The best Codec for Premiere CS4

[RickP33]

I am trying to learn more about codecs, but still having trouble understanding it fully. I have a new computer, so it makes sense that I need a certain codec to install in order to view my video as I edit on Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. My footage works on Windows Media Player, and the quality is somewhat Poor when I play it on Quicktime (but at least it works).

Now a few questions I have. First, does anyone know the best codec to use for Adobe Premiere Pro? I import DV files from my camcorder, and almost all of my video files are ".avi"

Also, I notice that the codecs are different for each media player that I apply this footage to. And I simply see instructions to download the correct codec. Well first I dont know which codec would be best for my setup, plus my second question: Once I do install the correct codec, will Premiere automatically know to use that codec? Or do I have to adjust a certain setting in Premiere to make the correct codec function? I could not see any setting that allowed me to change the codec...

Anyone's help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

-Rick Phillips

[Jeff Bellune]

Kristin,

I'm sorry.  You're mistaken in this case.  Sand not required.

-Jeff

[Harm_Millaard]

You are taking this out on people who wanted to help and unfortunately, Rick first posted he had a nVidia card, which put all of us on the wrong foot. Only after he investigated, based on rather detailed instructions on how to do that, did he realize that that information was utterly wrong.

You make claims and accusations that show your lack of expertise in troubleshooting, especially remotely. I suggest you do not bite the hand that feeds you.

Have you ever contacted Adobe TS with a problem? Have you ever experienced the details you must provide for them to help you? Have you ever experienced the many mails with instructions on do this, then do that, send us the results, etc.? And then the next mail and the next one.

There is a reason for the troubleshooting guides which are linked to in this thread:

Some suggestions

The whole bunch of information requested (MSINFO, DXDIAG, PROCEXP, HWMONITOR etc.) is asked for because not everybody is a computer geek and mistakes like Rick initially made by claiming a nVidia mobile card and ultimately discovering an integrated Intel video card can be avoided. All this info goes way beyond video drivers. It is basic information in a structured way that helps to locate the problem.

If people do not want to supply that info and are not very structured and accurate in stating the problem, you may get threads like this one.

Its just a shame that certain people can't admit THEY DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER

How can people KNOW the answer if not all relevant details are supplied in a complete, accurate and structured way.

If you send a fax to your car dealer, stating "those four black things do not turn" and he admits he doesn't know the answer to your question, are you disappointed? You shouldn't be, because it is your fault that you didn't supply relevant information. Had you explained that the four black things you mentioned are usually called tires, and that you checked them this morning, because when arriving home last night you heard a strange noise while driving to the car porch, so you decided to check this morning and walked to the car porch, inspected the car as it was standing there and indeed the tires were not turning.

You get the drift?

[the_wine_snob]

Welcome to the forum.

What you are obviously not aware of, is that many laptops use proprietary drivers. The video cards/chips used might carry a designation for, say an nVidia model, but in too many cases the nVidia driver for that designated card from nVidia will never install. If the mfgr. has an update to their rewritten driver, things are fine. Some mfgrs., such as Dell, do a good job of this. Others, like Toshiba do not. I do not know about the HP's, as I have never used them.

When faced with the prospect of the chip company's driver NOT installing, due to the rewrite by the computer mfgr, a custom driver is the only option. This is usually not at all necessary with cards directly from the mfgr., and your advice would hold true. In the case of too many laptops, it falls very short of being the least bit useful. If one has much experience with laptops, especially with higher-end graphics cards, they would have leaned these lessons early on, unless they were only dealing with Dells, or a very few mfgrs, who do offer good driver support. Unfortunately, most do not.

It is also a very popular misconception that because a video player will play a file fine, then everything on the system is perfect. The mistaken deduction often made is that it must be a problem specific to Adobe. Well, not so fast. There is a major difference between playing a file and being able to edit that same file. CODEC's that work in a player, might not be usable by an NLE. The differences in how the display sub-system is accessed and utilized can be great, between a player and an NLE. Jeff points this out quite well.

