New HC-X900M Owner Adobe CS5.5 Help please

Aaron,

Welcome to the forum.

I own a similar camera, don't own a Mac and don't use CS5.5 or 6. Instead I use a PC and have been teaching myself the $80 Adobe Premier Elements 11. I still might be able to point you toward some answers.

First, read up on AVCHD. Wikipedia has a good summary. Then see if the section in the manual on format choices makes sense.

Your choices for settings are listed here, with the highest quality on top:
1080/60p (28 Mbps / VBR), (1920 x 1080/60p)
HA (17 Mbps / VBR), (1920 x 1080/60i)
HG (13 Mbps / VBR), (1920 x 1080/60i)
HX (9 Mbps / VBR), (1920 x 1080/60i)
HE (5 Mbps / VBR), (1920 x 1080/60i)
iFrame (28 Mbps / VBR), (960 x 540/30p)


You can see in the list the Mega bits per second. The bigger the number the more "detail quality" in the footage. P is for progressive and i is for interlaced, with is a confusing concept left over from the invention of broadcast TV displayed on TVs with tubes in them. I know nothing about iFrame.

Notice that the highest setting is 1080/60p. It was added to the AVCHD standards later than the rest of the settings. So, you may not find it in 5.5 presets. My last version of Elements didn't have it and I found that a 720p preset worked fine. My understanding is that the presets have mostly to do with the real time editing preview and a lot less than the final rendering to your delivery media.

It may be that with 5.5 you will have to work with the settings other than 1080p.

Since you said your two primary choices of delivery are DVD and the Web, all the other settings should work unless there is fast motion like in sports. DVD is standard definition (SD) and the output rendering will have to lower or "down rez" the picture quality. There is plenty of reading on that process in the Adobe Premier Forums (http://forums.adobe.com/community/premiere ).

The current version 11 of Premier Elements does all the work for you. It automatically picks a preset based on the first clip used and burns DVDs from within the program itself.

For the Web, video is usually delivered with YouTube or Vimeo. Both have specifications explained on their sites. The idea is that at final output rendering you try to match the specifications because it improves upload times. However, if you have the bandwidth or the time you can up load almost any format and it will get converted to required specifications.

Good luck.

Bill

I don't think it is common for Premier Pro to crash. It would not remain a mainstream product if it did!

I check the Premier Elements forum daily to see what I can learn. I can't imagine you were ignored unless your question was too difficult.

Bill

A while back, Mac's had a heck of a time reading the 1080 60p files. Not sure if this is still the case but PP CS5 and up will do it just fine on a PC. Import the raw files into PP's assets. Drag a video file into the "New Sequence" icon or something to that effect, can't remember, it will automatically create a timeline that is suitable for those 1080 60p files. Edit away.

For output, most web videos, most users just use the YouTube HD preset for exporting. Gives good results. This preset is defaulted to 24fps, I just bump it up to 29.97 so make pans smoother. YouTube still likes it, not sure if it reconverts to 24fps. This way, a 29.97 720p file will play well on the computer as well as for uploading to YouTube. Don't even bother trying to configure code and your server to play these on your own website. Upload your final files to YouTube and just use the embed codes to display the video on any website.

Hope that helps.

As for the crashes, it could be a sign of not enough memory. A while back, PC graphic chips from nVidia kept crashing PP if you insert a very high res image (psd, jpg). nVidia released a patch and that resolved things. What graphics card are you running and can you hack it so PP can utilize the mercury engine and dish off some real time rendering to the GPU?

If I had the opportunity to bet on it, it would be the memory. In fact, I used video editing as an excuse to buy a Windows 7 laptop with 16 GB for the AVCHD files. And, I don't even have the Pro version.

On editing software forums, AVCHD formats have not always been popular among the oldtimers, especially the ones using Macs. The files are big and it takes computer horsepower to get results.

If it were me, I would try the iFrame setting on the camera. There also may be an MPEG setting.

If those don't work, do some web searching for video converters that will take the AVCHD and "rewrap" or convert to more friendly footage. I don't have a Mac, so I have no personal knowledge. "HandBrake" is one converter I've read about.


From the TM900 manual:

iFrame:
This is a recording format suitable for playing back or editing on Mac.
iFrame motion pictures can be imported faster than AVCHD motion
pictures. Also, the imported file size of iFrame motion pictures will be smaller than
that of AVCHD motion pictures.

There are 3 recording formats that can be used with this unit: AVCHD that records
high-definition motion pictures, 1080/50p that records motion pictures in maximum
quality for this unit and iFrame that records motion pictures suitable for playback
and editing on Mac.


Good luck with this!

Bill

I am guessing it is RAM as well. PP is a ram and CPU hog. Being 64 bit and with the new mercury engine, PP can now use as much RAM as you can throw at it.

Another user had reported a drastic drop in image quality when using iframe but you can test that out. Otherwise, finding a converter and you can test those files on PP and I think even use iMovie?

Good luck.

Thought of something. Try exporting a small video file with no filters jpgs etc.

Also use Export instead of Queue. That decider has known issues and will crash. Use PP to do the export. Give that a try.

Is it not odd that iFrame is 28Mbps (lowest quality) same as 1080/60p (highest)? Why all that bandwidth for weak pq? My wife has an MBP and I tried it once for kids soccer. PQ was craptacular in comparison to 1080.

Because iFrame is I-frame only format. Regular AVCHD uses I, P and B frames.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFrame_%28video_format%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_types

I am not a Mac owner and never was. There seems to be a time when Macs and Final Cut were the kings of the mountain. It may be that has changed. I read on various forums that Vegas, Premier and Avid run better on PCs. No, I am not trying to start a PC vs Mac argument.

I use them all. Kinda Like FCP and Vegas best.....oh correction haven't use Avid. )

Yes Premiere Pro, starting with CS5 have been obsessed with certain Nvidia cards with a gig and higher which takes some of the load of the CPU when it comes to some of the effects, etc. With CS6, it's starting to take advantage of a few ATI cards. As for the presets, you can easily have a 1080 60p timeline in 5.0 and 5.5 but you have to set it manually. Once your starting a new project and are looking at the Sequence box which shows all the presets, click on the General tab. Under the editing mode, click on Desktop and under timeline put 59.94 and to make sure it's progressive, look at what it says on the Fields part. Make sure it's set to "No fields progressive scan".

It's true that for editing 1080 60p files, that laptop isn't fully good for it. You'd need a slightly better processor, minimum of 8 gigs of Ram and a better graphics card although I'd say the first 2 are the most important and then if you're planning on doing a ton of effects, an Adobe recommended NVidia card can be considered.

With all that said, I'd make sure the computer isn't doing much else since a lot of things can slow it down such as having other programs open, multiple web pages open, some virus protection programs, update services, etc so basically I'd check to see what else your computer could be doing while your editing.

This should help you see what programs could be taking up a lot of your computer's resources.
http://www.macequivalent.com/mac-equivalent-of-windows-task-manager/
Edited by Paulo Teixeira - 3/16/13 at 1:04pm

I'm jealous! I only dream about that level of software! There is the video stabilizer and the connection to After Effects, etc. I'm afraid to even read a book about it.

Bill