XDCAM not smooth in premiere CS5.5

Editing XDCAM with Adobe Premiere
Serge Kouper
Posts: 18
Joined: November 20th, 2012, 9:59 am

XDCAM not smooth in premiere CS5.5

Post by Serge Kouper » November 20th, 2012, 11:07 am

Hi all. First post here.
I just bought a brand new pmw200 and had a day out shooting around. Back home I plugged the cam to the PC through the USB cable. Driver installed no problem there. Transfered the clip folder from the SXS to my hdd.(not through the sony browser though).
In premiere CS5.5, I just setup the project to SONY XDCAM HD422 as recorded, everything seems relevant and no red line on my clips in the timeline.
What I see there is not really smooth and becomes quite stroboscopic on pans. Mercury engine acceleration on as well.
Occasionally I experienced some freezings on the source monitor but waiting a few secs and replay was fine.
I rendered in mpeg2 blu-ray, CBR and VBR, H264 and m2v and got more or less the same results: a feeling of watching at maybe 20fps, and going stroboscopic in pans left right or up down. Big objects moving in the frame have this effect as well. Not small ones. Also the quality does'nt blow me away as it should. Watching through the LCD cam is good though.

PC Specs.
Core 2 duo E6850
Win7 64bit 8GB RAM
Sata 3 7200 rpm HDD
GE Force GT440 (Cuda Hack)

So far everything was fine editing h264.

What have I got wrong?
Thanks.
Serge Kouper
Posts: 18
Joined: November 20th, 2012, 9:59 am

Re: XDCAM not smooth in premiere CS5.5

Post by Serge Kouper » November 20th, 2012, 8:06 pm

Any idea? Anybody?
blit
Posts: 5
Joined: November 21st, 2012, 6:25 pm

Re: XDCAM not smooth in premiere CS5.5

Post by blit » November 21st, 2012, 6:44 pm

Hi

First, sorry I don't have any magic answer. But normal troubleshooting, which you seem good at from your post would include the following, forgive me if you have already done them. Does it play back okay from camera. Perhaps hook up a fair sized monitor to get a good look. Does it play back okay through other programs, VLC (free) Media Player seems to be the most comon play anything correctly player. Does it play okay on a different machine, maybe fron Apple. Here we are trying to isolate the issue to the camera, Premiere, or the machine. Then another round of testing to isolate it further. Update Windows and Adobe stuff.

If it is camera related, check settings for everything.
If it is Premiere related check for updates and settings.
If it is machine related check how your drives are configured. How many drives, how full, what kind of drives and what drives are plugged into what controllers. Today a new SSD (solid state drive) as a dedicated working drive (for Premiere) can solve a lot of speed issues that a RAID was called for previously. Although the fastest spinning drives can almost keep up they cost almost as much and although having bigger capacities you lose significant speed as you fill the drive. SSD drives can help stuttering issues if caused by throughput limitations.

Hope that gives you something, if only that someone has responded!
Good luck.
Serge Kouper
Posts: 18
Joined: November 20th, 2012, 9:59 am

Re: XDCAM not smooth in premiere CS5.5

Post by Serge Kouper » November 21st, 2012, 8:29 pm

Thank you for your answer.
I checked the file with VLC, it's even worse, and I checked it as well on another PC. (Sorry, no mac). Same thing.
I hooked the camera to a 40" HDMI. The picture is great and no strobe at all even when panning.
I downloaded and install a trial Premiere CS6, and still no luck.
I have been careful to enter the same settings as the clip (XDCAM HD 422 1080i)
Premiere runs smoothly and doesn't show any struggling playing clips.
The HDD is the system HDD. no ext raid yet but I'm just starting and testing for now.
Since VLC does the same thing on 2 pcs.(direct MXF or mpeg2 rendered), I don't think it's a hardware issue on computers.
I'm probably rendering with the wrong settings, I may need to deinterlace or change the bitrate, I don't know...
I've been looking for a "best settings sheet" depending on what you want to output but found nothing around.
I wonder what is others' experience with this XDCAM HD422 and if they have similar issues.
Are you on mac or PC?

