use both PC’s and Macs in my studio. I have used PC’s for over 25+ years, and Macs since 1985.
Although I enjoy using FCP, PPRO CS3 has many advantages over Final Cut. One of the most compelling reasons to use Premiere is its ability to render video extremely fast compared to FCP, especially if you have a Matrox card like the Axio or the RT.X2 installed.
Another distinct advantage that FCP cannot claim is that the entire CS3 catalogue is seamlessly integrated with every single application. Well beyond just the video elements, the print, web and other programs are tightly knitted together in a way that makes Apple very, very envious and jealous. It CANNOT do that at this time, and you will find that a LOT of FCP users still rely heavily on Illustrator, Photoshop and After Effects, even if they have Motion and Shake in their arsenal.
Now, all of that being said, FCP still has many redeeming qualities. It is a fast, lean and mean NLE that has a great set of filters, some unique that PPRO does not have (and vice versa, of course). Apple has dedicated a serious amount of resources into upgrading and future R&D of their suite.
The truly odd thing is, if you trace the roots of both FCP and PPRO, the exact same company created them both, and sold FCP to Macromedia, and PPRO to Adobe. As most everyone knows, Adobe bought out Macromedia a couple of years ago, so it is sort of an odd twist of fate type of thing (cue the Twilight Zone music!).
Avid has had so many problems in the last several years that they have lost their edge in the broadcast market, although so many TV stations, movie productions, studios et al are so firmly entrenched that they will probably still be using them for years to come. I suppose that the initial investment in that platform makes them a bit nervous to switch at this time, although I have spoken to several friends at major market stations across the USA who have told me that they have a five or ten year integration / migration plan and are switching over to FCP very slowly.
Just to bring another item to the table, back in the mid 1990’s, Media 100 was all the rage, with far more TV stations using that than Avid at that time. Flash forward 13 years and Media 100 has declined so significantly that almost noone uses it anymore, which is a real shame. It was / is an excellent NLE that offered a lot of unique attributes that now have been integrated into FCP and PPRO, amongst others in the current marketplace.