G400TV and Premiere 6 Monitor Source Window Problems

[crizzo]

I have a Marvel G400TV and Adobe Premiere 6.0.

With the following settings in prem60.ini:

[codec]
keepopen=dmb1

[Override]
NoDirectShow=1

The Monitor Source window single frame advance button works fine (shows the individual frames one by one). But the Play button causes the first few frames to play and the video stops advancing. I can still hear the audio however. And forget about trying to stop the clip until it finishes playing(?). The whole application freezes up until the clip reaches the end.

So I tried the following in prem60.ini:

[codec]
keepopen=dmb1

[Override]
NoDirectShow=0

With this setting, the Play and Stop buttons work fine, but the single frame advance button causes an all black window (i.e. - I cannot view the clip).

Any suggestions on getting both the single frame advance button, play button and stop button all working at the same time?

Soapbox: Should I just return the software to Adobe and tell them I want my $540 back? Virtual Dub is free software and all these functions work effortlessly. Why can't a $500+ software package from a reputable software company do the same thing?

[Sciascia]

If I am not mistaken this is an old issue with Matrox and Premiere. Check the compatability page on Adobe's site. I am not sure that the G400 is on there. As a matter of fact I am pretty sure that it is not. You may be hard pressed for a refund in that case since they did not advertise compatability.

About Virtual dub, I love that app, but it doesn't use the TV output so it is not quite the same, though I do understand what you meant. I don't believe that this is an issue with Premiere as much as it is an issue with the way that Matrox uses the Directshow functions of their card. I mean they can't even get Win2000 MJPEG drivers right with it (atleast won''t support it).

I understand your frustrations, but you can't expect too much from this card as it is not a PRO editing alternative. I've had to come to terms with that myself. If you use it for what it is meant for then it is a great card.

If you can get your money back, that would be great. I would invest in MSP 6, especially since it is half price right now and works very well with the G400.

[Dr Mordrid]

Not to mention that MSPro 6.5 is coming sometime this month

Premiere has always been more flaky than MSPro on a well configured system. Premiere6, being a new build that was *totally* recoded from the ground up, also has a few birth pangs.

Dr. Mordrid

[miya]

Goto Edit>Preferences>General and Still Image, put a check mark next to 'open movies in clip window.' This is the only way to open a dmb1 source clip in Premiere 6 (and 5.1) and have enough control to mark in and out points. The source half of the monitor window is useless with the Matrox hardware codec, although the Program half doesn't exhibit the same symptoms once the same clips are in the timeline (although it has its own problems with jerky playback making playback to tape from the timeline useless.)

[crizzo]

MSPro 6

All - Thanks for the rapid responses!

I've been investigating MS Pro 6, and an article I read complains of

1. Poor performance and
2. A 30 second limitation on clips (for Video Paint only)?

The article is located at:

http://videobuyersguide.com/software/mediastudiopro6.html

Does anyone know if these claims hold water?

[Dr Mordrid]

1. I've never had any complaints about MSPro's performance. In point of fact the ability to run on a modest system is one of its strong suits. On my systems (8 of 'em) MSPro6 performs hell-and-gone better than Premiere6, which tends to bog down badly after a time due to its poor memory handling. With Premiere if you don't save every few minutes and reboot before it crashes you're nuts.

2. First understand that video painting is used in special effects sequences, most all of which are (and should be) only a few seconds long. As such when doing your pre-production planning (a very under-used practice) part of it should be to create new source clips containing only those frames you're going to paint on. They can be re-inserted into the project after the changes have been made.

Why? Because using a whole sequence would require streaming between 100 and 400 megs of video through the system for each 30 seconds of the clips duration, depending on the level of compression (100=DV ; 400=uncompressed YUV). That takes a lot of RAM for caches and a lot of system overhead. Not practical unless you have a gigabyte of RAM.

'tis better to work on one short sequence at a time, which makes a 30 second "limit" quite acceptable IMHO.

Dr. Mordrid

[Sciascia]

30 second limit?? If you were to paint for a more than 30 second clip it would probably be easier to use a key or something. I don't even think that Premiere has a VideoPaint portion. I really don't think that you would be using too much realistically.

If you want to talk about limitations, Commotion is the same way. It is a compostiting tool that only uses Quicktime, so you have to export a portion of a ciip and it won't even do 30 seconds of that clip. It goes for about $400-500 I think. So it is a fairly common issue for frame by frame manipulating applications.

I suggested MSP 6 because I know what it can do and because it is on sale right now in anticipation of 6.5. If you want to wait for 6.5 then go for it. Ulead usually has a ecent upgrade price for it's registerd owners though.