I realize that you are trying to help, though I must have missed this help you offer. Others are trying to help, as well. Their attempts are obvious. Unfortunately, none of us is sitting with the OP. None of us has the exact computer and file to work with. Some have tried with similar files and have had different degrees of success and failure. It is rather akin to a physician trying to diagnose a patient, when they can not see the patient, nor can they carry on a real-time dialog with the patient. Not that easy.

As we are but users, most of whom have never encountered the OP's exact problem, we're relying on years of experience with PrPro (and other NLE's), many different file formats and CODEC's, and all of the reading that we've done on this, and many other fora. In a perfect world, each of us would have the exact system that the OP has, and the exact same file to test with.

Your assistance is appreciated, but I'm not sure that you have contributed anything yet.

Hunt

[KrisB74]

Dear Hunt,

I have spent 16 years in the industry, I have owned & manager leading edge

computers stores in QLD & over the years have developed what I would call

enough experience to know that I don't know everything. My experience has

been predominately in network admin. & op sys support. This real problem

you have clearly defined to me in your next thread & thankyou for finally

being honest & I quote

"1.) the CS4 "trial" ships with the MPEG CODEC's disabled, due to licensing

issues with MainConcept."

This problem is a licensing issues that Adobe needs to address. Stop

telling people to uninstall drivers when this is clearly not the answer & is

only creating problems not fixing them. You suggest I haven't contributed

anything & trust me if I had the answer I would have given it, but the

answer cannot come from myself nor yourself but Adobe.

Meanwhile the only work arounds I've found have been to convert the video's

to format which CS4 will accept. ie AVI DV PAL. There are numerous

programs to do this.

I have a JVC GZ-HD5AA which create .tod files. To work with CS4 I have to

convert my .tod files in AVI DV PAL thru Cybelink & then I can work with

them in premier.

I hope i have contributed something as my intent is not bag out those who

are honestly trying to help but instead to suggest by carefull with the

advice you give as it could well cost innocent people many days of

frustrating reinstallations & configuration.

Hope this is taken for what it is meant constructive criticism.

Kristin

Kind regards,

Kristin Barr

Operations Manager

Cape Don Experience

Phone: 08 8979 0030

Fax: 08 8979 0568

[the_wine_snob]

I would guess that in your experience, you have not dealt with laptops. Had you done so, you would know more about the proprietary drivers. See, laptops differ from desktops and workstations in more ways, than just size.

One consideration is that when you first started in the industry, I had been in it for over 20 years. I do not claim to know everything, and spend most of my time on these fora to learn even more.

As for Adobe needing to address the MainConcept CODEC's in the trial, well they do. The FAQ's and several KB's point this out clearly. That all people, who download a trial, do not read these is more a testiment to their personal proclivities, than to some deficiency on Adobe's part. How many people have ever read a Read_Me file in any program?

This problem is a licensing issues that Adobe needs to address.  Stop

telling people to uninstall drivers when this is clearly not the answer & is

only creating problems not fixing them.  You suggest I haven't contributed

anything & trust me if I had the answer I would have given it, but the

answer cannot come from myself nor yourself but Adobe.

As driver issues are very common problems, and drivers can be compromised, or rendered totally obsolete by a simple OS update, you'd be surprised at how many times display issues are fixed by this simple, but overlooked action. If MS issues an update to the OS, that breaks a video driver, I fail to see how Adobe could be held accountable. Maybe I am just missing something. When there are no more driver issues, I will cease to recommend that one updates their Audio and Video drivers. Not likely to happen. Same thing for the reliance on Adobe Flash for installation and the recommendation to get the latest update. Same for the reliance of many NLE's on Apple's QT Player (regardless of what one thinks about anything Apple). When NLE's rely on nothing else, I will cease. Until then, if it works, then maybe you should look beyond it.

If you doubt the validity of most of my recommendations, click my profile. Those "points" come from "right answers." Obviously, I have helped someone along the way. Also, note that the tally of hose points only started with the revamp of the Adobe fora, about 4 mos. ago. Can't tell you that some of those were not plain luck, some total guesses, but some must have been from posting "fixes." Now, enough about me, let's address some of the issues, shall we?

