Adobe premiere

[garytwist]

I'm having problems with stuff I've captured actually viewing it in Adobe. Some files are working but videos I've recorded from VHS play fine in Realplayer and other software but when I import into adobe, they play on the left hand monitor but I get blank screen on the right hand one and in the timeline. I assume this has something to do with codecs but as a newbie I don't know.

Stuff imported from videocamera works fine. Anyone have any ideas?

thanks

[DivXExpert]

What did you do to get the movies on your computer?

[garytwist]

Hi,

I recorded the videos using analogue cables from my VHS into the aux inserts and recorded using the Medion Home CinemaXL\PowerCinema which came with my computer.

This is getting increasingly frustrating. I've tried capturing at different resolutions (eg High quality DVD, med quality DVD, SVCD) and they all seem to have the same problem.

Short low res mpegs seem to work okay as did stuff from my digital video camera

[DivXExpert]

What are the files from the capture card saved as? .avi? .mpg? If .avi then what codec?

[pijetro]

This is getting increasingly frustrating. I've tried capturing at different resolutions (eg High quality DVD, med quality DVD, SVCD) and they all seem to have the same problem.

You're capturing in MPEG. Adobe Premiere is an .AVI editor..
Think of it as water and ice...

.AVI is water, managable, and you can pour it into different cups smoothly. When you turn water into ice, it's the same as turning your .AVI into an MPEG for DVD playback...It just doesn't handle as easily.

Mpeg format isn't optimized for video editing...It's usually a final format..

[garytwist]

Beginning to understand. Yes the files are in MPEG format (MPEG2 usually). The strange thing is that at one point (when I had another video application open) the files did show in both monitors and the timeline. I edited, saved and when I repoened, the screen was blank (although the individual imported mpegs still played on the left hand monitor screen okay).

I haven't been able to replicate this since.

From my limited knowledge, I believe there's various types of AVI files. I know that when I've tried to import some types of AVI files before I've had problems Adobe has rejected the files (or quite often just crashed on me).

Would the best way be to import the VHS footage directly into Adobe (is this possible?) or find a converter program to convert to AVI. Obviously I want to try to keep the picture quality as high as possible so eventually I can burn to DVD or SVCD (which will no doubt lead me to whole set of new problems).

I really appreciate the help you've given me so far you guys. Thanks very much.

[kickbxn5]

Adobe does not edit MPEG2 files.

I have edited MPEG files but it causes the program to crash eventually. AVI is the best format to edit with in Premiere.

[pijetro]

Okay, there's two type of Mpeg. They are Mpeg1 (VCD) and Mpeg2 (SVCD,DVD)..

It's quite possible that you've got Mpeg 1 material..

Anways, if it's quality you're looking for, there's no way you can convert back to .AVI without losing any quality..Oh yeah, and then convert back to Mpeg2 again...

If you're gonna start playing with editing, using Alpha channels, fades, etc...you should do it in .AVI format...That means capturing your footage in .AVI, in either a DV or Huffy codec..The DV transfer is done through either a MiniDV camera or a Canopus converter. (15 gigs/hour). If you wanna capture using Huffy compression, or some Mjpeg compressor, then that's usually done through a similair type of capture card. ATI's come to mind...

Go to the left hand side and learn about capturing..

Good luck!!

[garytwist]

Can I say again, thanks very much pijetro. It's really kind of you and has saved me no end of wasted time.

I know now that it's the capture part I need to be looking into and learning all this stuff is part of the fun really.

Cheers again

G