Trouble with .mpg files in Adope Premiere???s

[Boomer8404]

OK, Ive got a Sony HandyCam DCR-SR45 that Ive been taking some videos with. I want to start editing them into a long file. For the video editing Im using Adobe Premiere V7.0. There is a problem thought. The file that is created by the video camera is a .mpg. When I import one of the video files into Premiere, I either get a message that says no importer or when it does import the file and i try to play it the sound plays fine but the video is very choppy. To get the files from my video camera I have used the camera to computer transfer software, Ive gone in through the directory via usb connection and copied and pasted and also directly imported the files from the video camera to Premiere through Premieres importer, still with no success. I have also tried a couple of converters, one I used was the CuCuSoft iPod video converter. Premiere doesnt support the iPod video files. I thought maybe I could load the files into Windows Movie Maker and re export them to another file format, but movie maker wouldnt import the .mpg file. There is also no video file format converter software included with the camera. I dont have the means to do video capture into my computer either, and I have the proper codecs because WMP and WinAmp both play the videos fine. Could someone please help me out, I would appreciate it. Thanks
Don

[guns1inger]

The video is choppy because Premiere must decompress the video to the timeline. I suspect it will be smooth after a render.

Personally, I would use Videoredo or Womble for editing mpg files. VideoRedo is great for trimming and commercial removal. Womble is better for traditional editing. Neither are free though.

There is a plugin (expensive) for Premiere that lets you edit mpg video natively. You can get it from mainconcept.

Otherwise you need to convert it to something Premiere does like. DV is the obvious choice. Virtualdubmpeg-2 and the cedocida DV codec will do this for you.

[filmboss80]

Yeah--I'm in total agreement with what guns1inger said about VirtualDub MPEG-2 with a DV codec installed (both free downloads). Premiere is not very mpg-friendly, so you need to convert the footage to DV-AVI, then import into Premiere. Open your mpg clip in VirtualDub, go to Video > Compression and select the DV codec you installed, select Video > Full Processing Mode, then save to AVI. After VirtualDub is finished with the conversion, open Premiere, use the DV video setting, and import your new DV-AVI clip into the project. Edit away.