My new camera shoots only h.264 can I edit with Premeire CS3

[surffx]

Hey everyone, thanks for you help in advance. Your knowledge is invaluable.

I am not new to editing but I am in the habbit of buying cheap camera's but expensive editing software which has cause me issues in the past.

I just bought a Samsung HMX-H200BN which only shoots h.264.

My question is, am I going to be able to edit in Adobe Premeire CS3 smoothly? Or is the video window going to be all choppy? (I think something like this happened last time I switched cameras).

Do I need to convert the video before bringing it into Premeire?
What would I use to convert it?
What should I convert it to?


Thanks!!!

[redwudz]

One option is a intermediary codec like Neo Scene, but it's a bit expensive. Or maybe the freeware Avid DNxHD. But others here with CS3 experience may have better suggestions.

[surffx]

ah man...it's just like I though. CS3 doesn't even recognize the file. So i used MP4Cam2AVI to convert the file and but now in CS3 it plays all jumpy.

AAAAAARRRGGGG!!! This happens every time I get a new camera.

Any more ideas...please help.

[budwzr]

Mpeg2 should work just fine. Try AVIDemuxer.

The idea is to let out most of the compression so the software/hardware doesn't have to struggle to decode on the fly.

[vhelp]

because most of these cameras use proprietory container writers that are often troublesome to work with in most tool suites, sometimes its best to just extract the a/v out of the current container and repackage it into a more suitable one that your target editor likes.

there are plenty of such utilities that can do this, like ffmpeg, mp4box, mp4muxer, tsMuxerGui, avidemuxer and so on to name a few.

some examples

samsung -> mp4muxer -> .mp4
samsung -> mp4muxer -> .mov
samsung -> mp4muxer -> .mkv
samsung -> mp4muxer -> .avi
samsung -> mp4muxer -> .mpg

etc.

substitute mp4muxer with whatever tools mentioned above. just experiment until you find something that works best.

[surffx]

Thanks for all your help, sorry for all the hand holding, but it is really helping.

I am getting close with Avidemux. I am now converting to avi and it plays ok in premiere but not that great.

My question now is that in the timeline it shows that it still needs to be rendered and I'm not sure why. Once I do render it, then it plays great.

But why does it need to be rendered? My project settings are 1280 720 16:9 (1.0) 29.97frames. When I look at the properties of the video file they match. 1280 720 (1.0) 29.97 frames.

So why do I need to render it and why does it play so much better in the time line when I do.

Thanks again!

[budwzr]

There's a difference in the files.

You didn't mention or describe what you rendered to.

[poisondeathray]

So why do I need to render it and why does it play so much better in the time line when I do.

When "render" in Premiere, it usually means a "render preview". This renders to an intermediate format on your scratch disk; it's meant for a lower quality preview, that's easier on performance. Usually it's mpeg-2 I-frame , but you can change it in the options

What are your system specs ?

What type of "AVI" are you using ?

[surffx]

specs = pentium duo 2.0 GHz with 3 gig ram on Windows xp. (I know weak sauce)

Thanks for that info about what I render to. I was under the impression that it rendered to your output settings of the project. I didn't realize that was in a seperate tab. It is in fact mpeg-2 I-frame.

Well thanks for all the replys but I am finding out I really need to learn alot more.

Here is somting funny that happened. After hours of messing around with different formats and not having much luck with any of them I downloaded a trial version of PowerDirector for fun. I imported my h.264 video and it played on the time line with NO issues. I made a couple of quick edits and exported it to an avi file and it played great.

Now how come a $100 dollar program (PowerDirector) can do that and a $1000 program (Premeire Pro CS3) cannot.

I really don't want to switch over to PowerDirector...it has a cheesey interface and doesn't look like it has everything I need for advanced edits.

[poisondeathray]

As suggested earlier, if your "intermediate" format is mpeg2 i-frame, you can probably edit it fairly smoothly
(ie. encode to mpeg2 i-frame instead of "AVI")

Another option is using proxy editing or "offline editing" . This is when you make a low quality, low res version of the clips to edit, then swap back in the final good copy upon final render. Google this, there are dozens of tutorials and posts about this .The problem is I think h.264 isn't supported natively in CS3 . So you would still need another "good copy" version

[surffx]

poison: when I converted to mpeg-2 I was seeing alot of quality loss is that normal or was I doing it wrong? I was using Avidemux.

[poisondeathray]

you can try lower quantizer or higher bitrate settings to improve quality

to maximize quality and editing smoothness, you would choose I-frame only

use mpeg2-avcodec : quantizer 2, GOP size 1

(GOP size 1 means I-frame only)

[surffx]

Thanks I will give that a shot.

[budwzr]

Why don't you try out Vegas Movie Studio?

Don't let the name fool you, it's the same as Vegas Pro, but some of the more esoteric features are left out. None that you would even miss at this stage.

The interface is clean, there are no dialog boxes, everything is right there all the time, it's a native Windows application, it's cheap, and you'll probably make faster progress in a more straightforward way.

Although Premiere is popular with the broadcast editors, it's not really a good creative tool. Adobe uses a Fakkakta interface that's left over from the Macromedia days, and it's just not a native Windows application. There's that extra GUI layer, and it hogs system resources.

Vegas is very light on system resources because it's a native Windows application. When Vegas is minimized, it releases locks on all the media so you can open up and edit something, like a still, without closing down, and when you restore to full screen your media is updated automatically.

It's the little things like that that you will appreciate.