[Tod Hopkins]

I have always kept my project and media on the same drives. Projects and media are not accessed at the same time so it’s not really a performance issue. Always set auto-save location to different drive from the project or you have no redunancy.

Multiple drives are better for media, allowing for parallel access and spreading the burden, but really it’s about money. WD portable drives are the lowest rung on the pole. Slow and unreliable. Speeds maxing at about 120MBps, barely enough to do simple 1080p jobs. You can step up to RAID 0 drives that contain two physical drives in one enclosure. OWC Extreme and G-Tech G-Raids are examples of these. They get you to 200MBps+ (and they will publish this throughput spec). They also use better physical drives inside. More expensive. Next step up is full RAID 5 drives, putting 4 or more physical drives into one enclosure. This puts you in the $600+ range for 4TB. This provides even more speed as well as some data redundancy. They will get you to 350MBps+ with spinning drives depending on how many physical drives and their quality. With SSDs inside you’ll scream! The quality of the drives inside matters a bit less because even cheap drives in RAID 5 are faster and safer, but the better the drives inside, the faster and more reliable.

Best price/performance comes from SSDs, which are way down in price, but still not as cheap at large scale. 1TB SSDs at about $100 dollars are very price competitive and at 400MBs+ each, faster than most options. The downside is capacity. It’s harder to connect 4, 1TB SSDs than one 4TB RAID enclosure, but it is cheaper.

Cheers,

tod

[Tod Hopkins]

This should be a non-issue for you. In modern, computer based video there is generally no practical difference between “24fps” and “23.976.” You can switch one to the other without any loss. Historically 24fps is the film rate and 23.976 was the matching video rate. The difference matters a lot when you are shooting film or if you are doing complex synchronization between multiple systems. Converting from one to the other should be lossless though you will change the running time against real time slightly.

In analog days, to go from film to video meant you had to go from 24.00fps to 23.976fps, and this caused problems with synchronization. In the digital age, the difference has become almost insignificant, especially in computer based editing. It’s important to be aware, but it rarely matters.

You should, however, be consistent.

[Tod Hopkins]

Edit using Adobe’s “Proxy” functions.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/how-to/proxy-media.html

This will give you the performance advantage of editing using a lower resolution while preserving the full quality original for rendering and mastering. Proxy editing is a critical skill to learn if you want to work with high-quality original, unless you want to through a lot more money at your hardware.

[Tod Hopkins]

For export to a playable file I would recommend mp4 h.264, or select the appropriate Vimeo preset. 20Mb/s. For archival mastering the pro choice would be ProRes HQ but for your long term archive purposes h.264 or h.265 at 40-50Mbs might be more realistic and archive quality. And keep your original if you can unconverted. Make sure you are matching your original frame rate from camera to export. Probably 30p (29.97) but if your camera can shoot it consider 60p for sports. Your exports can still be 30p as it’s an even multiple but you’ll be able to do smooth half speed in sequence and you’ll be better future proofed.

Also be careful about frame size. 4k comes in different sizes. You are probably shooting UHD 3840×2160. If you simply create your sequence from a clip the sequence will be properly set up. Project settings don’t matter.

Have fun!

[Tod Hopkins]

Get Info, Open With, Use selector to change to app you want. Then press the Change All button below the selector.

In theory you can change an individual file only, but recently I’ve been unable to make this stick for Premiere. Might be unique to me. Had to Change All.

[Tod Hopkins]

Try opening in Preview, or other image editor of your choice, and resave as PNG or TIFF. If that works, you can resave as JPG if you like, but PNG and TIFF are better for editing.

Check the pixel size. If the image is very large, in excess of 6k dimensions, it may open as black in the viewer in Premiere, regardless of format. The actual size limit is somewhat dependent on your system specs. Often you can cut these into a sequence and they work, but they will require rendering and drag your sequence performance way down. On my systems the display limit is about 6K and the practical sequence limit is around 8k, though I have cut 10k images into sequences. I don’t know exactly how this applies to AE.

Cheers,

tod

[Tod Hopkins]

Study film-making as a film-maker, not an editor. Cutting is easy. Editing is hard. Because you said “better editor” not “how do I edit” let’s focus on what might actually make you better, rather than simply teaching you software skills. Probably not what you meant, but think big.

The editor is the last craftsperson in the chain. They make or break the show. I would argue the the editor is as important as the director. I might be biased, but if you can’t communicate with Directors as an equal partner, you will never be a good editor.

