Editing a simple video using Adobe Premiere (SGI)

Easy version

Starting up

• Log in to the console of moviola.
• cd /nle
• If you don't already have your own subdirectory here, make one. Move to it.
• Start premiere by typing premiere. The first time you do this it will take a few minutes to get everything set up. Future startup times won't be as long (but all the plugins aren't exactly quick to load).
• Eventually premiere will ask you what kind of presets you want. Online Video Tape - NTSC is probably a reasonable starting point.
• A whole bunch of windows will now appear.

Settings

• Pick File->Preferences->Scratch Disks. Hit the Add Folder button. Add the name of the directory that you're in. Now pick that new addition for the Temp/Captured Movies item. You should see a lot of disk space available, since you should be in the large local /nle disk.

• If you are going to capture video and want to control the deck from the computer, pick File->Preferences->Device Control and pick Diaquest TimeCoder instad of None. Hit the Options button and pick /dev/ttyts2 as the selected serial port.

• Pick Make->Compression. Select Motion JPEG for the compression method. Pick 30 Frames Per Second. (These are good settings for making a videotape. If you want to put a movie file up on the web, you probably want a different compression method like Cinepak, lower the quality slider(s), and 15 FPS motion.

• Pick Make->Output. Make sure Size is 640x480. If you're using Audio, be sure to set Blocks to 1 frame, not the default 1 second. I've had good quality audio with a rate of 48000 Hz and 16-bit stereo samples. Again, if you're making a Web video instead of a videotape you'll probably want to crank the size down to 320x240 and possibly go for worse audio quality. If you're going to make a video to dump to tape, you do not want "QuickTime Composite" as your format - definitely use "QuickTime Movie". Although the composite style is much faster to compile, you're not guaranteed of perfect smooth playback the way you are with the movie file.

1. Pick File->Capture->Movie Capture. The capture window will appear.
2. Route the appropriate deck to moviola. For example, to route the digibeta deck through the Web interface middle-click on the digibeta deck and left-click on moviola. Telect: telect -lsdi -idigibeta -omoviola. See the capture page for more on routing.
3. Pick Movie Capture->Video Input from the capture window. If you don't see the right video in the capture window, then pick Video Panel from the small popup. In the Default Window selector at the top pick Digital Video. Then pick File->Close to shut the video panel.
4. Pick Compression from the small popup. Pick JPEG for compression method. Note that this compression setting can be different from the one you set from the Make->Compression menu item in the Construction Window. Close the Compression window and the small popup.
5. Pick Movie Capture->Recording Settings. Turn off the Post-Compress checkbox, and turn on the Conform to 30 FPS choice. You probably want the Abort On Dropped Frames box off.
6. If your clip doesn't have sound turn the sound off from the Movie Capture menu. It's a somewhat confusing UI - it's off if there's a big red check next to the sound off entry on the menu.
7. If you selected Device Control as described in the Settings section above, then you can control the deck from the buttons in the capture window.
   • Set the local/remote switch to remote on the deck.
   • Use the RS422 patch bay to route the deck control to moviola.
   • Now the play button in the lower left should work.
   • You can record on the fly by just hitting record, and then clicking with the mouse again to stop recording.
   • You can instead set precise in and out points by either typing timecode numbers in the upper right corner, or by positioning the tape and then hitting the "in" or "out" buttons. Then make sure the Auto-Record checkbox is marked, and hit Record. It will automatically stop after the segment is digitized.
   • I find that it's a lot easier to position the tape using the knob on the deck itself, instead of the little frame-forward buttons on the GUI, so I do a lot of switching between local and remote modes. That's fine, if you forget to switch it back to remote before trying to do a capture it will remind you.
8. If you don't want to bother with precise in/out points through Device Control, then you control the deck locally and just hit the record button at the right time, and then click with the mouse when you want to stop.

