PE4 to PE7

[Little Nac]

Hi again,
Just a quick question.
I'm about half way through a project with PE4. Am wondering if I uninstall it and install my new PE7, will this effect my project, or will it be OK. In other words can I just keep working away as usual.
Thanks again to all.

[Hankw]

You can install the 7. Your old version will remain intact and you can continue with your project in that version. Later on, as you become more efficient with PSE7 you can transfer everything over to PSE7.

[Little Nac]

Hankw,
Thanks for your reply. Can I actually remove PE4, and will this still keep my Project in tact, and then install PE7 and carry on working on it with no hitches? I install PE4 on my C Drive, but my actual project is on my I Drive.
Thanks for your help.

[ATR]

HankW

I suspect that you are talking about Photoshop Elements 7 and not Premiere Elements 7 to which Little Nac is referring.

ATR

[ATR]

Little Nac

If you uninstall Premiere Elements 4 and have a saved Premiere Elements 4 project .prel file (I drive), you should still have the project .prel file on the I drive. Then it should just be a matter of right clicking the .prel file, selecting Open With Premiere Elements 7.

Now for the HOWEVERS,

1. Check the Premiere Elements 7 ReadMe File on your installation disc...

Compatibility with other versions of Adobe Premiere Elements and Adobe Premiere Pro
You can keep previous versions of Adobe Premiere Elements installed on your system, but you should not run them simultaneously.
Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0 can open projects from previous versions of Adobe Premiere Elements, but once you save them in Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0 you will no longer be able to edit them in previous versions of Adobe Premiere Elements.
Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 can not import projects created in Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0

However, be on guard that you do not run into any media reconnect problems in the process, especially if your I drive letters tend to move around and/or you move or remove source media used in the Premiere Elements 4 project .prel. Whatever the case, check out Premiere Elements 4 and/or 7 versions for its Project Archiver feature, Archiver and Copy options. More details on that if necessary.

I am not sure of your file organization, but typically, when you install a version of Premiere Elements, in the default location for the Adobe Folder you will find include a folder for it named Premiere Elements with its version number. So, if you have Premiere Elements 4 and 7 installed on the same computer, you would find folders for versions 4 and 7 in the Adobe Folder.

You can leave both versions 4 and 7 installed on your computer. Just use one at a time.

I hope that asked your questions. If not, let me know what I missed and/or clarify.

Check it out and please let me know the outcome.

ATR

[Little Nac]

Thanks ATR for your help.
Our Computers have 2 x 500 GB Drives respectively. When I format my drive and reinstall Windows, I disconnect my second drive. My first drive is petitioned as C=200Gb, D=100Gb, E=100Gb and F=Remainder. My DVD drives then become G & H. I reconnect the second drive and it becomes I Drive, and stays this way and doesn't float.
This is where I keep my Projects along with Narration, and I have a Folder where I can throw anything into for a particular Project e.g. A Motion Loop or a Special Sound Effect etc. Then I can delete it when finished.
My D Drive is where I keep my Music, Smart Sounds, Sound Effects, Logos and Backgrounds.
We also have an external drive each where we back up our drives just in case.
Will give it a try today. Will uninstall PE4 and install PE7 and will let you know the outcome.

Just another quick question.
As in the U.S., over here all Tvs are now widescreen and digital.
How is it possible to do widescreen in PE7, bearing in mind we are in PAL?
My Digital Video Camera is a Panasonic 3CCD, Model # NV-GS250GN, and I'm pretty sure it can take widescreen.
Can I produce widescreen in Adobe PE7 if I have taken the video with normal mode, or will it come out distorted?
Thanks again for all your help.
Talk soon.

[ATR]

Little Nac

I tried to do a quick mini crash course re: the camera that you are using to record your video. One place called it a PAL miniDV, another place just called it a Digital Video Camera. I am not sure if you will be able to capture video directly in Premiere Elements using the USB class of the camera vs USB class of the computer, most of the time problems. Your camera has a 4 pin IEEE 1394 port (iLink?). Could you get the appropriate firewire cable and do a firewire capture directly into Premiere Elements to get DV AVI for the Premiere Elements Timeline?

If you are shooting PAL DV Standard with your camera, that should be frame size 720 x 576 (4:3), 25 fps. So, then you would set your Premiere Elements 7 preset beforehand to PAL DV Standard.