As for the conversion of file formats and CODEC's, I think that Harm Millard hit on this very early on in the thread. As many NLE's are still based closely around a DV-AVI Type II workflow, with emerging support for various HD formats and CODEC's, conversion will likely be with us for at least another 1-2 upgrades of PrPro. My clients hand me all sorts of "off-the-wall" Assets. I have never failed to get these "things" into PrPro, thorugh conversion. Now, I might well hate the quality, but that damage was done before I got my hands onto the footage.

Thank you for sharing your conversion program. I am not familar with it, but then have one that works fine for me, so I do not know most of the others. Mine happens to be a US$50 program, and many wish for a freeware program. Is your's freeware? Eddie Lotter works very hard to keep the PrPro Wiki updated and has several secitons on "conversion." Maybe he can incorporate your suggestion for a conversion program. Also, as new formats/CODEC's are introduced, some older conversion programs may well lack the capability to work with some of the newer stuff. TOD and MOD are fairly recent, and have posed some problems with PrPro and also PE. Any tips on handling those will be greatly appreciated. That info would be a great contribution.

Hunt

[KrisB74]

Sorry Cyberlink Power Producer.. typo

I'm sure you've heard of this & it comes with the JVC Video Camera. apart

from this yes you have to pay.

Unfortuneately you loose HD when converting to DV-AVI which is the only

format I can get PPro to import. Still working on a solution for conversion

without loss & I guess free would be nice but not imperitive. will keep you

updated as to my progress.

As for your statement "doubting the validity of your other recomendations"

it never passed my lips. Don't feel that you have to justify your actions

with past performances.

I only have the trial version of PPro, I would purchase immeadiately if

someone could show me a path (with or without conversions) to import into

PPro, but I'm not going to pay for something that doesn't work. I believe

there would be many others in the same situation as myself & Adobe has shot

themselves in the foot. They would have been better to not even have a

trial version, especially one that doesn't work with most of the videos out

there. Even then from the comments of others who have purchased, I doubt

they have fixed the problem in the full version.

Kind regards,

Kristin Barr

[Jim_Simon]

I would purchase immeadiately if someone could show me a path to import into PPro

The issue is that you made a poor camera choice if editing is desired.  Those cameras are better suited to the consumer shoot and watch crowd.  For editing with a professional NLE, choosing a camera that records to a standard camera format (DVCPRO HD, HDV, AVCHD) should resolve your issue.

[RickP33]

Hi everyone,

I have simply have too much stuff going on, so I had to take a break from this crap. But here is where I am currently at with this issue:

First HP told me that since I have a TouchSmart, The graphics driver is part of the chipset motherboard, and that screwing with it can make my computer permanently not function properly.

So first I thought I was simply out $1200 on this computer, so I was going to go buy a laptop that would have the correct driver already installed. Except get this: about 90% of all the laptops I found have the exact same chipset driver, the Intel(4) Chipset Family.

So I wonder: If so many different laptops have this same driver (and the rest of the system reqs. are compatible with Premiere), then howcome it seems like I am the only person in the world with this problem?... The math does not work there...

But here's another thing. I can simply disable the chipset driver, and when I do this, Premiere Pro works much better (The picture shows up, but the video does not play very smoothly) and also the display settings on my computer are large and distorted, and my computer wont run other applications unless this chipset driver is enabled again. So how am I able to play video on Premiere when my graphics driver is disabled??

Any suggestions? Thanks!

-Rick

(this post has gone on so long I should get a profile picture up or something...)

[Keano66]

Rick, maybe the best thing to do is ask your mate Kris.

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Original message -

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From: RickP33 <forums@adobe.com>

Sent: 5 Jul 2009 17:16 -06:00

To: Ian Scanlan <ian@absolutemediadesign.co.uk>

Subject: The best Codec for Premiere CS4

Hi everyone,

I have simply have too much stuff going on, so I had to take a break from this crap. But here is where I am currently at with this issue:

First HP told me that since I have a TouchSmart, The graphics driver is part of the chipset motherboard, and that screwing with it can make my computer permanently not function properly.

