Need advice for MOV clips in PrPro CS5

[Margthecar]

I just finished a little project that should have taken no more than an hour and instead took all day because my computer kept choking on my project (freezing and crashing). I finally finished it in SD, but I really wanted an HD clip to send to Youtube. I have other upcoming projects of a similar nature and think I am doing all the wrong things. I seek advice on how to better handle the numerous HD movie clips I seem to get with increasing frequency from my and my friends' iphones, with an eye to exporting them as HD Vimeo or Youtube clips, and/or possibly burning to BluRay disc.

Here is what I did today. I put 32 clips from an iphone (MOV 1920x1080) into a timeline for a total of about 7 minutes. Each clip was reduced a bit from 100% and a Bevel edge Effect put on it. Above each clip was a simple static title. Cross dissolves between all clips and titles. I could run the CTI fine but if I tried to render a couple clips or sometimes made too many mouseclicks too fast, the whole project would freeze and/or crash. At first I tried to export it using the H.264 Youtube HD preset, but the encoding just froze. After many hours of frustration, I gave up on HD and exported it as an SD (AVI) which partially worked but a few random clips rendered with sound but no video--only solid green squares. I then broke up the original MOV timeline into 4 parts so each was smaller, exported each as an AVI and was finally able to cut and paste a completed movie together in SD.

Okay, so I have edited very short HD MOV files, or longer ones with no edits or effects and my computer has done okay. Does anyone know what in particular sent my computer over the edge on this? Was it the number of clips? The Effects applied to each one? Something else? I realize my computer is getting old--am I simply asking too much of it? (Specs in my tagline)

I expect more of these MOV projects in the future and realize I am still pretty clueless about how to edit in HD. What is the best way to handle the clips if I want to keep them HD but not get a new computer? I saw a post from 2010 ("7D workflow-help!") which was similar to my situation and it was recommended to convert the MOV clips to HDV mpeg-2 and edit/apply effects to them in that format. Would that be recommended in my case? Any other advice for working with HD MOV clips with my setup? I have an upcoming project where I may want to burn the project to a Blu-Ray disc. I know nothing about Blu-ray right now. Is there a particular format that is better for Blu-ray than others?

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Your PC should be powerful enough to handle all of this.

My guess is that the project/sequence settings do not correctly match the source footage and that is what is causing the problems. It is most unlikely to be anything concerning the number of clips or the Effects applied to each one.

Another thing to check is to ensure that your version of Quicktime is fully up to date. The suggestion of converting the various .mov files to a common format may be the best workaround.

[Margthecar]

Thanks "twosheds"--BTW is your nickname a reference to the physics unit of a shed?

Yes I did check to make sure I have the most current Quicktime.

On matching project/sequence settings. I have some trouble with that as there is no Quicktime MOV preset on CS5 and I am not sure how to make a Custom one. What someone once told me to do is the drag the MOV clip from the Project window to the New Item icon to make a New Sequence with the settings of the clip, which is how I handle them. This time the clips were taken in a mix of horizontal and vertical positions, so I made the New Sequence by dragging one of the horizontal clips to the New Item icon to establish the sequence settings as HD widescreen. Then I added the other clips. The vertical ones just went into the sequence oriented correctly--short side up--without me having to turn them 90-degrees. Now I wonder if that is part of the problem. Could some of the problem been a conflict with the vertical ones' settings being at odds with the horizontal sequence settings? Not sure how Premiere knew to orient the vertical ones correctly.....

Also, just to try to troubleshoot, I went back to an old project I did a couple years back and don't recall having trouble with. A sequence of a couple dozen or so MOV clips with a few transitions and titles, but no special effects, about 4 minutes long. I reloaded it and a couple of the clips turned up green, as in the current project and the old project was jerky and glitch. All the clips are horizontal. Now I am also wondering if there is something wrong with my hardware. Should I check my graphics card driver? I read somewhere the green clips might be due to memory filling up. Are there some caches or memory things that get filled up that I should periodically purge? Also, I was thinking about Scratch disk space. I am down to about 350GB free on the second 1TB hard drive I use for my video editing. Is this perhaps not enough Scratch disk space for a HD project?
What is the recommended amount of Scratch disk space either as % of drive or actual GB?

