Video Editing | Glenn Ward

Adobe Encore – Title Remote Not Set – The answer is here!

No doubt you have come across this error many a time when you test your build in Adobe Encore especially if you have sent the project from Premiere Pro via Adobe dynamic link. This is merely the option to select what happens when the viewer presses the menu button on their remote control. If your project looks like the image displayed here then you don’t need to worry just ignore the error as it’s not really an error. I you have a menu on the disc you will need to select the drop down below and point it at your menu. You can pickwick this or select from the drop down.

Also check out End Action Not Set

AVCHD Video Recording Time / File Size testing

AVCHD – MPEG4 – AVC/H.264

XP AVC – High Quality
VBR, avaerage of 17Mbps
The manual says,
Approximate recording time 900 minutes on a 120GB HD
My test 10 minute file = 1.28 GB on disk

SP AVC – Normal Quality
VBR, avaerage of 12Mbps
The manual says,
Approximate recording time 1260 minutes on a 120GB HD
My test 10 minute file = 892.1 MB on disk

EP AVC – Long Recording
VBR, avaerage of 5Mbps
The manual says,
Approximate recording time 3000 minutes on a 120GB HD
My test 10 minute file = 348.8 MB on disk

Using Camtasia to Screen Capture / Record Video Tutorials

Despite pushing for Adobe Captivate we have installed Camtasia on the edit suites at work for screen capture and tutorial recording. I’m not disappointed though it does the job!

Firstly, the majority of recording the company will need to shoot will be on PC based software so we have bought the PC version and installed VMWare on the Macs. This should improve the workflow from recording to edit. The software is easy to set up and get started with, like most programs.

Load up Camtasia Studio and you will first be faced with an option screen. Choose screen recording.

A small window in the bottom right hand corner of the page will load. In this window you have options for Camera, Audio and Select Area.

Once you hit the record button the window is minimized to the tray and everything you do on screen or within your assigned area is recorded.

When you are done hit the Esc key or go down to the icon in the tray and click to reveal the stop option.

The recording is now in a ‘cache’ state and you now need to decide how you will save the file down.

Click the Save button in the bottom right corner of the window.

Save the files down as an AVI as we will not be editing the video in Camtasia Studio. Organise your clips well so you can quickly identify them and their order later.

Adobe Premiere Pro – Pause video in the timeline by creating a still frame

Unfortunately there is no means to simply pause a video on the first or last frame to get that still to motion effect you often see when multiple interviews are shown on screen at once.

I have found the simplest way to achieve this in Adobe Premiere Pro is to create stills by exporting a tiff then re importing it into you projects portfolio.

Begin by aligning and resizing your clips on the timeline (see how to scale video here) in the order you wish them to appear. At this stage you will see black before and after the clip. Place the playhead on the first frame of the video you would like to begin on a paused / still frame. Choose File > Export and select tiff, be sure on the next drop down to export the tiff in the aspect ratio you are working in. It will make lining the image up a lot easier later. Export as usual using Adobe Media Encoder to the correct folder in your project folder (see setting up a project here) import the file back into your project and place it on the timeline prior to your clip. Adjust the length and play through to see the effect. If you need to scale the tiff do so to complete a smooth still frame to motion effect.

Installed Quicktime Plug ins and Components for video production

After recently having my first issues playing certain video codecs in Quicktime since the installation of Mac OSX Snow Leopard I thought I’d look at my installed Quicktime Components that in the past have allowed me to play most files. Obviously, Quicktime Pro facilitates many options that are grayed out in the regular Quicktime Player. I also have Premiere Pro which now facilitates many HDD camera files, Final Cut which also supports many mpeg formats and VLC Player which seems to open most files.

Flip4Mac Pro WMV
I have the Flip4Mac Studio Pro for WMV playback and export. There is Flip4Mac Player for WMV Playback, Flip4MacPlayer Pro allows you to import WMV’s for conversion to Quicktime formats although this version is not free, Flip4Mac Studio allows you to export WMV’s in the Quicktime environment but using the presets and Flip4Mac Studio Pro which allows you to create you own custom export settings. I would advise purchasing Studio Pro if you support a company that uses Video in Powerpoint as it provides the most versatility.

Visit The Flip4Mac download page here

Perian
Perian, they say is the Swiss army knife for Quicktime Codecs. I’ll be honest, I installed it and as I can play most formats I guess it helps but couldn’t evaluate it completely. Here is the list of codecs Perian supports.

File formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
Video types: MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture
Audio types: Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer I & II Audio, True Audio, DTS Coherent Acoustics, Nellymoser ASAO
AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
Subtitle support for SSA/ASS and SR

Download the Perian Plugin here

REDcode
I have REDcode installed but to be honest I have know hardware that would require using this as yet.

