At Last: Bye-Bye to the Cursed Red Frames

[George Tyndall]

For the convenience of those with slower connections, I am quoting below the opening post at the following

link:

(viewtopic.php?f=57&t=5019&p=44479#p44374)

Background: I wish to assemble with PRE7 a 50-minute movie from ten 5-minute movies,

each of which also was created with PRE7.

Each of the 5-minute movies was created from 2288x1520 JPEG photos that were imported into PRE7 with the

Available Preset Hard Disk HD 1080i 30 ("Default scale to frame size" checked under Edit>Preferences).

When editing was complete, each movie was exported using the Share>Personal Computer>MPEG>MPEG2 1920x1080i 30

option. These files play back flawlessly in Windows Media Viewer. In addition, when I burn each of these to

folder and then burn a SD DVD from that folder, the SD DVDs play perfectly.

Problem: When I import each of those HD MPEG2 (m2t) files into PRE7 Using the Available Preset Hard Disk HD

1080i 30 (1920x1080, which is the same preset I used to share them), I see a number of red frames on the

Timeline in some of those 5-minute movies--despite, to repeat, each of them playing perfectly in Windows Media

Viewer.

Attempted Solution: I downloaded Nero 9, including NeroVision, and then I created a 50-minute movie on the Nero

Timeline that consists of each of the 5-minute HD MPEG2s. THERE ARE NO RED FRAMES ON THIS TIMELINE, so I

proceeded to "smart encode" a Blu-ray DVD from this Timeline.

Result: The resulting Blu-ray DVD does have an occasional red frame or segment where the movie, for lack of

better words, "comes apart."

Help please!

The Sequel to My Saga Follows.

I decided to give Nero 9 one more try, this time by burning a Blu-ray DVD directly from the NeroVision Timeline

and Eureka! I ended up with a flawless Blu-ray DVD. It contains over 23GB of data, and it took 6 hours to burn

this 100-minute-plus creation.

Comments:

--I was able to create a very-acceptable Menu, including animated buttons, by utilizing one of the two menu

templates that come free with NeroVision, however, I must state that the HD templates that come free with PRE 7

are not only more numerous but also far more elegant. In addition, whereas NeroVision limits me to showing

within the buttons only the initial portion of the videos, with PRE7 one may scroll ahead to whatever frame(s)

one desires.

--There is no Help file included with NeroVision or, to my knowledge, any of the other any programs that are

included with the suite Nero 9 . Instead, one must go online and look for the files. The files are not easy to

find, and once found they are only minimally helpful. For example, I did not see a single drawing of the

program's interface. Many features were left unmentioned.**

--The NeroVision default Menu offers no Play Movie option. Each page of the menu offers only the buttons--and

when the movie finishes one is returned to that same page of the Menu to make another selection. One is not

allowed to sit back and let all the individual movies play one after another automatically. Some may actually

prefer this method. Frankly, I did not spend a lot of time looking for a way to change the default method of

playing the DVD. The main reason is that I was able to select the buttons with my remote control.

--Provided one is willing to spend the time looking for the PDF manuals that explain the work flow, the program

is easy to use. One simply drags one's movies into the Content space and then further drags them onto either a

Scenline or Timeline. The Timeline, however, is VERY difficult to navigate, the chief reason being that the CTI

is EXTREMELY difficult, if not impossible, to control. Once the individual completed movies have been

assembled, one simply repeatedly clicks Next to get to the burning point. Note that I was assembling completed

HD MPEG2 movies on the NeroVision Timeline. Given what PSE/PRE7 are capable of, I would not consider

even for a moment creating/editing a movie from mere clips in NeroVision. As I suggested earlier, the CTI is

difficult to use, and the available menus, effects and transitions are far more limited.

--Coincidentally, it was only after I had decided to download Nero 9 (which has a 30-day money-back guarantee)

that I discovered a very in-depth article on PCMAG.com dated Mar. 17, 2009 and entitled "How to Buy a Digital

Media Suite." The article,* by Michael Muchmore, compares the following suites: CyberLink DVD Suite 7 Ultra

($129.99 direct), Roxio Creator 2009 ($99.99 direct) and Nero 9 ($79.99). The article opens with the following

statement:

Ever since the multimedia CD rage of the nineties, software suites that let you burn optical discs full

of sound, pictures, and video have revved every year. These products from Nero, Roxio, and more recently

CyberLink have accreted every kind of media feature, from mixing tools for DJs to red-eye-correcting photo

editors. Suites are great for those who like one tool that can handle a variety of media jobs. But for many

specific tasks, you'll do better with a free downloadable program than a suite that costs from $80 to $100.


The suites vary in capabilities, but all let you do some combination of grabbing media from your camcorder,

camera, or music player, playing it, editing it, authoring it (producing an interface with menus, titles, and

chapters), and burning it to an optical disc. But over the years, the complex mix of software included in the

suites has led to some incompatibilies and bugginess: All of the big suites spit out errors at one time or

another, and most of them are painfully slow on anything but the hottest machines–another reason to consider

point solutions for your digital media needs.