AFI, University, Books, local unions and film organizations. Find classes at take them.

Edit. Try to replicate what you see. Not visually, but artistically. Practice.

Walter Murch, In the Blink of an Eye (book). I suggest also looking him up on IMDB and watching his classics first so you can see how he applies the concepts. Godfather and Apocalypse Now would be the obvious films to start with.

Study other editors. Check the editor of every program you watch and then look for other works by them and try to understand the mark they’ve put on the work. It can be hard because editors, especially very good ones, are chameleons, adapting to the intentions of the director, but learning to see the mark they leave is invaluable.

Study visual composition. Selecting the shots and understanding why they work is half the job. The other half is timing. While editors rarely create the visuals, except for graphics, knowing what works visually, and why, is critical. If you can’t tell a good shot from a bad shot, and you don’t understand what the photographer or graphic artist is trying to accomplish, you will never be a good editor, much less a great one.

Okay, I neglected sound. If you want to be great, you need to understand sound, and particularly, music. I suggest studying modern Hans Zimmer (composer) movies if you really want to understand the power of sound. Dark Knight is amazing, edited by Lee Smith. As previously mentioned, many directors and editors stick together, Christopher Nolan and Lee Smith, Scorcese and Schoonmaker.

As far as online help goes, I like Moviola.com. It’s free and it’s more focused on improving your general artistic skills than your simple software skills. And if you are looking for simple, direct, practical training, Larry Jordan is the man. There’s also Lynda.com which has quite a bit of training and is available for free through some library systems and many schools if you are a student.

And finally, Masterclass. Not cheap up front, but if you want to listen to the best talk about their craft, it’s a great deal in the long run. Scorcese and Hans Zimmer both have classes.

Good luck,

tod

[Tod Hopkins]

I see two separate questions. Is it a good idea to use a “TV” as a data display monitor? Sure, especially for a video edit system. It should be UHD.

Do you need a video output device like a Blackmagic or AJA card? Yes if you are mastering traditional video. No if you are only doing non-standard internet media and you do not need to master to a video standard. The purpose of a video output card is to convert the RGB signal to a calibrated video signal for precise monitoring and mastering (or simply to have a full screen, dedicated monitor for video only). It’s really a question of precision. You can (and should) calibrate your data monitors for video, but this is not as precise as converting your signal to a true video signal and then monitoring it properly as a video signal.

In either case you DO need to calibrate all your monitors properly for your intended distribution path whether this is social media or traditional video. That’s actually the more important issue, but too complicated to get into in this thread.

[Tod Hopkins]

I’ve used Handbrake in the past to convert variable to constant bitrate. This is great if you want to stay with MPEG, but Handbrake does not (easily) convert to edit formats, only forms of MPEG, which are not ideal, especially for long clips.

I’d start with Apple Compressor if you are on Mac and you have it, and convert to Quicktime ProRes. Use a version of Compressor that is compatible with the OS you will be using to edit. Don’t do the conversions on a Sierra system for editing in Catalina, or vice-versa. There are unrelated issues due to the changes in Quicktime over the past several years.

For Windows I recommend Pegasys TMPEG Video Master Works. https://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tvmw7.html I’m not sure what your best output format would be, but this program has solved a LOT of MPEG problems for me over the years so it’s my go-to when other programs fail. It’s also relatively cheap and easy.

Cheers,

tod

[Tod Hopkins]

I don’t have direct advice as I have not dealt with this specific problem yet, however.

First, Zoom sync is inherently sloppy. Evaluate the original files on direct playback. Is this better or just as sloppy? If it’s just as sloppy, then you may have to clean sync manually. I was just provided a set of files where sync was simply sliding all over. There was no real sync. I adjusted each clip to the best compromise for that clip.

That said, Premiere is terrible with variable bitrate files in any case. You need to convert to a constant bitrate format, preferably an edit format (ProRes, DNxHD, Cineform). Since the Zoom files are nominally 30fps, I would convert to constant 29.97. Test some longer clips with several convertors, say Encode, Handbrake, and Compressor if you have them. See if any of these results in better sync. If you have others, try them. I doubt anything will be perfect per my first comment.

If you can get edit intermediates that look good, that will solve the problem in Premiere.

Another option would be to convert to double-system. Rip the audio and resync clips on the timelime, pulling up as desired, and reexporting this.