Lastly, if I convert the MOV files to an "easier" HD format, what should I use? I know for SD, Premiere really likes DV-AVI so I always use that for SD. For HD, what is Premiere's favored format that causes the fewest problems?

Thanks for all the input. I realize I am asking a lot of questions here, so please don't feel you have to cover them all. I will continue to troubleshoot on my end and get this figured out eventually.

[Margthecar]

Quick update. I just checked. All three of the "usual suspects" are up to date: Quicktime, graphics card driver, Premiere software.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Thanks "twosheds"--BTW is your nickname a reference to the physics unit of a shed?

It's from Monty Python - a nickname given to me by my old college chum after he had seen the Monty Python sketch. Ho hum!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLjS3gzHetA

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

As part of the troubleshooting have you tried using different sequences for the clips that have different aspects - one sequence for the "horizontal" clips, a second for the "vertical" clips. Does the problem still exist?

Re the green clips in the older project and the jerkiness. Did rendering the work area make any difference?

To free up scratch disc space you can delete any render files (in the drop down list under Sequence). They will be recreated as required but they can accumulate over time.

To date I haven't had to use .mov files but my guess would be that for converting them to a standard format for editing in HD using H.264 would be as good as any.

[Margthecar]

Thanks for the Python clip. Funny as always.

I will try a test with putting the horizontal and vertical clips on different sequences, probably in a few days (got another project to finish! SD )

On the old project I did try rendering the green work area and Premiere froze. When I ran the CTI over it, sometimes the clip video played in the Monitor, sometimes it was also green. I tried playing the green clip in the Source monitor and it also froze Premiere. This kind of makes me thing there might be something wrong with something in my computer memory. After the holidays when I have more time, I will have a computer expert friend come over and see if he can find anything. I've noticed an overall slowness in my computer at large that I cannot pinpoint, and perhaps it is just the extra power the MOV files need are revealing it. One more thing which I will have to investigate. I was checking that all the original MOV clips on the old project were intact on the hard drive simply by looking at their thumbnails in the folder, and I see that they are all upside down. When I first got my iphone I used to take video with the buttons on the top, which turns out is upside down for the camera. Quicktime autorotates it just fine, but I found some Microsoft software do not. I know Premiere uses Quicktime somehow to read MOV files so that must be why they all appear rotated just fine in Premiere, but again I wonder if the extra memory/processing power needed for the rotation is part of the problem. Well, I will post when I figure it out.

I will also try deleteing some of these rendered files to see if that helps.

Thanks for the help.

[Bob]

Are there some caches or memory things that get filled up that I should periodically purge?

You should clean the media cache database periodically. Edit>Preferences>Media then click on "Clean".

there is no Quicktime MOV preset on CS5 and I am not sure how to make a Custom one.

Quicktime/MOV is a container format not associated with a specific codec or clip properties. You would need a preset for each flavor of Quicktime you use. You don't really need a sequence preset. The method you are using now (drag clip to new sequence icon) will take care of matching the sequence to the clip properties. But, if you really do want to have a preset, create a new sequence and click on the general tab of the new sequence dialog box. Change the parameters to match your footage and click on the "save preset..." button at the bottom of the dialog.

[Margthecar]

Well I finally got around to looking at this problem again with the MOV files and I am afraid I have no more answers than I did before. I do have a workaround though.

I was hopeful that it was the mixed vertical/horizontal orientations of the clips that was causing the problem but it was not. I created a brand new project, imported the 32 clips anew, dragged one vertical clip to the New Item icon to establish a Sequence with the correct settings, and then started to load on only the vertical clips one by one, checking every few clips to see that all was well. On the 18 and 19th clip, the video went green and Premiere got all slow and glitchy again, eventually crashing. No titles, no Effects, no horizontal clips. So there is something about the sheer number of vertical clips that causes problems I guess. Maybe it's the vertical orientation; maybe it's just because Apple and Microsoft sometimes don't play nice. In any event, I thought, I need a workaround rather than continuing to work directly with these recalcitrant clips.