So first I thought I was simply out $1200 on this computer, so I was going to go buy a laptop that would have the correct driver already installed. Except get this: about 90% of all the laptops I found have the exact same chipset driver, the Intel(4) Chipset Family.

So I wonder: If so many different laptops have this same driver (and the rest of the system reqs. are compatible with Premiere), then howcome it seems like I am the only person in the world with this problem?... The math does not work there...

But here's another thing. I can simply disable the chipset driver, and when I do this, Premiere Pro works much better (The picture shows up, but the video does not play very smoothly) and also the display settings on my computer are large and distorted, and my computer wont run other applications unless this chipset driver is enabled again. So how am I able to play video on Premiere when my graphics driver is disabled??

Any suggestions? Thanks!

-Rick

(this post has gone on so long I should get a profile picture up or something...)

[RickP33]

I have no mates. I just want this problem fixed.

I do find it weird that this problem has not been addressed, as I meet all of the system requirements, yet no one seems to have any solutions. Just 'guesses'. Have you guys seriously not heard of this problem ever before? These folks who have so many years of experience with this particular program how no idea what can be causing Premiere to not play any video? even though I can play video on everything else?

[Keano66]

Sorry Rik - I am too scared of being lambasted by Kris if I dare offer any other solutions or 'guess' solutions. Best to ask Kris why he decided to alienate those posters who genuinely wanted to offer assistance or indeed have offered solutions to you.

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Original message -

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[Harm_Millaard]

Rick,

Since this thread has been going on so long, it may be a good moment to summarize:

Source material is DV AVI type2 from a Canon GL2. No problem.

PR CS4 has the right codec to edit this source material, nothing needs to done about that.

You have an integrated Intel graphics card that meets CS4 requirements and you need a HP supplied chipset/graphics driver. You have installed, with the help of HP, the latest driver and that did not resolve the issue. Disabling the chipset driver allows PR to run but disables other programs, so that is not a solution. You need the chipset driver loaded.

also the display settings on my computer are large and distorted, and my computer wont run other applications unless this chipset driver is enabled again.

This suggests that the display setup is not correct. That makes sense when the driver is not loaded, but the returning problem with PR when the driver is loaded, suggests that the display settings are causing this problem with the default settings from the driver.

I'm not familiar with the integrated graphics card or the HP driver, so it is rather difficult to suggest anything specific. What may help is running DXDIAG, run all the tests and attach the results in a TXT file.

[the_wine_snob]

Rick,

I do find it weird that this problem has not been addressed, as I meet all of the system requirements, yet no one seems to have any solutions.

I can only guess here, but my first inclination would be:

1.) the HP TouchSmart is fairly new, so not that many have encountered your issue - yet

2.) those that might have, have just not posted here - yet

3.) there is some other issue with your system and the display on your computer

As we're just users, and none here works for either HP, or Adobe, to my knowlege, the answer might only come from an HP forum (though many/most probably do not run PrPro on their TouchSmart rigs), or from someone, who shows up later, with the same equipment and same problem. I know that it doesn't help you, and that is what we've tried to do, but it might just be time, and the right person finding your thread.

I'm not a MOD here, so the idea might get shot down by Jeff, or Jerry.K, but I think that I'd post the exact problem with a title that states the HP TouchSmart model in it. Through the attempts to solve your issue(s), the thread did take some turns, and you have been able to rule out most of the suggestions as not applying to your situation. With the right title, there would be greater likelihood that an HP TouchSmart user with PrPro would see it, and join in. I'd add a link back to this discussion, so that newcomers would be able to track all that you have tried, with no success.

Good luck, and sorry that most of the suggestions did not work for you. Bound to be some way to get it all working together. I'm just out of ideas.

Hunt

[Bill_Gehrke]

I have no idea if this USB to DVI gadget would work but maybe you could order one from them or some vendor on a trial basis.  With the included software you apparently can make it the primary display.  Check with them first if it is OpenGL 2.0 compatible.  There are also other similar devices for interfaces like ExpressCard.

