Newbie Help PE4

[redsound]

Hello all, Its my first time here, forgive me in advance for any short comings. I am open to all constructive criticism.

I am new to Premiere Elements 4. I have some experience with Moviemaker, so please bear with me. By day, I am an architect, and by night, I am an audio engineer, and am looking to play with some simple video editing of home videos.

computer specs:
Asus m3a78-emh-hdmi (ati radeon 3200HD onboard)
AMD 5800+ 3GHz
3.25Gb ddr 800
(2) 320 Gb SATA (C: programs, D: data, scratch disks,etc)
Win XP pro 32 sp2

camera:
Canon DC230 miniDVD

On to my troubles...

When I start PE4, I have to leave the room for about 15 minutes for it to load. As I said, I am an audio engineer, and have MANY VSTs. I realize not all are compatible with PE4, but...
Can I disable these somehow, or just live with it? They are all located in my C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Vstplugins directory and that can not change.

Ok, so I have a fresh cup of coffee, and I've started a new project. Again I have to leave the room, because nothing moves for about another 15 minutes. Basically, EVERY click of the mouse results in me having to walk away.

Computer performance looks fine, actually low, comparable to some of my audio and 3d modelling, but PE4 just crawls. I suspect the onboard video as my weakest link, and I will soon update that, but... Is that it, or am I missing something?
CPU and RAM are less than 10%, but it still crawls even with no video in the project. It takes forever to just get into preferences, or any pull down menu.

This machine has already been optimized for audio, so I don't have much on it really. WLAN is always off when working.

Help?

[redsound]

Forgive my premature desperation, but I have somewhat resolved my problems.

There appears to be a conflict with my Presonus Firestudio Audio device.
When I turn it off, premiere instantly performs as I expect it should.

For all other computer audio, I use this device for audio in and out.
So, is there any way to successfully use this for my audio? I do have an onboard audio device. However, it conflicts with the Firestudio. So, for now, drivers are not even installed, and the device has been disabled.

[Chuck Engels]

The audio needs to be ASIO compliant which I believe your device is.
Go to Edit/Preferences/Audio Hardware and see if your device is available in the drop down selection list. Also check the ASIO Settings to see if your device is listed there. You can then select the priority of devices, that should solve your problem I hope :)

[ATR]

redsound

See how you do with CE's comments/suggestions. And, then please let us know the outcome. But, I suspect that you have solved your own problem, probably identifying the conflict. But, the larger task may be for you to decide what audio or other programs that you can do without in your present computer environment to be successful using Premiere Elements 4 for your video projects.

But, down the road I will be hitting you with questions re:

1. computer resources, installed RAM vs available RAM, total vs free hard drive space...whether you are multitasking when you are in a Premiere Elements 4 project...computer optimization BESIDES AUDIO...upgrade of drivers, not to mention SP2 to SP3...Premiere Elements is a very resource demanding program
2. video formats other than DV AVI that you will be putting on the Premiere Elements 4 Timeline

Also, your camcorder is not a miniDV camcorder. It is a camcorder that records to a DVD disc, that is, a DVD camcorder. How have you been importing your video into Premiere Elements 4? The recommended way for your situation would be to insert the DVD disc from the camcorder into the drive tray of your DVD burner and use Premiere Elements 4's Media Downloader to rip the VOBs from the DVD and into Premiere Elements. That works great for some, but for some it does not. The fix in that latter case is to convert the DVD's VOBs to DV AVI with a program such as MPEG Streamclip and then bring the DV AVI version into Premiere Elements with its Get Media/Files and Folder.
http://www.squared5.com/

But, it looks that the problem that brought you here was that conflict that you found yourself.

I will be watching for your progress.

ATR

[redsound]

I think I fixed it. I changed the Firestudio's sample rate from 44.1 to 48kHz, and everything works just fine now.

Chuck,
Yes, there is the ASIO, as well as the proprietary Presonus ASIO. Latency on the Presonus ASIO is about 7ms. Although, I monitor "direct", so it is really 0ms when I record audio.

ATR,

1. Mostly covered in the original post.
recap with addenda while Premiere is running:
AMD 5800+ 3GHz
3.4Gb ddr 800 available / 2.7Gb available
(2) 320 Gb SATA
(C: programs /270 free, D: data, scratch disks,etc / 210 free)
Win XP pro 32 sp2
(sp2 will not be updated, I have actually reverted back to a clean install from the win xp sp2 disk after having updated to sp3. Too many things went wrong with sp3 for my audio)

2. I was able to import the VOBs via DVD into Premiere, but they import as 4:3 instead of the 16:9 (or 720x480?)* that they were recorded in...? Other than than that, they seemed to play ok. Maybe i missed an option for 16:9 setting before finalizing in the cam??

I said miniDVD not miniDV in the original post. Maybe its still wrong to call it that? small diameter DVD ? just simply DVD?

So anyway, I do have MPEG slipstream, and was messing with exporting to AVI as well as fixing the 4:3/16:9 error. How best to do so without degrading the video further? I set the quality 100%. do the video compression settings apply when at 100%? If so, what is best to use?

*...cam says 16:9, but i realize 720x480 is 1.5:1...what's with that?

Thank for the quick replys,
Red

[ATR]

Red

Just a quick note for now...

DVD-VIDEO standard and widescreen have same frame sizes of 720 x 480 (4:3) pixels. With widescreen is included a 16:9 flag for display purposes.

So, if you are ripping VOBs from the camcorder's DVD recorded Widescreen, then look at setting the Premiere Elements 4 project preset for NTSC DV Widescreen or PAL DV Widescreen, depending on your location.

What export format do you plan to use for what you bring to the Premiere Elements Timeline? DVD-VIDEO widescreen via Burn to Disc?

Things for you to check out:
MPEG Streamclip suggested settings
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/415317?tstart=0

Premiere Elements 4, Project View, Interpret Footage, Conform to:
D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9 (1.2)
or
D1/DV PAL Widescreen 16:9 (1.411)
depending on your location.

ATR

[redsound]

I found something called DVDpatcher that will change my 4:3 to the correct 16:9, and upon updating everything looks like it should.

At this point all is still VOB and they seem to work.

Is it ok to work with the VOB in premiere, or do I still need to convert to DV with mpeg streamclip?
..and if i do convert to dv, the audio & video no longer syncs.

I have premiere set to D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9 (1.2).

[ATR]

The MPEG Streamclip is the typical workaround for users who get poor results the Premiere Elements Media Downloader way. You do not seem to be one of them.

You should be able to take care of the 16:9 situation within Premiere Elements, but if you have something that is working great for you "Do not mess with a good thing."

But, curosity (if the time allows) might motivate you to look into ways to address the 16:9 within Premiere Elements.

Sounds like great progress on your side. Keep up the good work.

ATR

[redsound]

You should be able to take care of the 16:9 situation within Premiere Elements, but if you have something that is working great for you "Do not mess with a good thing."

But, curosity (if the time allows) might motivate you to look into ways to address the 16:9 within Premiere Elements.

ATR

Found it!

Cheers!:D

[ATR]

Red

Glad you found that feature.

I will add this link in case you have not run across it yet.
file:///C:/Program%20Files/Common%20Files/Adobe/Help/en_us/PremiereElements/4.0/help.html?content=PREMIEREELEMENTS_HOMEPAGE.html


ATR