[Tim Robinson]

I wrote a cow blog on the unsupported avi issues on mac.

There is no easy way to edit in premiere. I convert them quickly in after effects to Animation .MOV files. Since your already using JPEG, why not quicktime photojpg? If you in a hurry, I’d use whatever tool helps you get the job done faster.

I hope that adobe could someday fix this issue (playing in after effects, but not in premiere) but apparently this dates back to CS3. I’ve only used the mac w/ CS4 since its new to us.

Tim Robinson
tim@erobinsons.com
Pride-Mobility-Products
Corporate Video Editor

[Tim Robinson]

I hope your camera can playback what it shot! 😉 If you have a progressive TV (flatscreen/widescreen), your 24p might look smoother than your 60i footage.

Tim Robinson
tim@erobinsons.com
Pride-Mobility-Products
Corporate Video Editor

[Tim Robinson]

You have to first figure out what you can afford and work backwards. Instead of looking for a format that never fails, I would look for something to give you a back up. I shoot my important footage on both tape and firewire drives (firestore). This way in case the digitial footage has a hickup, you have a backup. This saved me a few times shooting action footage. New memory card storage is even more secure.

I would look more at your recording formats than camera bells and whistles, if recording is more mission critical.

Your clientele seems they’d be happy with anything, but law firms don’t want to hear “i missed it”. (For that I would also shoot with a second, cheap, minidv camera JUST IN CASE)

Tim Robinson
tim@erobinsons.com
Pride-Mobility-Products
Corporate Video Editor

[Tim Robinson]

Its up to personal preference. 24p will give it a film impression. 60i will look like video/real life. My 2 pennies… if your shooting scenery 24p (which I assume you are on this trip). If your shooting more people, like kids/family, I’d shoot 60i.

If you have CS4, why not edit in AVCHD in a 24p frame rate?

If your footage doesn’t import right (showing up 29.97) you can always select all your footage in the bin, right click and select “interpret footage” and change the rate to 23.976 (24p).

If you have a 24p timeline and footage interpreted right, you should have no issues editing.

Tim Robinson
tim@erobinsons.com
Pride-Mobility-Products
Corporate Video Editor

[Tim Robinson]

I think your first problem is trying to export using “export” instead of adobe media encoder. That will allow you to pick MPEG 2. There’s also a ton more presets. You can also preview your output before you export. (click the output tab)

Your other issue with direct export and black bars was the fact your using an aspect pixel ratio of .9 (dv) instead of 1.0 (square)(which is default for 1280 x 720).

Tim Robinson
tim@erobinsons.com
Pride-Mobility-Products
Corporate Video Editor

[Tim Robinson]

Did you install quicktime?

Tim Robinson
tim@erobinsons.com
Pride-Mobility-Products
Corporate Video Editor

[Tim Robinson]

Explain more about what you mean by “black bars at top and bottom or some have black corner” — are you exporting widescreen and getting it letter boxed? And what do you mean by “black corner”?

Tim Robinson
tim@erobinsons.com
Pride-Mobility-Products
Corporate Video Editor

[Tim Robinson]

My m2t issues seemed to stem to my video card in CS4. When I tried importing m2t files they just showed up as pending and locked up the system. After downloading the latest video card drivers, they loaded quickly and didn’t stay pending longer than it took to index them.

Tim Robinson
tim@erobinsons.com
Pride-Mobility-Products
Corporate Video Editor

[Tim Robinson]

CS3 used to refuse if it didn’t match. Is there anyway to turn it up, even if unviewable to install?

Tim Robinson
tim@erobinsons.com
Pride-Mobility-Products
Corporate Video Editor

[Tim Robinson]

I’m assuming your doing a standard broadcast spot? If so create a new timeline DV NTSC in 29.97 interlaced. Then import your footage and resize it to fit the way you want. I haven’t had an issue with having to interlace 720p frames (which you can do by right clicking on the footage and selecting “Field Options…” then “Interlace consecutive frames”).

View your DV video on a TV monitor out (firewire device hooked up to a tv?) if you have one. If not, make sure you just view your program in 100%. Don’t zoom in or it will look bad. It won’t look amazing on your computer, because you monitors are high res and not interlaced like standard TV broadcasts.

Tim Robinson
tim@erobinsons.com
Pride-Mobility-Products
Corporate Video Editor