Difficulties with Premiere Pro 1.5

[DTJB]

As I've been working on my first video using my own computer, I've been doing everything I can to make it look as professional as I can. I've gone through the ErMac/AD AV Guide which has helped me out so far, but I've come across a few problems.

I placed a bunch of clips onto my timeline and I decided to export the video to see how it looked (I tried doing a normal preview with the software's monitor but none of the effect's would appear after I rendered the video, things would look fine before rendering). At first, the video quality looked choppy so I decided to switch the encoding settings on the project. The video looked better afterwards, but would get worse after I put more clips onto the timeline. So far, some video cuts contain small parts of previous video cuts in them, parts of the video have slight pixelation in them, a title image wouldn't fully fade in until it was about to fade out, and a lot of times, the video just stops and Windows Media Player closes on me. I have a guess as to what is wrong, I might be using the wrong codecs to make the video.

The AV Guide asks to use PICVideo MJPEC Codec, but Premiere Pro 1.5 doesn't feature it. The codecs it offers is as follows: Cinepak Codec by Radius, Fddshow Video Codec, Huffyuv v2.1.1–CCESP Patch v0.2.5, Indeo® video 5.10, Intel Indeo® Video R3.2, Intel Indeo® Video 4.5, Intel IYUV codec, Lagarith lossless codec, Microsoft RLE, Microsoft Video 1 and XviD MPEG-4 Codec. I have been using the Fddshow Video Codec, but I wonder if I made the right choice. Should I start a brand new project with a new codec and re-edit from scratch, or would it be possible to edit like I've been doing and then take my finished video and place it in the timeline of a new project?

Also, I've experimented with the rate stretch tool to speed up some clips, but some of them look de-interlaced when sped up. Is there something I need to put in the script of the clips when I make them in VirtualDubMod or is this just something I have to deal with?

The reason I ask all of this is because I use to have someone helping me out with my videos, I've found that going it alone is a lot tougher than I expected.

[CrackTheSky]

I'm not really familiar with Premiere, but after reading through your problem my guess is that it's all because of the codec choice - although this is also a guess, because I'm not familiar with the FFDShow codec either. Codecs typically cause these sorts of problems though, so I'm fairly certain that's the root of your woes.

My suggestion - as painful as it's going to be - is that you should re-encode all your clips using either the HuffYUV or Lagarith codec. If you're unsure how to do this, here would be a good place to start.

As for this:

Also, I've experimented with the rate stretch tool to speed up some clips, but some of them look de-interlaced when sped up.

I just have to ask: don't you want your clips to be de-interlaced beforehand?

So yeah, that's my suggestion. And kudos for presenting your problem in an intelligent and informed manner.

[Warpwind]

The guide only suggests using the PICVideo mjpec codec for previewing and stuff like that. The reason behind that is that it's fast but it's not high quality. Like crackthesky said I'd suggest exporting huffyuv, largarith or uncompressed RGB then running virtualdubmod and encoding with xvid or whatever.

Premiere is not all that good at encoding straight from the video project to lossy codecs (really slow, plus artefacts). Plus with virtualdubmod you can add a bunch of cleaning filters and make it easier to compress.

The problems you're having sound like they are a source problem possibly. What type of codec are your source files in? are they lossless codecs like huffyuv/largarith? are they avisynth scripts? (sometimes too many filters and these will run really slow)

With the de-interlacing thing you were talking about I think you may be talking about the "frame blending" thing that premiere defaults to. To remove this right click on every clip and select "field options" and then uncheck "frame blend speed changes".

[Kariudo]

in addition to all of that...

premiere pro isn't really good at exporting anything but uncompressed, but if you don't have the space, then huffy is your best bet.
exporting Lagarith footage from pro always gives me a bunch of garbage frames.

the choppy-ness can be because you are typing to play a large (exported) file. if you encode your exports with huffyuv, it'l be ~2GB for 4 min. Not many computers can handle that much. you might also (if in premiere it plays choppy) want to right click the preview window and select a lower playback quality (draft or wireframe I think)

[Scintilla]

The AV Guide asks to use PICVideo MJPEC Codec, but Premiere Pro 1.5 doesn't feature it. The codecs it offers is as follows: Cinepak Codec by Radius, Fddshow Video Codec, Huffyuv v2.1.1–CCESP Patch v0.2.5, Indeo® video 5.10, Intel Indeo® Video R3.2, Intel Indeo® Video 4.5, Intel IYUV codec, Lagarith lossless codec, Microsoft RLE, Microsoft Video 1 and XviD MPEG-4 Codec.

Then you don't have the codec on your computer and you need to install it. You can get it <a href="http://www.jpg.com">here</a>.

I have been using the Fddshow Video Codec, but I wonder if I made the right choice. Should I start a brand new project with a new codec and re-edit from scratch, or would it be possible to edit like I've been doing and then take my finished video and place it in the timeline of a new project?

You can import your current project into a new project with different settings, so kinda, yeah.

Also, I've experimented with the rate stretch tool to speed up some clips, but some of them look de-interlaced when sped up. Is there something I need to put in the script of the clips when I make them in VirtualDubMod or is this just something I have to deal with?

Under Field Options (for each clip; there's, unfortunately, no way to do this for multiple clips simultaneously), uncheck the box marked "Frame Blend Speed Changes" (which is NOT the same thing as the "Deinterlace when speed is below 100%" box from pre-Pro versions of Premiere).

[DTJB]

If you're unsure how to do this, here would be a good place to start.

That's actually what I meant by the ErMac/AD AV Guide. No problem in trying to help though.

Well, can't tell whether it was a good decision or not, but I decided to redo the entire project from scratch. I've been able to catch up on where I left off, but even with my whole video planned out, it's tricky to get everything cut the exact same way it was the first time. Anyway, I've decided to use huffy as my codec and everything looks fine so far, the preview monitor even gets everything right after rendering. And thanks for telling me how to handle clips when using the Rate Stretch tool. Not sure if I'll run into anymore problems, but I'll be sure to let you know.