   Importing existing content

   • Pick File->Import->File and select a still image, video clip, or audio clip that you want to import. You'll see it appear in the Project window. You can drag it into place in the Construction window. To make a simple video, just import your all your pieces and drag them into the Construction window in the right order. If you just want straight cuts with no fancy transitions you can just shove them all back-to-back on the top (A) track.
   • You can use a clip more than once by just dragging it from the project window to a new place in the construction window. It will duplicate itself in the project window. For instance, if you want to play a video clip forward then backwards, drag a second copy into your timeline and then pick Clip->Speed to set its speed to -100%.
   • To set the duration of a still image, you can either pick Clip->Duration to enter an exact time or just drag the edges in the timeline to fill up some gap.
   • Note that you can make title frames and such with File->New->Title.
   • You can fade from one clip to another by using the Cross-Dissolve Transition. Make sure that one clip is on the A track, the other is on the B track, and drag the transition in between them. You need to make sure both clips overlap the transition.

   Video output

   • You can get a rough idea of what you've got by just dragging the mouse across the gray line right above the timeline. Premiere will try to keep up in the Preview window, but you'll get a lot of gaps and such.
   • The workarea is the subset of the entire project that the yellow top bar extends over. You can preview the workarea by hitting the |>| button in the right corner of the Controller window. Again, it will play in the Preview window.
   • From Construction Window, pick Make->Movie. You'll need to pick a filename, and you can see all of the current settings. The one to really keep an eye on is Entire Project vs Work Area. It probably says Work Area, and if you want the whole thing you need to pick Entire Project by clicking the Options button and changing the Output option. (Or you could make the yellow bar extend to the entire project in the Construction Window.)
   • Your movie may take a while to compile. A reasonably complex five minute movie with a full soundtrack, many video and still clips, a few transitions, and some superimposed titles over running video took over 30 minutes.
   • When your video is compiled, you can play it through the Premiere clip window or from the shell using movieplayer.
   • To output your movie to videotape, you can use the File->Export->Print to Video menu item in the Construction Window or in the Clip window after compilation. You'll want to set around ten seconds of black before it starts, since you'll need to manually control the deck to record. I don't know of a way to make premiere automatically control the deck for recording (only for capturing).
     1. Route moviola to the relevant deck. For the digibeta deck and the Web interface, middle-click on moviola and left-click on the digibeta deck. Telect: telect -lsdi -imoviola -odigibeta.
     2. Set the deck to local, not remote. You'll want to insert edit onto the video (and possibly also the audio) tracks. See the deck documentation for details. Keep in mind that the deck will preroll.
     3. See the Recording a movie file to tape page for more details.

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   More detail

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   Additional notes

   Don't get fooled by the manual, which recommends 1 sec for the Audio Block Size. In the release notes for the SGI version, it's explicitly suggested to go with the 1 frame block size for smooth playback. Here's the explanation (from /usr/adobe/Premiere_4.2/README):
   • The audio block size should be chosen based on your desired usage of the movie. The SGI playback software is optimized for the 1-Frame block size, and there may be dropped frames during capture or playback with larger block sizes at higher data rates. However, Premiere makes movies a little faster when the audio block size is 1 second, and larger block sizes may provide better playback on other platforms such as Macintosh or Windows computers. The display of the audio waveform in the audio tracks of the Construction Window is optimized for 1 second blocks, although you may want to turn off waveform drawing altogether via Preferences > Audio > Approximate audio for All views.

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   Troubleshooting

   • If you find that whenever you try to make or capture a movie, the result is just a few second and all black, then maybe you forgot to set the scratch disks in preferences. By default premiere will put temporary things into a file called AdobePremiere4.2 in your home directory, which will fill up your disk very quickly.

   • If premiere crashes or shows error messages when you try to use JPEG compression for capture or creation, try reseating the video board. The connection has been known to be flaky in the past, perhaps because moviola is in a location where it gets kicked often.

   • If you have a videotape with messed up timecodes, the movie capture controls can get confused. That is, if the timecode abruptly jumps to a lower value, instead of increasing smoothly as the tape plays. (This could happen if you didn't insert edit properly onto a blacked tape.) You'll have to switch the deck to local control, manually move it to the right section, and then switch it back to remote.

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   Last modified: Tue Mar 14 17:32:52 PST 2000