Few editing question from semi-advanced editor

Rough Cut · #1 (**permalink**) 05-26-2006, 09:24 AM

I have learned editing in Premiere 1.5 by trial and error, and had a great time editing several home projects. I found answers to most of my questions by googling and reading forums like these, but I have a few unanswered. Maybe someone here can help me?

1st question: I used titles generated in Photoshop which I imported into Premiere, ie. text on a transparent background. This looks really sharp, but the edges of curves (like the letter "c") look jagged. When I scroll this text, it seems to "wobble". How can I fix this?

2nd question: I like to change clips on each beat of a song. This is not one continuis pattern (ie. a beat every 0,7 seconds), so I have to mark each beat manually. Until now, I just kinda guessed where the beat was, and then finetuned it by moving my new clip till it looked like it started exactly at the beat. Can this be done more efficiently?

3rd question: I was wondering what you approach is to editing a big, captured MPEG2 file of 30 minutes that contains only 3 minutes worth of good footage, scattered all over in bits of 5 to 10 seconds. I am now cutting the good bits with the razor and moving them to a new video channel, deleting the original video channel when I'm done. Is that the right way to do it?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Edit: added the 3rd question

Alan Mills · #2 (**permalink**) 05-26-2006, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by Rough Cut

I have learned editing in Premiere 1.5 by trial and error, and had a great time editing several home projects. I found answers to most of my questions by googling and reading forums like these, but I have a few unanswered. Maybe someone here can help me?

1st question: I used titles generated in Photoshop which I imported into Premiere, ie. text on a transparent background. This looks really sharp, but the edges of curves (like the letter "c") look jagged. When I scroll this text, it seems to "wobble". How can I fix this?

Just thinking out loud but this might be due to a couple of things or a combination of both. By the time the text is being rendered in Premiere it has been rastorised. Are you performing any sort of scaling at all?

I don't have PPro in front of me but there should be a right click option on the still to reduce or remove flicker. Try that.

Also, and I can't remember the key sizes off hand but the fount (English spelling

) size can be a factor here. Some point sizes just work better than others. Try adjusting it by a few points if you can and trying again.

Originally Posted by Rough Cut

2nd question: I like to change clips on each beat of a song. This is not one continuous pattern (ie. a beat every 0,7 seconds), so I have to mark each beat manually. Until now, I just kinda guessed where the beat was, and then finetuned it by moving my new clip till it looked like it started exactly at the beat. Can this be done more efficiently?

You could enlarge, vertically the particular audio layer so you can see the waveform. That should help you find the beats I hope. Alternatively, at www.trapcode.com you can download an After Effect plugin (I don't think it works in PPro - sorry) called SoundKeys (I think) that adds keyframes on each beat dynamically. It might be useful here if you have AE.

Originally Posted by Rough Cut

3rd question: I was wondering what you approach is to editing a big, captured MPEG2 file of 30 minutes that contains only 3 minutes worth of good footage, scattered all over in bits of 5 to 10 seconds. I am now cutting the good bits with the razor and moving them to a new video channel, deleting the original video channel when I'm done. Is that the right way to do it?

I think that's about as good as anything I do. I haven't tested this feature yet but I believe one of the new features of Premiere Pro v2 is that the project manager 'trim' function have been made better by extracting only the part clips you are actually using. Before it only lopped off the bits at the start and end that weren't used. Now it removes the bits from the middle as well I think. Might be worth a try for a big file.

bgarthp · #3 (**permalink**) 05-26-2006, 02:04 PM

Originally Posted by Rough Cut

3rd question: I was wondering what you approach is to editing a big, captured MPEG2 file of 30 minutes that contains only 3 minutes worth of good footage, scattered all over in bits of 5 to 10 seconds. I am now cutting the good bits with the razor and moving them to a new video channel, deleting the original video channel when I'm done. Is that the right way to do it?

I'm not sure about premiere pro, but in 6.0 if I want to do this what I do is double click so I've got the long clip in the clip window, mark in and out points as usual, then drag the clip not onto the timeline but into a bin instead, this creates a new clip with just the marked bit, repeat for all the parts you want then you can treat them like individual clips.

Basically does the same thing as the razor tool but does it in the clip window and allows you to use your bits as individual clips.

Rough Cut · #4 (**permalink**) 05-26-2006, 07:31 PM

Originally Posted by Alan Mills

Just thinking out loud but this might be due to a couple of things or a combination of both. By the time the text is being rendered in Premiere it has been rastorised. Are you performing any sort of scaling at all?

I don't have PPro in front of me but there should be a right click option on the still to reduce or remove flicker. Try that.

Also, and I can't remember the key sizes off hand but the fount (English spelling ) size can be a factor here. Some point sizes just work better than others. Try adjusting it by a few points if you can and trying again.

I think you're right about placement and size: letters with a curve at the bottom (like the letters o, u, g etc.) would really jagged at the bottom, but if I placed them a few pixels lower they'd look better. I'm not scaling them, though. I make new document in Photoshop with their default settings for stills used in video.

I see this jagged effect too with some cartoons I edited in Premiere... I'm just curious what it is and how it can be fixed.

Originally Posted by Alan Mills

You could enlarge, vertically the particular audio layer so you can see the waveform. That should help you find the beats I hope. Alternatively, at www.trapcode.com you can download an After Effect plugin (I don't think it works in PPro - sorry) called SoundKeys (I think) that adds keyframes on each beat dynamically. It might be useful here if you have AE.

I have never used After Effects but if it does that, I might start using it soon. Sounds very useful. The waveform in Premiere is too small to precisely locate the beat, though I used that as a guideline.

I decided to place a white screen at every beat, and a black screen for the rest of the movie. This way you get a "strobe effect" at each beat and makes it easier to see if the timing is right. Then later I let my clips begin at the locations of the white screens - it works for now...

And bgarthp had a pretty good solution for my 3rd question

Rough Cut · #5 (**permalink**) 05-26-2006, 07:31 PM

Originally Posted by bgarthp

I'm not sure about premiere pro, but in 6.0 if I want to do this what I do is double click so I've got the long clip in the clip window, mark in and out points as usual, then drag the clip not onto the timeline but into a bin instead, this creates a new clip with just the marked bit, repeat for all the parts you want then you can treat them like individual clips.

Basically does the same thing as the razor tool but does it in the clip window and allows you to use your bits as individual clips.

That sounds just perfect - exactly what I'd prefer. Thanks for the suggestion!