Please help with Premiere. Best way to cut concert into song files

[akalsha]

Hello,
I hope that someone can help me. I feel absolutely stupid.
I have Adobe Premiere. I have a DVD file of a concert video, that I want to cut up into individual .mpg 2 files by song. I cannot seem to figure out how to do this. I used to be so good at this sort of thing. I'm way out of practice, and feeling like a meat head that I can't figure it out.
I do want to make some changes to the concert, such as normalize the audio, probably some filters to make it look better, etc. My daughter showed me how to insert one section of the video into the timeline by setting start and end points in the "source" tab, and clicking "insert". But, doing it that way I'd have to edit the filters for each chunk, and I only want to do it once for the whole concert file so each song file is consistent. Hope this is making sense. Someone, please tell me there's a way to do this? I would greatly appreciate any help.

[poisondeathray]

Hello,
I hope that someone can help me. I feel absolutely stupid.
I have Adobe Premiere. I have a DVD file of a concert video, that I want to cut up into individual .mpg 2 files by song. I cannot seem to figure out how to do this. I used to be so good at this sort of thing. I'm way out of practice, and feeling like a meat head that I can't figure it out.
I do want to make some changes to the concert, such as normalize the audio, probably some filters to make it look better, etc. My daughter showed me how to insert one section of the video into the timeline by setting start and end points in the "source" tab, and clicking "insert". But, doing it that way I'd have to edit the filters for each chunk, and I only want to do it once for the whole concert file so each song file is consistent. Hope this is making sense. Someone, please tell me there's a way to do this? I would greatly appreciate any help.

If you're not cutting out material, why not import it as 1 big file then apply the filters? For audio you can normalize the entire track in 1 go. The assumption is that the concert has the same characteristics (e.g. lighting, stage conditions, same camera setup) - otherwise you will have to keyframe the settings for the filters - then cut it afterwards ?

There is actually better software for cutting mpeg2 streams, ones that do not re-encode - this way there is no quality lost. So you might edit the entire piece , normalize audioadd filters, and export mpeg2 as 1 big video, then use mpg2cut2, videoredo , or avidemux to cut it into sections . Alternatively, you could do it all in premiere and queue up individual segments in adobe media encoder

[akalsha]

Yes, that's what I'm trying to do. I want to import it as one big file, apply the filters and then cut. That's what I need help doing, please. I know how to import the whole thing into the timeline, and I know how to apply the filters. But, then, how do I cut into song files? I'm sure this is Premiere 101, but I never really used it much, and I can't figure out how to do this. Can't seem to figure it out by reading the Premiere help section, either.

I do have videoredo so that I can cut without re-encoding. But I'm going to have to re-encode in Premiere because of the filters, so I might as well just cut in Premiere while I'm at it too, right?

Or do you think it would be easier or more efficient to filter with Premiere, save as one big file, then cut with Videoredo, rather than cutting in Premiere?

The only thing is, I'm having a separate issue where videos that I cut using videoredo aren't being recognized by a php script on my web site. I can't figure it out, and I'd rather not stop using the script, so I'm trying not to use videoredo. But if it's more efficient than cutting in Premiere I'll use it. Just thought since I am re-encoding in Premiere, I might as well cut at the same time.

Thank you so much.

[poisondeathray]

You can cut it in premiere, but something like videoredo will be slightly faster IMO

There are pictures and guides in the pdf help file, but there are several ways you might do it in premiere.

One way would be to use a master sequence, then make a sequence for each section (each song) . You already know how to use the source monitor with in/out points (you said your daughter showed you) so you can open up the master sequence in the source monitor , use in/out points and drop each song into it's own sequence - another reason to do it this way is each song is organized into a separate sequence, so if you need to come back and do edits, the project is already nicely arranged. So each sequence will be exported separately, and you can queue them up in AME

The other way is to use the trim tool and/or trim monitor - you just drag the edges to where you want the cuts

Another way is to make the cuts directly in AME - you can do edits there as well, setting in/out points

[akalsha]

Thanks. Sounds like maybe I should just do the filters, and re-encode in Premiere, then cut with videoredo. Especially since the rest of your message is mostly Greek to me. I don't understand what you are saying about dropping each song into it's own sequence. Do you mean set in/out points for one song in the source monitor, import that piece to the timeline, then select the next song in the source monitor, and import it into the timeline after the first one, etc.? And each song will then be exported into a separate file?

AME is just the Adobe exporter, right? It would be nice if I could just do the cuts in there, because I did manage to figure that out. But I can't, as there is no sound on that screen, which I need in order to set my cut points.

I couldn't seem to grasp the trim tool, either. Do the cuts just create separate sequences, like your other example with the source monitor? Maybe I need to start taking Ginseng or something. My learning curve never used to be this long haha!

I didn't realize there was a pdf help file. I was looking at the "Adobe Community Help" that is the first option under the help menu in Premiere. I'll have to see if I have the pdf file.

By the way, once I figure out my game plan, I'm going to be doing this for many, many hours of footage. I imagine this is going to be at least a 6 month project. I have tons of concerts and other footage on VHS tapes. I have two ways to capture from VHS. I have a year old DVD recorder, and I have a Hauppauge WinTv USB stick that captures directly to an mpg2 file, which is what I want my end result to be. Do you have any input as to which is the better one to use? I was thinking of using the Hauppauge stick, but a lot of things are capturing out of sync (they are old tapes). When I use the DVD Recorder, it seems to keep it in sync. Of course, I can only put an hours worth of video on the DVD without reducing the quality from what I've seen, so I'm going to go through a ton of DVDs. But, that is fine if it makes my life easier with the sync issue.

Thank you so much for your help, and for answering my dumb questions. I appreciate it.

[poisondeathray]

AME = Adobe Media Encoder. You didn't mention which version of premiere, it doesn't come with older versions (only CS4, 5 I think)

Yes, there are many different ways you might approach this, and the pdf help file is downloadable from adobe (in the top right hand corner there is a link to download)
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/index.html

There are other factors that might change the way you do things - for example are you planning hard cuts, or are you fading in/out or some sort of transition for the in/out point of clips for both video & audio ? If it's just a simple cut, it's easy to do in videoredo, otherwise I would use premiere

It might be easier if you watched a tutorial video , here are some other ways to export a section
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-premiere-pro-cs5/gs09-exporting-sequences-from-adobe-premiere-pro/
http://blogs.adobe.com/kevinmonahan/2011/10/17/exporting-sections-of-a-sequence/

As for recording method, I don't know. I would ask in the capture section. I know DVD recorders generally produce lower quality results, even at the highest bitrate setting. Not sure about the USB stick. But your goals might be ease of use over quality

[akalsha]

Oh, OK. I do have CS5.

I'll download the pdf file, and study it. Thank you for the link.

I'm just going to do hard cuts. No fading, etc.

I'll ask in the capture section about how to best record. I would like to capture in the highest quality I can.

Thank you, again.