I downloaded the User Manual for your camera and am not yet comfortable about what it is trying to tell me about this camera and shooting widescreen. Shooting PAL DV Widescreen to me means frame size 720 x 576 (4:3), 25 fps, and with a 16:9 flag included that stretches the 4:3 to 16:9 for display. If that is the case, then the appropriate Premiere Elements 7 preset for that "widescreen" video should be PAL DV Widescreen. What I have not yet absorbed is whether the "Wide Function" ("recorded with a 16:9 aspect ratio") and "Cinema Function" (which is going to get you what they call a theater look with black borders) go together or whether you could omit the "Cinema Function".

Forgot to ask, are you recording to miniDV tape? If you download the video from the camera to the computer via USB and save the video to a hard drive location, what are you bringing in that way...MotionJPEG.AVI? Keep in mind that DV AVI is the native format of the Premiere Elements 7 Timeline.

Try some exploration and experimentation and please let me know the outcome. If necessary, I will go into phase 2 of my crash course in your camera and its video.

ATR

[Little Nac]

Thanks again ATR.
I use a Firewire cable to bring in the video direct from my camera.
It works great. I found the book on the camera, and it appears that I can shoot in widescreen afterall.
The camera uses a Mini DV Tape.
Here are the specs from a video (actually some green screen we shot at home) and imported into PE4.
Type: AVI Movie
Image Size: 720x576
Pixel Depth: 720
Frame Rate: 25.00
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.067
I think these are all you will need.

The project I am working on at the moment is from my old analogue video camera which used a small VHS Tape. I have a digital converter which I attach to my VCR, run the tape and I tried to capture it into PE4 but it would only capture the video and no voice. Do you know of a way I can capture these old tapes directly into PE4 (which will now be PE7).
I finished up capturing it into Nero, then I was able to import it into PE4 and it has come in as a MPEG Movie File and is working great. Voice and all. At least I hope it will burn OK.
Here are the Specs for this one:
Type: MPEG Movie
Image Size: 720x576
Pixel Depth: 720
Frame Rate: 25.00
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.066

I am going to do a test run on widescreen and cinema today with the camera (time permitting), but I don't mean to be a complete idiot, but I can't find in Adobe where I can set it to widescreen.
If I went to widescreen now in PE4 (or PE7), will it distort the video as it was shot in standard format?
Thanks again.
Little Nac

[ATR]

Little Nac

Open Premiere Elements 4
In the Welcome Screen, click on "Step Up" at top right of the Welcome Screen.
Expand PAL
Click on DV
Select Widescreen 48 kHz
Click on Save As Default

Open Premiere Elements 7
In the Welcome Screen, click on "New Project" at top right of the Welcome Screen.
In the dialog that opens, click on Change Settings
Expand PAL
Click on DV
Select Widescreen 48 kHz
Click OK

Tomorrow morning I will discuss the other of your questions in your previous post...PAL DV Standard 4:3 video in a Premiere Elements project with project preset of PAL DV Widescreen 16:9.

It is the end of the evening here. I will be up early tomorrow morning and give you the rest of the story then.

ATR

[Little Nac]

Good Morning ATR,
Well here's what I have done.
I shot about a six minute video just around the house. The first couple of minutes I set the Camera to Widescreen, the next couple of minutes to 4:3 Cinema, then to 4:3 Standard for the last couple of minutes.
Then I burnt a test DVD through PE4.
I played the DVD on our Widescreen TV to see the difference.
Definitely the widescreen section of the DVD was considerably sharper, the 4.3 Cinema was OK but not quite as good, and the Standard section was still passable but probably the worst of the three.
Then played it on a normal TV with the same results, except with the widescreen it put black lines top and bottom of the screen.
Actually, twice when I tried to download it into PE4, Adobe just closed off and took me back to the Desktop. When I re-opened the Project it was then OK. The first time I thought maybe I did something, but a second time? Anyway it still may have been me.
Another thing I did notice, that even though the camera will take widescreen Video, the slide section onto the SD Card, will not. If I try to take a shot it asks me to switch to 4:3 mode, but maybe this has something to do with the aspect ration of a Computer Screen, could that be right?
Thanks again,
Little Nac

[ATR]

Little Nac

From the User Manual PDF for your Panasonic....

≥If the wide mode is used, you cannot record
images onto the card.

For pictures with an aspect ratio of 16:9,
“CANNOT RECORD (WIDE MODE)” is shown,
indicating that still pictures cannot be recorded.

Maybe both quotes are saying the same thing, but maybe it is in the eye of the reader, but....

