[Vincent Rosati]

Try…
Edit/Preferences/File Handling…/Update Links:Automatically

Vince

[Vincent Rosati]

Maybe, right-click on the Premiere monitor to ensure that you have it set to High Quality.

Make sure your project rendering settings are set to Uncompressed, it might default to CinePak or something?

Check to see if ‘Scale Clips’ is enabled in your project settings.

When you drop your clips in the timeline, does a red line appear along the top of the track. If so, the clip needs to be pre-rendered before accurate preview. simply press Enter.

You indicated a frame size of 720×480. Your issue could be one of Pixel Aspect Ratios.
If your project is either DV (720×480) Full Screen or Widescreen and your source is 720×480 Square Pixel, that could also be part of the problem.
If you are creating Square Pixel graphics for DV the frame sizes should be 864×480 for Wide or 720×534 for Full. Than, they can be scaled to 720×480 in Premiere (with the transform filter) or in Photoshop.

Vince

[Vincent Rosati]

It is a misconception that you cannot apply effects to live type.
Select the type object, than go to the Appearance palette. Click on the drop-down and choose ‘Add new Fill’ (or Stroke).
This places an effect on top the objects existing components.
That is to say, if the text is black and you add a new fill layer with a gradient, the black is still there, it’s just underneath the effect.

Hope this helps

Vince

[Vincent Rosati]

There used to be an invert-color option. Now the ‘Recolor Object’ option is available when you select vector objects, It’s a greyed-out color wheel on the menu.

I haven’t used it, so I can’t say more.
This function looks like it might be actionable, in case you need to batch process.

Just some ideas.

Vince

[Vincent Rosati]

I don’t have the answer to your question, but I laughed at ‘What’s a perfectionist to do?’.
Anyway, here is an article that thoroughly discusses this type of issue, and gives some explanation as to why there are conflicting ideas regarding frame sizes.
https://lipas.uwasa.fi/~f76998/
Look in ‘Essentials’ and ‘Quick Guide’.

Vince

[Vincent Rosati]

Generally, you’ll want to encode for delivery directly out of Premiere. Some people will add unnecessary steps into their process that add additional generations of degradation.
That is to say, if you are using DV source, you would edit in Premiere than export the compressed file. If you need to do further processing, you should export the clip as ‘Uncompressed’ (lossless).

Scaling in Premiere should be done with Effects/Distort/Transform, not the clip’s motion parameter.
Up-scaling hurts, but it’s sometimes necessary. I believe Digital Anarchy Resizer is available for Premiere. I’ve used it in After Effects and it’s great.

As far as maintaining quality, it sounds like you know exactly what you need to be aware of ‘re-sizing issues, compression issues, and so forth.’.

Also, sometimes adding the Gaussian Blur filter (or any filter set to ‘0’ will improve the look of certain clips, especially on Premiere titles. This step is unnecessary if you have already applied the Transform filter.

Also consider intentionally ‘damaging’ your clip by adding noise or overlays, in a situation where you want to hide some ugliness.

Just some ideas

Vince

[Vincent Rosati]

Here’s a thread about optimizing your system for editing…
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/205/871353#871355
The discussed multiple-drive setup doesn’t address the use of an external drive, so you might want to experiment.
Maybe you just need to defragment. I’ve been using PerfectDisk.

It sounds like you’re setting in/out points when you capture. This is good. It’s best to clip your shots as you capture.
The other files that you mentioned which cannot be clipped… sounds like these are files, they’ve already been captured. You can’t split this file without recompressing. The only way to do a lossless split would be to, first, decompress.

2-3 Gig files. They are large, but not too crazy. I like to capture clips as tight as they can be, and I’ll never let a clip be larger than a DVD, so I can backup all of my source material. A lot of small clips is better than a few large clips.
My first capture was a single 20GB dv file. It worked, but it was painful, and I couldn’t back it up.

A note about processing your effects in AE, consider exporting all of your effects shots as uncompressed. Huge files, but they are lossless, and premiere loves uncompressed AVIs.

Vince

[Vincent Rosati]

If you get a chance, fill out your profile with your hardware/software specs. It helps us to better tailor our responses.

I offer a suggestion to your sync issue in my last response to your previous thread…
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/205/872205#872211

We’ll get there 🙂

Vince

[Vincent Rosati]

I’m not sure about the ‘repeat frame (ABBCD)’, it looks like a ‘Pull-Down‘ procedure.

Effects in Premiere – Absolutely! You just need to be aware of pitfalls. Trial and error.
Premiere is ideal for editing audio and video, color corrections, leveling, transitions, compositing pre-rendered effects, and encoding.
AE does a better job of creating effects, text, and deinterlacing. However, There could be an issue importing, it might have a problem with MPEG audio, depending on the codec.

After Effects is the ideal place to do video effects, it’s like Photoshop for video. The AE forum here is top notch.

I often recommend decompression prior to import. I use AVS Video Converter for this. It eliminates codec, sync, and encoding issues.
It also improves application speed, accuracy, and overall performance as you are not forcing your app to decompress on the fly for preview or encoding.

Don’t worry about too many questions, look at this thread…
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/205/871306#871348
It covers some of these issues and some issues you will soon encounter.

Vince

[Vincent Rosati]

I just noticed, you indicated 1080i. The ‘i’ means Interlaced.

Generally, if you are going to deinterlace, it should be done first. This is especially true if you are going to be compositing effects or doing titles.
Note, you can create interlaced titles and effects, but I try to avoid that.

This page has a decent description of what you are dealing with, regarding interlacing and playback…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDV

I can’t offer more advice to your capture settings. Although, there are Third-party plugins that may help, such as Main Concept. Also, I recall Adobe used to offer an update to older versions of premiere that enhanced capture and encoding options, perhaps there is a package that is available for your version of premiere.

I would try to start a new project to see if other capture options are available, as you suggested.

If desktop video is going to be typical in your process, it’s worth getting used to deinterlacing, and experimenting with the different methods used to do this.
Premiere has a method, but it’s barely adequate. A plugin would be better.
After Effects has much better deinterlacing. There are also some very powerful plugins for AE – FieldsKit, MagicBullet, etc.
DVFilm Maker is a standalone product, it’s really nice and it can batch process! https://www.dvfilm.com/maker/

Vince