How to remake old projects in Adobe Premiere 6.5?

[Divok]

Hello to everyone.
I have big problem with remake project in AP 6.5 again.

For grabbing videos from Video8 camcorder i used DV.now AV capture card. With this i got Adobe Premiere 6.5. In AP 6.5 I made many projects. These projects i keep for tens years. These files are saved projects. In that time, i created projects by this way. When I shoted a video(for example a trip), then I grabbed it to my pc. This trip had for example 20minutes. But file was little bit longer than the taken trip, because I started grabbing short time before the trip started on tape and I stopped grabbing some a while after the trip on the tape. Trip had 20min, but grabbed video.dif had for example 21min.

This 21min long video was transferred to the AP 6.5. I cutted edges and even some cuts in the middle of the trip. Once I had project done, I exported it. I saved the saves to the special folder for "old projects" and deleted grabbed video.dif from HDD, because in that time space on HDD was much more expensive than in this days.

Now, after many years, i want improve the project. So i installed WinXP, DV.now AV card to my PC, I installed AP 6.5. I grabbed stored tape to my PC over fast.forward program and I have 23GB(90min) large video.dif file. OK

But I have 2 problems now.
1.When click on the saved project, AP 6.5 wants locate the .dif file. I find right way to the folder where I have stored grabbed files, but AP does not see it. Only .WAV files and some other like .MOV or .AVI. In WinXP I have installed player in which i can play directly the .dif video. So why the AP does not see any .dif file? Even shorter .dif than 1.5hours long(23GB).

2. AP store info about cuts "how many frames from begin of the video file takes first cut, second cud...till end." It is impossible to start grab video in same position on tape as before. If I put again grabbed video to the AP, i will have cuts in different places than is original projects. How solve it?

With digital camcorders it was different. There are 2 videos exactly separated. In analog, there are 2 videos little bit over each other(or are mixed with the blue(empty) signal).

thank you

[Cornucopia]

*.DIF is an older way of saying *.DV (raw streams), or *DV.AVI (usually type1). Use mediainfo to see info on which ones you have got. You might need to multiplex/demultiplex, or you might just need to rename.

However, if what you did originally was to RENDER & Export a copy of the edited timeline, those do NOT have any bearing on the project file (which merely keeps track of the source files.

Example:

You have source clips A, B, C and D.

You put them in the editor and drop in the timeline like so: ABCD.
Then you edit so that each of those clips isn't needed for the full length, you just take out bits from beginning and/or ending of each.
What you end up in the timeline after editing is like this: abcd. But the project file is still referencing A, B, C, and D.

When you Render and Export, what you are doing is creating a NEW file: E.
Or, if you attempted to render them clip by clip, you are creating new files: f,g,h, and i, where f=a', g=b', h=c' and i=d'.
The project and its timeline do not ever keep track of clips E, f, g, h, or i, ONLY A, B, C, and D (and their edited subclips a,b,c,d).

Now, to throw a wrench into the mix, there have been some editor functions in the past (not sure if it is still available) called "compact", which allowed one to "clean up" and make smaller their source list and timeline, and what it does/did is take EACH source clip in the timeline and remove any portion of the clip that isn't used, leaving only the portion that is actually used (with perhaps a few frames on either side as buffer for fades, etc).
So, if you had done this, your MODIFIED timeline looks basically the same, but it no longer references A, B, C and D. Now, it references a, b, c, and d (for simplicity, let us say that you didn't keep any extra buffer "handles").
So, if you had stored the modified project/timeline, it would never match using A,B,C, or D anymore, because to it, those don't exist anymore as part of the project.

If you never compacted your material, your project & timeline should still reference A, B, C and D, and if you had actually saved those clips as opposed to some of those other possibilities, as long as those clips are the SAME NAME & EXTENSION, SAME FORMAT, SAME FOLDER/PATH, and SAME START TIME & LENGTH, your project should be able to re-acquire or re-establish the reference. This is similar to how proxies work.

BTW, for DV, it is NOT impossible to start to grab video files (aka capture them), if you have good deck, good capture device, and you do segment captures via Timecode. I have done this hundreds of times. If, however, you captured raw manual start/stop, then you would need to trim those ahead of time to match the originals.
Sounds like you actually didn't save any clips, but rather threw them away and are recapturing. That whole "same" requirements are still in effect.


Scott

[Divok]

Thank you Scott

If, you captured raw manual start/stop, then you would need to trim those ahead of time to match the originals.
Sounds like you actually didn't save any clips, but rather threw them away and are recapturing. That whole "same" requirements are still in effect.

This is what is my problem. I filmed 27x 90min Video8 cassettes. And I had in that time 60GB HDD only. So I kept(and still keep) original tapes. Last year i have bought 4TB HDD and recaptured everything again as the magnetic signal is getting worse by time. And really, 22years old recaptured signal is significantly worse than mpeg-2 9000kb/s re-coded from original tape. Same camcorder for capture.

Your solution trim each clip to match the original is almost impossible. Probably, it would be much faster to create the home-video again. But is not there a plug-in for AP which can compare finished(but wanted to change ) video and rawly trimmed .dif file?

thank you

[Cornucopia]

No there is not, AFAIK.

Do a google search on "conform proxies abobe" and maybe one of the other users' techniques will transfer to something that could help you in this instance.

BTW, this right here is why pros ALWAYS shoot more than just the desired clip, and ALWAYS capture automated using timecode (of a segment that is inside the clean area beyond the rough ends of a clip). That way it is always addressable and so always reproduceable.

Scott