In the first quote, I read that to mean...while you are recording video to tape (Wide Function/Cinema Function activated), you cannot use the Photo Shot button to stop to take a still picture. From what I have read, your camera's still sizes all have the 4:3 aspect ratio. And, am I correct that in the situation described, the video is going to the tape and these spur of the moment stills are going to the SD Memory Card? Some camcorders do support 16:9 stills recording, but not yours.

What I have not worked out yet is the second quote. Since I have not found a set in your camera for shooting stills to the SD card in a size with a 16:9 aspect ratio, then where is the 16:9 picture coming from in the "For pictures with an aspect ratio of 16:9....."?

Since you are already into the exploration and experimentation with TV display of your video, I will hold off working on that. You probably are in a better position to handle that, with your camera recordings and TV to be used in the same environment. But, I would suggest that you should look at your TV/DVD player settings as well as settings within the TV itself in working through the display details.

ATR

[Little Nac]

Thank you ATR.
I have just experimented with the stills section of the camera. There are two sections where stills can be shot with the Panasonic. The Photo Shot Mode and the actual Stills Mode. Yes the Video goes to a
DV Tape and the stills go to a SD Card. When in the 16:9 mode the Photo Shot will not work and the error message comes up to say switch to 4:3 mode.
But in the Stills Mode the photos can be taken, but come out as 4:3.
Everything is now clear, so thanks again for all you help.
By the way I switched over yesterday from PE4 to PE7, and it took about 20 minutes to conform. A couple of pieces of Narration had moved on the Timeline, and one sound effect sounded funny. But when I reinstalled the sound it was OK. It seems to be working fine, seeing it is from an old VHS Tape converted to Digital. The only way I could bring it into Adobe was to firstly bring it into Nero and then into Adobe. I tried to import it directly into PE4 but I could only get the video and no sound. Any suggestions??
Thanks again for all you help.
Little Nac

[ATR]

Little Nac

I do sense progress. Very good.

The only way I could bring it into Adobe was to firstly bring it into Nero and then into Adobe. I tried to import it directly into PE4 but I could only get the video and no sound.

Could you clarify that statement? What did you bring into Nero and from where? What was it (format) before and after it being in Nero? Did not you say that you were using a miniDV camcorder firewire capture into Premiere Elements? Or, am I mixing up what I am reading? Maybe you were referring to the Narration that you say moved on the Timeline?

We will iron out these wrinkles out yet. Keep up the good work.

ATR

[Little Nac]

Hi ATR,
Yes I do use a Firewire cable from my DV Camera (Panasonic) to the Computer to capture directly into PE4 (now PE7). I have no problems and have completed a few projects with great success.
But in this case (the Project I am working on at the moment) was a trip we did to the U.S. in 1996, and of course back then, my Camera was only an Analogue Mini VHS. I had already transferred this trip to a Standard VHS tape, but want to put it to DVD. I have an Analogue to Digital Converter (Belkin) which works well. I play the VHS Tape through a VCR which connects to the Digital Converter, and then from the Digital Converter to the Computer through a USB and Sound Card (Creative 5.1). I tried to put it directly into PE4 but all I captured was the Picture and no sound.
With the same set up, I transferred it to Nero which accepted the picture and sound, then brought it into PE4 and it came in as a MPEG. Now it works great. I just thought it would be easier if I could transfer them into PE7 directly, as I have a few I would like to do.

Yes it was 2 pieces of Narration which moved on the timeline when I installed PE7, but I moved them back OK. Also a Sound Effect sounded funny, but I deleted it and brought it back in from the folder and it is now good.
Little Nac

[ATR]

Little Nac

The key in your case is VSH-analog digital converter-Firewire connection capture into Premiere Elements as DV AVI.

Can you use the Belkin analog digital converter with a Firewire instead of USB connection? The one that used to be in favor is the ADS Pyro A/V link with Firewire connection. Based on some online posts, it seems that those who were big time for Pyro A/V link may be on the fence with it and now talk about Canopus ADVC-50 in terms of equal or better (technical service).

The VHS-analog digital converter-firewire capture into Premiere Elements to put DV AVI on the Timeline appears to be the method of choice. But, if you say that the Nero route works great, maybe do not mess with a good thing?

ATR

[Little Nac]

Thanks very much ATR for all your trouble. Very much appreciated.
I guess if Nero works for me, I will stick to that avenue, will continue to try various things, and if I succeed, will post a reply. A little frustrating, but if it works, so what?
Thanks again,
Little Nac

[ATR]

Little Nac

Sounds good.

Please excuse the typing error in opening sentence of my last response: VSH instead of VHS.

ATR