premiere setup

[kingalfred]

im a tech for a college and we have a small multimedia suite where our students can edit using P6.5, we are due to upgrade our machines in the summer but at the moment we are having a few problems, who doesnt?
Because we only have 18 pc and alot more students so we are unable to allow students to stay on one pc until their projects are complete. We use a system where our students use a removable hard drive, which they insert in to the caddie of the pc, this hard drive is used as the scratch disk and it is also where all data relevant to there project is stored, i.e project is saved, clips stored, music etc etc. Most of the problems are clip related, clips go missing, video disappears but audio is still there, projects won't open etc. I just wanted to know if some of these problems could be related to this setup? I understand it is not the best way.

pc spec

pentium 4 1.5ghz
512 mb
w2000
NEC 2500a DVD rw
Nvida 5600 256mb using dual monitors.
removable harddrives / caddies.

all computers are networked to a local domain which allows students to log in using editor user accounts.

i would be gratful on anyones view/comments on the above.
many thanks

[Marc Peters]

First off, welcome to the forums!

The idea of using removable discs is a good solution to your problem. However, given the nature of the majority of removable HDDs on the market, they tend to be ill suited to video editing as they typically can't sustain the high data transfer rate required in editing. Now this isn't a problem during everyday editing, but encoding and capturing to external HDDs does tend to throw up dropped frames.

If your students are experiencing dropped frames, the easiest solution would be to capture/encode to the internal drive, then transfer to the external. Make sure the internal drives are in tip top condition by regularly defraging and cleaning up unused files. The same goes for the external drives!

Get your students into good habits by insisting they keep their files organised and tidy and the discs clean and defragged. You'll be amazed at how many problems this avoids.

You may also consider making your students save a back up of their project file on a seperate network drive. Although they'll lose their work if they lose the captured clips, if they do mess up/delete the project file etc, they'll always have a back up!

Additionally, are all the PCs the same? Have students installed exotic codecs on some? Are they using DV or more heavily compressed video in editing? How full are their drives? You may consider locking out installation of addiotinal software/codecs etc if you haven't already.

In summary, I've a feeling your students' problems are more a case of bad housekeeping - a problem known to us all and easily avoided!

[kingalfred]

Thanks for your input marc, all the pc's are all the same, i forgot to mention that we use canopus storm capture cards complete with front bays. The students capture anologue via video players and dv using sony dvcams (dsr11) The removeable HDD system we use is just a 3.5" bays and caddies, the HDD normally range from 50gb to 120gb, all at 7200rpm. These are set as slaves. The majority of are students tend to stick all their work straight to the root of the drive, rather than organise in folders, which we do recommend they do but they never seem to listen. I must admit the common factor in all the projects that go wrong, is that there has been no file management. We do limit the students access to the pc, they cannot install any software, codecs etc. The most common problem we have is to do with the avi files, the video disappears but audio is still there, the video from one clip seems to assimulate another clip , yet leaving the audio original. The bizzare thing is that checking many forums, no one seems to have these problems, they have many other types but never the same as our, which make me think that it is something to do with the setup. Any help offered would be appreciated.

[Marc Peters]

The bizarre loss/merge of video and audio was posted on the forum within the last few weeks. I'm pretty sure that there was a solution posted too

I'll search the forums when I get home!

[Marc Peters]

Take a look at these threads posted in the past month. They don't offer a soloution and the second I think is applicable to Premiere Pro:

http://www.videoforums.co.uk/viewtop...premiere+audio

http://www.videoforums.co.uk/viewtop...premiere+audio

But at least you're not alone

[kingalfred]

I appreciate the help marc, i've checked out the threads and althou they don't offer a solution, it's nice to know we are not alone. Thankfully we do not have long till the end of term and along with that our machines are being upgraded to XP, P4 3.0Ghz, 1gb of memory etc. So hopefully next term will go a little smoother. Again many thanks.