Lost Video Island

Hobbes

Yes... I acquired a Premiere of my own.. can't stand the stupid lagging of that Movie Maker, but now I have a set of NEW problems

I can't get the stupid files to show up!! Whenever I drag a video clip, say, from episode 1-04 or something, into the project bar and click for a preview, the picture turns into a flickering black and gray (like that classic look you get when the cable feed is broken and all you have is a loud, static field), I don't get sound either...
What's weird is if I preview the clip in the OTHER preview window, it shows up fine. And music files show up just fine in the project menu too!
If it helps, my video files are 624X352 size, AVI, MPEG Layer-3 audio format,
23 fps, 139kbps (data rate), sample size= 12 bit, compression= XVID

JakeNRoland · Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 9:05 pm Post subject:

Hobbes, I use Premiere so MAYBE I can be of some help.

If I had to guess I'd say Premiere is not liking the particular codec that your videos are in. Premiere is VERY picky that way.

If you're using the same source files I use (the LOL HDTV ones) then you'll have to do one of two things for you video to work smoothly in Premiere.

One, find a video conversion program and convert the file to basic AVI 720x480. Conversion programs take A LONG TIME to render.

Two (and this is what I now do after being frustrated with file conversion programs), IF you have an video out component on your computer, use it. You have to set up up you monitor properties to recognize two monitors. The way you do that is this, turn everything off (comp, monitor and whatever you're using for external monitor, I use my camcorder). Hook up the video cable between the computer's video out and the new thing's video in. Turn on the new thing first. Then turn on the computer. Once the computer is fully on, if you don't see anything on your new device you'll have to go into some advanced settings under Control Setup (I can give you further advice on that later if you need it).

Once the two monitors are set up this is what I do. I play the file in WMP and find the clips I want to use. When I get to that clip I simply hit record on my camcorder and continue with that until all the clips I want to use are collected.

Then you have to feed those clips back into the computer using your firewire cable or whatever you typically use. For me, this is a "simple" way of converting the file to something Premiere is happy with.

LOL. Sounds like a lot. If you have any further questions let me know.
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No, I'm Laura's twin. And Hobbes is my Jedi Padawan. The force is strong in that one. You guys rock!!

Hobbes · Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 9:50 pm Post subject:

Thanks a million Jake!!
Argggg... looks like I've got a lot of work to do...

Hobbes · Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 11:08 pm Post subject:

bloody hell >.<
I don't suppose a digital camera with a video recording funtion would suffice for that 2nd monitor thing, would it?
if not, then know any good converters...

I've tried a couple, and well, I'm not even sure if they do what I need to do...

Why why why didn't Adobe just make a less-sensitive program?

JakeNRoland · Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 11:56 pm Post subject:

lol... yeah, it's frustrating. There very well may be an easier way. I know I'm not too thrilled with my method and everytime I do it those are my exact thoughts, "THERE MUST BE AN EASIER WAY!!" I think the conversion program I used to use was Cucusoft AVI or something like that. It did a fair job, but it takes FOREVER. You're looking at a minimum of 12hrs. It's crazy. And it slows down your computer so you can't really do that and too many other things. Good luck.
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No, I'm Laura's twin. And Hobbes is my Jedi Padawan. The force is strong in that one. You guys rock!!

Hobbes · Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 12:24 am Post subject:

argggggggggg.... maybe I'll just go back to WMM

Enchirito · Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 7:27 am Post subject:

I don't use Premire but there's GOT to be a easier way than going through all that! You probably just need to find a certain codec or plug-in for Premire and the LOL AVI's will import just fine. I use Ulead Mediastudio and they import fine (except for an audio sync problem).
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Charmax · Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 8:39 am Post subject:

I use Adobe Premiere and I also have the hdtv-LOL episodes. I coverted all my episodes to mpeg using tmpgenc I can recommend it. It only takes around an hour to convert a full episode but this will vary. I know some people say premiere doesn't like mpegs but I've never had that problem. Also the free version of tmpgenc only lets you use mpeg 1 sizing (352x288 for PAL and 352x240 NTSC) This means there will be some loss of quality if you attempt to output to a larger screen size.
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~~Charmax~~

Hobbes · Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 11:06 pm Post subject:

well I found a miraculous way to fix the problem... I just changed the file extension from .avi to .mpg and it worked fine....

Now some new problems though: when I preview the movie in the project preview window, it skips a lot of frames at a time, which makes it very annoying during fast sequences. I looked for the setting to change this, but couldn't find anything, any luck with that?

And another: how do I set a clip to be zoomed in at a certain point from the start and slowly zooms out to the regular image at the end? or vice-versa?

LAURA4LAD · Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 11:20 pm Post subject:

my premiere hasn't come yet (i think the big M ordered it off amazon)--hobbes you are making me very nervous about this LOL-l
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Jake's Twin

Hobbes · Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 11:42 pm Post subject:

I just always have really bad luck with new programs... I always seem to get some freaky error that nobody has ever gotten before. It makes me sad

Charmax · Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:06 am Post subject:

Hobbes it's good you got the file working but I don't know how you did it because it's still an avi even though you changed the extension.

The skipping frames sounds like it might be a "frame rate problem" the hdtv-lol files are 24fps whereas premiere has a default setting of 30fps. When you first set up a project you get the chance to customise your settings and as far as possible these should match your input file.

For help with the zooming in or out - In premiere click on the effects tab in the monitor window it should say motion and opacity. Open up the motion effect as shown in the image below -

Where it says scale, change that to a value above 100 then you need to click the little clock symbol shown in the image above to set a keyframe. Then you move along the timeline a bit and change the value again to less than the original keyframe. Keep trying that until you have got a zoom you are happy with. Good luck!
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~~Charmax~~

Hobbes · Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:18 am Post subject:

Argggggg!! that's exactly what I was doing before >.< only I turned off the effects for the second keyframe >.< thanks Charmax!

As for the FPS thing, when I saved the file to a projct, it didn't skip any frames at all, just in the preview menu. Is it still the problem?