[Tod Hopkins]

In the virtual world 24fps and 23.98fps are effectively the same thing. The distinction is an electronic one. In software, you are only changing the presumed playout rate against the real-world clock. You are only changing metadata, like changing between drop and non-drop. There are times when this presumption matters a lot in production, especially when synchronizing video with audio because audio relies on the clock, not frames, but when you drop a 24fps clip into a 23.98fps timeline, nothing changes except the presumed playout rate. If you are producing for television, your playout will be 23.98 (or 59.94 which is the same sync rate), and if you are producing for computers or theatrical, your playout will be 24fps, so if you want to know the actual length of your production, you want to work in the appropriate timeline.

[Tod Hopkins]

Not unless there is a bug in the software, and I DO see references to such bugs, i.e. output setting not matching actual output for various versions of Premiere.

I’d still consider other explanations. For instance, the encode “Profile” setting can limit bitrate settings. Premiere does not allow infinite variation. Changing some settings after setting the bitrate can cause Premiere to reset the bitrate. Also make sure you are comparing apples to apples. For example, the CBR setting may limit the entire bitstream, video and audio. (I’ve never checked this in Premiere). I’ve had high-bitrate, multi-channel audio foul my back-of-the-envelope calculations. Also mixing “Mbps” and “MBps” can throw you by a factor of 8. That’s smaller than what you are seeing, but could be part of the explanation.

Also, “constant bitrate” is not always constant in the absolute sense. We think CBR means that if a frame does not need the full allocation to encode, it gets padded with empty bits up to the limit. In practice, it’s more complicated than that and resulting streams do actually vary from encoder to encoder. If your stream is very simple (lot’s of black or solid color for instance), it would not shock me if the resulting file was not 50mbps over the entire file. The encoder simply determined it did not need that allocation. The stream is still “constant” but the encoder used far fewer bits than you allocated.

[Tod Hopkins]

Adjustment layers should trim normally. I would assume the problem is something unrelated. Locked track. Disabled clip. Sync lock. Nesting. Possibly the specific effect applied to the layer.

[Tod Hopkins]

If you can’t drag these effects onto a transition but you can drag them onto a clip then these are not technically “transition” effects from the point of view of Premiere. They may be intended to create a visual transition, but technically they are clip effects, meant to be applied as an overlay on a higher track. Think traveling mattes. That’s what the nesting/adjustment layer instructions are for, applying an overlay clip effect above your transition.

[Tod Hopkins]

If you are playing from a thumb drive, that might be your problem.
Cheap thumbs are slooow. The TV is probably spending that time buffering from
the thumb drive. Use a faster thumb drive or better yet, an SSD. I am assuming that you are using your TV’s internal media player in any case. Check your manual for the TV’s internal media player specs. These are often more restrictive than you might expect.

My general recommendation is to use an h.264 “Vimeo” 4k export preset to make playback files for any device. These presets are both high quality and highly compatible. In fact, I upload to Vimeo so I can use the Vimeo app for playback to my TV rather than schlepping the files around. In my case, I’m playing from a Fire player, but many players and TVs have a Vimeo app.

[Tod Hopkins]

I would suggest the Blackmagic Intensity Pro Shuttle if you are trying to get into a Thunderbolt only Mac. You will obviously need the Thunderbolt version of the Shuttle. This is probably the sweet spot in quality versus price. It’s about $250 I believe. The other issue with digitizing VHS is that will often need “stabilization” or more precisely, Time Base Correction. The symptom is simply that FCP (or the Intensity actually) won’t be able to lock onto the signal out of the VHS. VHS signals are crap. Old TVs were extremely tolerant. The signal may come and go, look “unstable,” or you may just get nothing. If your player has good stabilization, you may not need an external TBC. Players that have component outputs tend to have good stabilization since these are higher quality pro-sumer players. Most “professional” VHS machines have at least basic TBC (the Panasonic and JVC lines). You can probably find these for rental, or even purchase used, but they are not cheap. If you need something else, there are relatively inexpensive VHS “stabilizers” all over the place that will generally do the job if you don’t want to spring for a more expensive full Time Base Corrector.

[Tod Hopkins]

https://www.brightsign.biz/digital-signage-products/software/brightauthor

[Tod Hopkins]

The Brightsign software is pretty simple and will probably be sufficient for what you describe.

[Tod Hopkins]

FYI, Intuiface is an HTML5 development environment and is compatible with Brightsign and other HTML5 based media players. However, what you describe can likely be done using only the Brightsign provided authoring tools.

Cheers,

tod

[Tod Hopkins]

HTML5. Basically you’re going to create a web page and deliver this via a dedicated “digital signage” media player. You could use any computer, or even an Apple Pi board, and any web development environment that handles video, but using a purpose-built media player like a Brightsign (currently the market leader) is far simpler and more robust. Most come with development software that will allow you to create simple pages and interactivity without having to use a third-party HTML development tool.

If you need more than HTML5, you’re most likely looking at Unity.

Cheers,

tod