Visit the REDcode website here

DIVX 7 Codec
I have the DIVX 7 Component installed which adds playback of .divx videos and .avi files, there is also a DIVX 7 Pro version which allows you to create your own DIVX files but I have not yet had the need to do so so I don’t have this installed

Visit DIVX here

TechSmith EnSharpen
Since I have installed Camtasia on the Edit suites at work I have installed the TechSmith Ensharpen Codec to reduce the problems I might come across saving out screen capture video created in Camtasia and saving them to Quicktime to then import for edit into Adobe Premiere Pro.

Visit the TechSmith EnSharpen Codec page here

I’m pretty sure I have the XVID Component installed too but again am not sure whether this ever needs pulling out of the bag and if it does it probably runs nicely in the background.

For more Qucktime Components visit Apple

Comparison DV Footage captured using Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro and iMovie

I had presumed that Premiere Pro would capture video from a device in much the same way as Final Cut Pro or iMovie. After having a lot of trouble with the quality of exports using Adobe Media Encoder, I had a look into videos captured by different programs to see if this could be effecting the final output. I decided to look at the same piece of footage from the same DV tape recorded from a Sony HVRDR60. I recorded the video and placed them side by side on the desktop. Below you can see the Premiere Pro Clip (Mov) on the Left and the iMovie clip (DV) on the Right. If I’m honest, I could not see much in it to the naked eye. The contrast might possibly be slightly better on the iMovie clip but even zoomed right in. As there was no differences to see I had a look at the figures, the DV clip captured at a much higher bit rate and produced a higher file size. This would suggest that if there was more movement in the footage then the DV capture would handle this far better than the MOV, although the file size would be almost double.

I am drawing no conclusions from this test apart from, if my premiere pro captured footage are ever not up to scratch then I shall turn back to Final Cut Pro or iMovie to capture my footage. Take from this what you will!

Comparing the .Mov footage and the .Dv

Premiere Pro / iMovie

Adobe Premiere Pro Captured Footage

Format: DV, 720 x 576 (768 x 576), Millions 16-bit Integer (Little Endian), Stereo, 48.000 kHz
FPS: 24.37
Data Size: 45.4 MB
Data Rate: 30.34 Mbit/s

Ireland 09

iMovie Captured Footage

Format: DV, 720 x 576 (768 x 576), MillionsDV, Stereo, 48.000 kHz
FPS: 25
Data Size: 97.1 MB
Data Rate: 57.60 Mbit/s

Ireland 09

Apple Quicktime removes the Mpeg2 playback component

Apple, what are you doin to me? QuickTime.. the one program I thought I could trust in the world of video. The program that I thought I could make play most videos has slowly been getting worse as apple moves their programs more towards the consumer market than the professional but this takes the buiscuit.

Why have you removed the MPEG2 playback component? I have hundreds of videos produced by the company and external agencies which now apparently are not movie files and it really messes up the playback of .tod files which up until a couple of weeks ago I played fine with the JVC Everio plugin.

Their is a solution! Apple will sell the MPeg2 playback component back to you for a bargain $19.99 but why? Who made this ridiculous decision to reduce the power of Apple programs! Come on let’s not turn into windows media player! Come to think of it, Powerpoint supports mpeg2 and no other mpeg codec.

Please ReTweet until someone at apple reads this.

Adobe Premiere Pro – Editing Audio Channels

For those used to editing their audio channels in Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro is slightly different. On the timeline the channels are merged into one track and not a left and a right. To edit the left and right you must double click the audio to bring it up in the Audio Mixer tab, here you will see this window.

If your edit requires further audio mixing make sure you change this setting at the point of setting up the sequence from stereo to 3.1, 5.1 etc

Your Audio Mixer tab will then look like this,

Adobe Premiere Pro – Scratch disc options, Same as Project, Documents or [Custom]

When setting up a project on Adobe Premiere Pro, the second tab on the New Project window presents you with the option to set your Scratch Disc. This is where all your supporting files including your videos will be saved to your Hard Drive or external drive.

Saving to your Documents folder only seems to cause issues. If you know you will have multiple projects open the files will get lost very easily lost or even corrupted. If you use a machine with multiple log ins then projects will not open when signed in as a different user. I recommend using the Same as Project option or if you wish to be even tidier create a separate folder within your project folder to separate them further.

This also means that if you need to move your project onto a different machine to work you can. All the relevant files can be transferred by copying one project folder without breaking any links to supporting files.

Understanding the difference between Interlaced and Progressive scan video

When purchasing a video camera or choosing your project settings in your editing software you may come across the dimensions followed by an i or a p for example 1080i or 1080p. This stands for interlaced and progressive scan.

The difference between the two are as follows. If you imagine you video is built like a brick wall, in layers known as fields. In an interlaced video each field is offset not dissimilar to the brick wall. You have probably noticed this during moments of fast motion where you see lines like a comb at the edge of the moving subject.

Interlaced video should be deinterlaced for your final product. In Final Cut this is done by applying a deinterlace effect, in premiere pro it can be done as your send your media to Adobe Media Encoder.

Progressive scan video already has the fields aligned resulting in a much crisper image and less things to think about at edit. Be sure if you are working with progressive video not to deinterlace your video when you export it. It will reduce the quality.