[Tim Kurkoski]

The short answer is that Premiere Pro (1.0 or 1.5) is the newest version of Premiere. What you’re seeing as “7.0” is actually Premiere Pro 1.0, which is newer than 6.5, and Premiere Pro 1.5 is even newer. For more than you ever wanted to know about the topic, keep reading.

After Premiere 6.5, Adobe decided to build the next version from scratch. They re-wrote a lot of the code from the ground up. With this “rebirth” of Premiere, they christened it “Premiere Pro”. With it, they also changed the numbering scheme they had been using. The history of the versions looks something like this:

Premiere 5.x, 4.x, all earlier versions
Premiere 6.0
Premiere 6.5
Premiere Pro 1.0
Premiere Pro 1.5

Now, since Premiere Pro was the seventh version of Premiere, there were still some references to Premiere Pro (1.0) as version 7.0. That’s confused a lot of people.

[Tim Kurkoski]

This behavior is correct. It may be hard to understand why at first, so it helps to know about the rendering order used in After Effects and what Collapse Transformations really does.

First, remember that for AE, 3D space all takes place on 2D planes. The popular term is “postcards in space”. When you pre-comp 3D layers, that comp becomes a flat postcard inside the 3D space of the master comp. If you now rotate or move the pre-comped layer in 3D, the 3D perspective of the layers inside the pre-comp will be lost.

What happens with pre-comps is that AE renders everything inside a pre-comp before it renders the pre-comp with the rest of the master comp.

That is, of course, unless you have the Collapse Transformations (aka Continuously Rasterize) switch turned on. The CT pulls the layers in the pre-comp out and renders them with the rest of the layers in the master comp. This means, among other things, that 3D layers in the pre-comp can interact in 3D space in the master comp.

In your particular case, Yussef, it’s hard to say what the solution is without looking at your comps and the order you’re using. But if you have vector art that you want to continuously rasterize but also need to pre-comp in 3D space, you should just need to turn on the CT switch for the layers in the pre-comp, and then the CT switch for the pre-comp itself in the master comp.

Also, keep in mind that when you pre-comp, choosing the “move attributes” or “leave attributes” options are going to have a big effect on how the layers behave.

[Tim Kurkoski]

In Project Settings > General, you can set the timecode display format to frames. No feet, unfortunately (AE will do that, but not Premiere). I’m not aware of any plug-ins that will add options for feet.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Hector, for what you want to do, it sounds like you’re going to have to do it clip by clip. Premiere’s not well equipped for applying the changes you want to mutliple clips at the same time. What I suggested is workaround, it’s not awfully surprising that it’s a little jumpy.

[Tim Kurkoski]

The error message is slightly off, I’ve seen it do this before. Encore sees something wrong, but the only error message it knows to put up is about the frame size. Something else is likely wrong with the file, such as the pixel aspect ratio, bitrate, frame rate, etc.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Did you manually set the timecode on the tape so that it starts at 1 hour or later? If so, this is a known issue. Suggest you head to the CreativeCow Premiere Pro forum, as this issue has been discussed there quite a bit.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Yes, it does. The tools in the program are relatively basic, but are effective enough if you know how to use them. If you want more complex and sophisticated controls for compositing, you should be using After Effects.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Can you please clarify how you are moving layers? You said:

when i want to put a layer in front of another one

But that doesn’t indicate if you’re dragging layers or what exactly you mean. If you post your step-by-step process, it’s easier to test and see if there’s a better way to do what you want to do.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Right. With this workflow you’ll be working with one large clip. If you want transitions between the clips, set those up in the “child” sequence.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Have you transcoded the AVI files yet? Don’t rely on Encore’s preview to give you a 100% accurate representation of what your disk will be like, especially if you haven’t transcoded everything yet.

Transcode your materials, burn a check disk, and see how it looks then.