I ran each of the clips through Handbrake to convert them to MP4s.* Handbrake put them all into landscape orientation which I easily just rotated to vertical as necessary in a new Premiere project. I applied the effects and titles with no problem. I did have to wait a few seconds here and there for the computer to "catch up" but there were no crashes. The clips looked choppy on the timeline but rendered up very nicely and actually gave a slightly better quality output than my other DV-AVI workaround.

I can't say if it was the MOV files themselves (maybe a codec problem?) or something to do with their vertical orientation, but this workaround is pretty easy, and yields output quality acceptable to me, so that works for me.

*If you use Handbrake to do this yourself, be sure to specify CONSTANT Frame Rate of 29.97 fps for output to be edited in Premiere, as opposed to the default variable frame rate (same as Source), or Premiere will crash faster than you can say H.264.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

You may not want to waste time trying this but just a thought.

If you placed each .mov clip in its own sequence then created a 'master sequence' containing all of the .mov sequences does the problem still arise?

[Margthecar]

That might work as well, but it would be more work than running the set of clips through Handbrake, which has a nice Batch Queue feature so I didn't have to select the clips one by one. The problem doesn't come up until there are a lot of clips on the timeline, somewhere near 20, and I don't want to make 32 Sequences.......although it just occurred to me, I could try splitting it into 3 Sequences with about 10 clips each. Now that's not much work. I may try that later today in the interest of Video Science .

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[Jayell]

I post this hesitantly, as I haven't worked in Premiere Pro for awhile, but I was also having serious problems with MOV files. I remember I found a solution .. then found this in my notes just now. I believe it was an answer someone from Muvipix gave me back a few years ago.

"For Muvipix or other MOV files that choke on the timeline. Export it out as a Quicktime, VID Codec: Animation .. then change the bit depth to 32-bit. It will still be a MOV file, but works great on the timeline. You may have to adjust the file dimensions."

[Margthecar]

I figured it out. It took a long, tortuous path somewhat akin to following digital breadcrumbs and, ironically, is closer to my assertion that "sometimes Apple and Microsoft don't play nice" than you might think.

here is what did NOT work, but led me from one thing to another until I got to the ANSWER:
-any configuration of the original MOV files on any number of Sequences.
-increasing the Scratch disk space from about 200GB to another HD with about 500 GB of space
-updating my codec. Gspot said the MOV files were using the AVC1 codec (H.264), which is included in FFDShow. I updated to the latest version of FFDShow, v.1.3.4500.0, but still had the same problems with random green video and crashing.

As I worked through the above ideas, Premiere would freeze up, and I had to use Windows Task Manager to force close it. I noticed that Adobe QT32 Server.exe *32 was always running with Premiere. Hmmm, I have 64-bit Windows so the *32 caught my attention--could I need a 64-bit version of this Adobe QT32 Server.exe, I wondered? So I googled it and voila, got this hit on the Adobe Forum that answers all: http://forums.adobe.com/message/4603613

If you don't wish to connect to the thread, here is the idea in a nutshell clipped from the post:
"Further, it records H.264 to MOV files, which forces Pr to use its own Quicktime importer in a 64-bit environment. Apple's Quicktime is still 32-bit, which is why Adobe had to come up with their own 64-bit importer for some QT codecs.... Try changing the file extension of the .mov files to .mp4. You might be able to get Pr to use its H.264 importer instead of the Quicktime importer, which should give you better results."

So I simply CHANGED THE EXTENSION of the MOV clips to mp4, imported into a new Project and they worked with no problems at all, other than a tiny bit of sluggishness likely due to the fact they are nearly 1GB of video clips. No crashing, ,no freezing, no green video. Just fine and encoded beautifully in crisp clear HD.

So really if you think about it, this what I did when I processed the clips through Handbrake and also what Jayell's solution would also do--simply get Premiere NOT to use Adobe QT32 Server.exe, which appears to be flawed and the source of the problems. Just like I said, sometimes Apple and Microsoft don't play nice. So, like fighting children, the answer is to separate them.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Another brilliant success for the Muvipix self help forum. (Grin)

Glad you got to the root of the problem and sorted it out.