1. Disc Burning

The most important suite function is the ability to burn disc images. Though Windows can burn files to a CD or

DVD by itself, to burn a disc image–necessary for creating copies of a movie or software installer distributed

on DVD–you need ancillary software. Windows 7 will include this ability, but until then, you might try the

latest versions of the popular media suites, Nero 9 ($79.99 direct), Roxio Creator 2009 ($99.99 direct), and

CyberLink DVD Suite 7 Ultra ($129.95 direct). All include software that burns images to optical discs and also

can create a copy of a disc image on your hard drive for later burning. Those who prefer a lightweight,

standalone tool for the job should check out ImgBurn. This donation-based but otherwise free utility can burn

pretty much any image file format you throw at it, including the proprietary ones created by the suites.

2. Video Editing

The next required app is video editing, and here, the CyberLink suite takes the prize, with the slickest, most

capable editor. It gives you a timeline and storyboard view, with six tracks for things like audio and special

effects. If you just want to do simple edits, such as cuts and splices, and even throw in a few 3D transitions,

you could do worse than Microsoft's free Movie Maker. Picasa also has basic video editing now, though supported

output formats are limited. If you want a full-featured standalone video editor, our current Editors' Choice is

the $119.95 (direct) Cyberlink PowerDirector 7 Ultra.

3. DVD and Blu-ray Authoring

After you've edited your videos, you'll probably want to create a DVD so that you can play them on your

television just like a real Hollywood movie. It starts with creating a menu interface for your video, called

"authoring," that will look slick, like the professional products you rent at the video store. This provides an

entry point to the movie, with music and often animated menus, showing thumbnails of your movie's chapters.

CyberLink is tops here, too, letting you author Blu-ray discs in the BDMV format that's used by Hollywood

discs. Roxio requires a $29.99 plug-in to let you do this, and Nero lets you author only basic BDAV discs,

without fancy menus. Blu-ray authoring is one feature you won't see in a free utility, but you can author

regular old DVDs with Windows Vista's well-designed, simple DVD Maker.

--However, provided one also downloads a plug-in that Nero sells for $9.99 (like Nero 9, it also comes with a

30-day money-back guarnatee), the fact is that one CAN create BD-MV Blu-ray discs that, it is said, will play

on virtually any Blu-ray player--and that is exactly what I did.

--Also, with regard to type of disc and format, the article states that many players will not play movies,

including one's own creations, that have been recored on BD-RE (re-writable) media, for the following reason: a

movie on BD-RE may be pirated. I do not know whether that is true, as I rarely use BD-RE discs.

With regard to audio, the article continues:

Nero and Roxio offer audio editing and music track mixing, while CyberLink offers zilch in this

department. Nero, in particular, is strong in audio and music features, with its WaveEditor for basic

sound-file editing and effects and SoundTrax for creating mix CDs (great for budding DJs), as well as 5.1 and

7.1 multichannel soundtracks. Both Roxio and Nero have tools that streamline the process of converting LP

records to digital tracks. To this Roxio adds the cool SoundSoap utility, which cleans up pops, scratches, and

background hum from your recordings. Roxio also includes a utility that converts audiobook CDs for use on MP3

players, including chapters.

For ripping music from CDs, organizing it, creating playlists, and burning it to more CDs, iTunes beats

anything you'll find in the suites, and Windows Media Player isn't far behind. For audio editing, the free

Audacity can also convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs, clean up background noise, edit MP3

files, and record digital audio from any input to your PC.

Muchman summarizes his conclusions as follows:

CyberLink DVD Sute 7 Ultra: This suite comes with the fewest software components of the major media

players–there's no audio-editing software, for example. But what it does give you is the most error-free

operation and the ability to play back Blu-ray movies–something lacking in the other suites.(4.5 circles)

Nero 9:Nero 9 includes a ton of software, and it topped Roxio Creator 2009 in burning speed, stability, and

ease of use. Still, many features, such as Blu-ray support, the TV-viewing interface, and transcoding for

portable devices, need work. (4.5 circles)

Roxio Creator 2009: Roxio's latest suite adds a prettier start interface and a couple of new goodies like

support for beatmatching and audiobook creation, but the included apps are still too complex and generated

plenty of errors during testing. (3 circles)

Here is my conclusion: The PSE/PRE7 "suite" is capable of creating everything that I want to make, and more,

and if it were not for my problem with "red frames" I wouldn't even consider loading up my computer, which I

like to keep "slim and trim," with any of those software.