[KrisB74]

Dear Rick,

I apologise if I have cause you any grief here.  This Keano character definately has greviance with me but that shouldn't be taken out on you.  I think you have to bite the bullet & post a small video online so it can be tested by those who have the experience...  I'm not claiming to be that person, as my experience with PP in limited.. My experience with hardware (which drivers are closely associated) is extensive & I'm positive this is not a drive issue.  Otherwise, like you've said, everyone from Timbucktoo to the black stump would have experienced these issues with their notebooks, in fact this integrated video driver is not only found on notebooks but many standard intel desktop motherboards also.

I don't eny you Rick as your genuinely asking for help here. Perhaps we should get back to basics without acting like teenage school kids.  Step us through the exact steps you are taking to import or are you just playing thru media browser?  & definately upload a sample file as without this we dont know what your dealing with.

Your "Mate"

Kristin

[FTVteacher]

Hi Rick, I've just been in another forum that sounds very similar to yours. I'm also using HP laptops that are doing the same thing. Intel chipsets etc. Can you tell me how much ram you have for dedicated video?

Just asking because the laptops that work for me have over 512mb and the ones that aren't have less, and there is very little difference between the machines otherwise. I'm trying to get a techie to unlock the bios for me (stupid user restrictions) so I can change the amount of allocated ram (if it allows me to). I'll post my findings here too.

[jcashark]

Rick, I experienced something similar that happened with you (black video/only audio) in premiere CS4. I'm using now Windows 7 RTM. When I was using the RC1 release, premiere worked just fine. But seems the driver that the new version has installed messed -up the things. After many trial and error, with codecs, drivers, I discovered a driver for intel g965 that works with windows 7 and premiere. Is the version 15.9.64.1472 for windows vista x64. Now everything works! Hope it helps. If you want this driver, you could ask me for a link, then I'll upload it.

Cheers,

Júlio Cabral.

[RickP33]

Julio,

That is awesome that that works for you. I dont know how much of an inconvenience this has been for you, But I am trying to run a productions business, so this has taken its toll on me.

If you upload the link, and everything works, I will personally mail you $20 for your help

Thanks man!

-Rick

[jcashark]

Rick,

the driver is here. However, since the driver is from a previous version, windows try everytime to updates this. These annoying messages really are boring me. So, I've trying a way to use the last updated driver with same configuration of this old one (that works!). What I discovered is that if you extract the archive that I'm sending to you, will be there a folder called "Graphics". Inside this folder, there are some .dll files. What I did wast to copy these files do adobe premiere cs4 root directory. Remember that I have updated the Graphics drivers of system. When I started premiere and load a project, surprise, that works! I think that even with a new graphics driver installed, when you copy this .dlls from the old driver to the root of premiere, it assumes and uses those files to acess graphics functions. Now I'll try, one by one of the .dll to discovery which file is the essencial for this.

So, I think thats all.

Please, contact to tell me if it works for you too.

Bye

Júlio

[the_wine_snob]

Júlio,

Thanks for reporting. I hope that your efforts will pay off and also help others.

Good luck,

Hunt

[chadj2411]

Hi, are you still having this issue? Because I have a brand new HP and am having the same issue. I feel like I am the only one in the world having this issue and no forum seems to have the answer.

Why cant I see video but hear audio!?!?!?!? Someone has to know the answer...I too am trying to start up a video production company.

[the_wine_snob]

Because I have a brand new HP and am having the same issue.

Did the driver that Júlio linked to, not work for you?

It seems that that driver worked for him, and probably others, as well. I would definitely give it a try.

Good luck,

Hunt

[jcashark]

Which is the brand and model of your graphics board? Maybe with this

information I can help you.

thx

Júlio

[FTVteacher]

Hi guys, I've had a breakthrough now on the HP's that weren't working under XP. Again, it is a driver issue for the intel graphics chipset. from my testing, things seem to be working fine (and I have a giant smile on my face as my 150+ laptops can now be used). I rolled the drivers back to version 6.14.10.4957 and all is well with the world. Thought I'd share as there are still many people out there with the problem.

Cheers

[Bill_Gehrke]

Great news and thanks for sharing the solution!