Thanks anyway for the answer.
blit
Posts: 5
Joined: November 21st, 2012, 6:25 pm

Re: XDCAM not smooth in premiere CS5.5

Post by blit » November 22nd, 2012, 1:12 am

Hi

Let's see. It plays in Premiere without any trouble but when rendered out does not. Let's try a few things. First my blind guess. Your hard drive is just fast enought to run Windows, Premiere and read in the file as a stream. But when it has to do that and then write it back out as well it can't keep up. This format is about twice the load on your drive that you have been asking to do. Also drives "slow down" as they fill. But let's do some tests. First let's try a quick, cheap (free!) test. Hook up your camera so your computer can see the S x S card and pull video off of it. We don't want to transfer the video, we want to use the S xS card like a drive (I don't know that your camera does this but you may or you can check the manual). Try setting up a new project and when it wants sequence settings cancel out. You are left with a new project but no sequence. Import the clip and then right click and create sequence from clip. This lets Premiere decide on the settings. Now do nothing to the clip editing wise. Now export the clip selecting the box use same setting as sequence. Then try playing the clip. If it won't play try a new project just as before EXCEPT use the just exported clip as your imported clip and see if it will play in Premiere. If this all fails I would try adding a drive, best an SSD. To really make it go you need a 6GB controller. You likely have 3GB controllers. In any case it would still help. If you have stuff lying around you can try an external drive (empty please if it spins). Also check what else is running on your machine, applications, proccesses and services. Make sure you are as lean as is practical. You asked me if I am on Mac or PC. I am PC only.

Best of luck with this.
Serge Kouper
Posts: 18
Joined: November 20th, 2012, 9:59 am

Re: XDCAM not smooth in premiere CS5.5

Post by Serge Kouper » November 22nd, 2012, 7:52 pm

Sorry, my mistake. It does play a bit jerky as well in Premiere but have no problem manipulating FFW and REW, slow or fast.
I'm going to do what you said, that sounds a good idea, and I will be back with the result.
Thanks
AEMIKEA
Posts: 3
Joined: August 5th, 2012, 5:33 am

Re: XDCAM not smooth in premiere CS5.5

Post by AEMIKEA » November 24th, 2012, 6:58 pm

I do the same thing, accept I take the clip I want to work on, drag it onto the icon for new sequence and it makes a sequence that matches the clip, I have always found XDCAM footage to be less hard on a CPU than AVCHD, so jitter playback is odd. I believe your export settings are off maybe, always walk through the presets in premiere to make sure the individual settings are correct. As far as viewing in premiere goes... you can have your playback resolution not set correctly in your timeline window (see "playback resolution" in premiere literature), I have always had smooth playback with XDCAM footage. What were your export settings, did you use a preset? The speed of your machine will not effect your final export file, just exports slower. I would bet it is your export settings. Do you have a short raw clip to download?

PS. Noticed just now it is a trail version you are using, the trial version does not provide certain codecs until you install the full version... may also be the problem

Mike
Serge Kouper
Posts: 18
Joined: November 20th, 2012, 9:59 am

Re: XDCAM not smooth in premiere CS5.5

Post by Serge Kouper » November 25th, 2012, 11:43 pm

Alright, I've done exactly what you told me and here is the result...
I don't know if I'm angry, disappointed, or If I should call Sony to ask them to have their POS back.
Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/Wd-XuYvzVKA
blit
Posts: 5
Joined: November 21st, 2012, 6:25 pm

Re: XDCAM not smooth in premiere CS5.5

Post by blit » November 26th, 2012, 4:52 am

Hi
Thanks for posting the YouTube. That helped alot. Great news! I think your issue can be quickly addressed and for free. I do not see issues with the camera, computer or software. I see big but easily corrected issue with camera operation. The footage played completely smoothly for me several times. The zooms, tilts and pans made the video essentially not useful for any purpose. All the above need to be slowed down by about ten times. There are actually rules for how fast to make camera moves (published in the film world). A full pan takes MINUTES. Try shooting locked off shots without camera movement, just different setups. Then try some camera moves at least ten to twenty times slower. By the way zooms are rarely used professionally. Almost always dolly shots. I would look into some good books on camera work. Don't give up. I can tell you care and are working hard. Success is just around the corner.

Best regards
Serge Kouper
Posts: 18
Joined: November 20th, 2012, 9:59 am

Re: XDCAM not smooth in premiere CS5.5

Post by Serge Kouper » November 26th, 2012, 9:24 am

Thanks for your answer, I'm happy you saw it playing smoothly because I still don't. Also I put these 3 clips together to show what my problem was, and to push the thing to more difficult conditions. I agree these pans are not necessary and unprofessional. However, they are not too fast and should be handled easily by this camera. Also, the one following the black car is something basic and should be flawless. A professional video camera must be able to take objects in movement, and do some movements itself, and for an ENG dedicated cam I would see this as a minimum requirement. (or if I must not pan I can just shoot with my 550d and it's gonna be ok.) Again I'm happy you saw it playing smoothly, even if I wonder how :) ... I still definitely don't understand what's going on, and again, when played directly on the TV from the HDMI output, everything is fine and really smooth, as one can expect it.
Today I'm going to try to put it through vegas pro and render to see if it is not a codec missing in my CS6 trial version, as suggested by someone. I will try as well to shoot in another mode, "lighter", and see if the problem is still there.
Thanks for your help I will carry on posting about this.
Serge
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