My plan at this point in time (pendng alternative suggestions from any of the members of muvipix):

Although this is not ideal or even recommended, the next time I wish to create a long movie that consists of a

number of shorter movies, I will try my best to create the smaller movies on the PRE7 Timeline, one after the

other, and then burn the Blu-ray disc directly from that Timeline after which, as usual, I will create an image

of that disc with the CyberLink software that came with my LG burner. And if I discover, for example, that my

system cannot handle more than, say 40 minutes of editing, even after rendering, then mostly likely 40 minutes

will be the maximum length that I will create.
____
* Here is the link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343166,00.asp
**I am referring here to that specific portion of the Nerovision Manual that I was interested in, namely, the portion that covers burning a Disc. Other parts of the manual DO have images of the interface.

[roadsideron]

I didn't want to spend any more money on software so I'm going to try and output my HD project to tape, then recapture them back to a new 1080i project and see if exporting them to WMV's 1080i will solve the problem. I have a Canon HV30 and it's not much of a problem to do that.

[RJ Johnston]

Here's the Nero web page where you can download all the numerous DVD templates:

http://www.nero.com/eng/nero9-template-packs.html

[Paul LS]

For NERO 8 there are two high definition DVD template packs... dont see them available for NERO 9.

[RJ Johnston]

For NERO 8 there are two high definition DVD template packs... dont see them available for NERO 9.

From Nero's web page for version 9 templates:

In total, three template packs for disc authoring and two template packs for video editing are available. In addition to standard resolution such as VCD, SVCD, and DVD-Video, each of the packs includes artwork in HD resolution and lets you edit and author in new high resolution formats such as AVCHD for playback on your PC or Blu-ray players.

[Paul LS]

Thanks for clearing that up Robert... I looked at the summary of each pack... mentioned SD but no HD.

[George Tyndall]

Here's the Nero web page where you can download all the numerous DVD templates:

http://www.nero.com/eng/nero9-template-packs.html

Thanks for the link, RJ.

RJ and Paul, as you know all the shorter HD MPEG2 movies were created with PRE7. Can either of you suggest why, when they were subsequently imported into a new PRE7 project for the purpose of burning a longer movie onto a Blu ray disc, they exhibited red frames but NeroVision could handle them without any apparent difficulty?

[Bob]

RJ and Paul, as you know all the shorter HD MPEG2 movies were created with PRE7. Can either of you suggest why, when they were subsequently imported into a new PRE7 project for the purpose of burning a longer movie onto a Blu ray disc, they exhibited red frames but NeroVision could handle them without any apparent difficulty?

Red frames are inserted by PRE7 to indicate a problem with a particular frame. My guess is that NeroVision either does not flag problem frames that way, ignores the problem, or just isn't as fussy. Some things flagged by a red frame may not be all that obvious when viewing the clip. The question should be why are the clips rendered by PRE7 having problem frames? Perhaps they aren't problems. There was a bug with Premiere Pro CS3 where red frames were being erroneously added with mpeg clips and there was a subsequent patch that corrected the problem. I don't know when the code was passed off from the Pro team to the Elements team. But, [speculation] perhaps the same bug is present in PRE7 or perhaps it was reintroduced. Of course, it could be that something isn't being encoded correctly when it's being exported too. I don't know.

[RJ Johnston]

The only thing I've read about red frames is much the same that Bob described.

I've seen red frames during playback, but they weren't permanent. I went looking for them on a frame-by-frame basis on the timeline, but they weren't there.

[RJ Johnston]

You could try deleting the ImporterFastMPEG.prm file. That's the file that indexes MPEG files when you add them to a project for the first time. People who have JVC .MOD files have reported success in getting rid of distortions and other weird stuff by deleting that file. It's in this folder:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0\Plug-ins\en_US

If you rename the file instead of deleting it, you need to append an extension onto the file name like this:

ImporterFastMPEG.prm.rjj

Not sure about this, but you may need to delete any existing index files associated with the MPEG's you use in your project:

...\Media Cache Files\My ProjectHD3.MACC\*.mpgindex

[George Tyndall]

You could try deleting the ImporterFastMPEG.prm file. That's the file that indexes MPEG files when you add them to a project for the first time. People who have JVC .MOD files have reported success in getting rid of distortions and other weird stuff by deleting that file. It's in this folder:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0\Plug-ins\en_US

If you rename the file instead of deleting it, you need to append an extension onto the file name like this:

ImporterFastMPEG.prm.rjj

Bingo! = You called the right numbers!

The red frames are history!

That is GREAT news as it means I can continue to create my projects using only PSE/PRE7.

Thank you VERY much!

[RJ Johnston]

George, No way?! Well, isn't that something.

[George Tyndall]

George, No way?! Well, isn't that something.

I imported only one of the movies that was giving me a problem but it was the one in which the problem was most obvious, and, yes, even with a maximum enlargement of the Timeline there was not a single red frame in sight.

Magnifico!

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.

[RJ Johnston]

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.

And I thank Chuck for sharing his knowledge.

[Chuck Engels]

What little of it there is, I am always willing to share

I'd like to thank RJ, Steve, Ron and the Muvipix academy