Variable frame rate video with Premiere Pro

[rmshro0]

Variable frame rate video comes from many places these days: phones, live streamed video recordings.

Adobe Premiere is a supposedly production level piece of software that cost a good chunk of change.

How is it 2012 and Adobe does not still have an answer to this problem?  After trying to editing/convert/mux/edit variable frame rate videos for the past 5 hours I am just exhausted.  No amount of conversion apps, etc have saved us and THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE TOO.

We have spent thousands on Adobe software packages over the last decade, probably 10s of thousands, and the only answer I find consistently is to switch to Vegas.

Surely, SURELY someone at Adobe with real insight into the issue can help answer the question of whether users moving into different medium should find a place elsewhere in the software ecosystem...

Message was edited by: Kevin Monahan

Reason: to make article more searchable

Title changed.

[MrLevy]

No updates yet have fixed it far as I know... I've been streaming with CFR strict recently for my web show and later downloading the broadcast from the broadcast platforms storage servers. It's packaged in a FLV file... and that still isn't working in premiere... lol. So I use my asset removal/merge into mp4 file trick still (see earlier post on 1st or 2nd page of thread).

[Shoestar]

Has anyone experience with the new GoPro 3+ and Adobe Premiere CC? Because as I read the new low light mode features a dynamic frame rate. I assume we will have the same issue with this material.

Maybe this camera professionel is enough to speed up the fix.

[MDIWNCOR]

This thread has been very entertaining for me this evening.
Thank you all.

I am posting this, mostly so that I can continue to follow it in the future. I didn't find any button to subscribe without posting.

I too have video, recorded with Nvidia ShadowPlay, that has syncing issues.
Tried tweaking the speed of the video after unlinking, but it didn't help.

Opening it up in Microsofts MovieMaker seems to have done the trick.
At least when I want to cut out the "fat" and be left with only one small clip of the video.

It's far inferior when it comes to handling multiple videos and clips, as all work is done on the timeline itself.

After exporting from MovieMaker, the video is now CFR, and not VFR as it started out as, and can be safely used in Premiere.
I have, however, not taken a closer look at the quality loss, so this will be my next step.

Any future posts on how progression on the bug fix is going would be received with many thanks.

EDIT:
Whop...
There it is.

I found the "receive email notifications" link

[prOkrEAt]

Wow, this thread is unbelievable. [personal attacks deleted]

i cam here because i am having issues with PP importing captured footage as well, i have it set to CBR but it doesnt interpret the footage properly. this is new, it USED to work but no longer does with these MP4 files.

however to answer the OP and the thread, try OBS instead of xsplit. its free. http://obsproject.com/ there are some settings in the advanced settings i believe that forces CBR and you can stream with it as well as capture to file at the same time. it does most if not all of that xsplit does without all the headache you all seem to be having with VBR.

and YES!!! add VBR support. i dont want to hear about "professional this"... i want to be able to pull ANY video source into a project and have it in sync!!! that is a basic right to video editing software these days, or should be.

[excited_Genie16B8]

i want to be able to pull ANY video source into a project and have it in sync!!! that is a basic right to video editing software these days, or should be.

Software needs to be designed to handle specific input formats.  It's just not practical to expect any one piece of software to handle every single video format in existence.

[prOkrEAt]

[insults deleted by moderator] software needs to be designed to handle ANY input. i am actually impressed how far PP has come with multi-source formatting within a single project which they need to continue on with it into VBR. it would be nice to be able to drop in 3gp off phone sources or webcam captures without having to remux the video file which i have had to do far to many times.

unfortunately i have an issue with PP not recognizing the proper frame rates and importing them wrong which is how i stumbled onto this thread. i have dealt with their complaint and offered the fix that i have found without demeaning them. [insults deleted by moderator]

[Greg Baber]

There are a dizzying array of different file types out there.  Unfortunately, sometimes to get some types of files to work very well, we cannot include others.  This is a feature request that has been submitted before, and I always recommend adding your own voice to the crowd to show the engineers how important this is to some of our customers.  Hopefully we can make these types of files work with the rest.

Here is the feature request form again - https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

[prOkrEAt]

well i certainly appreciate all the thought and hard work PP has done with multi-format file types so far, it has made my life immeasurably easier with multiple sources that dont always match.

it would be nice if the ability as built into the software to move VBR>CBR so it can be edited. the problem with the OP's assumption of VLC PLAYING the file is different than EDITING a VBR file. but they are right, the future is changing with what is needed for video editing needs and its not always a professional video camera that is the source. i guess we still need to deal with the fact that we need to convert the footage before importing.

but give OBS a try, you can capture ANYTHING on your system [webcam, window, screen, whatever] and force CBR to begin with so you dont have to convert later.

[excited_Genie16B8]

VBR and CBR are not the issue under discussion.  Those terms relate to bitrate, this thread is about frame rate.  Two very different things.

All professional video is done at a constant frame rate.  There are many to choose from, but any given file runs at only one, non-varying frame rate

Given that the market segment Premiere Pro is targeted at doesn't use video with a frame rate that varies, I can understand why Adobe hasn't yet spent limited resources on adding support for such.  There do exist consumer tools out there which may be better suited to handling such non-standard formats.

[prOkrEAt]

Long morning mucking with capture settings and posted wrong acronym, yes CFR. Need to set capture to use CFR in the advanced settings. Will fix the issue in PP. Also use CBR for more consistent encoding.

[MrLevy]

[personal attacks deleted].

Idea debate on validity of a VFR standard in future use:

The future of design and technology is responsiveness, from how websites appear on any number of devices to the way data is recorded or delivered to you based on your needs. I don't think VFR should be ignored... the brain can process visual stimuli less than 1/200th of a second according to USAF pilot tests. We also process changes in light in about 16 miliseconds or so... Now as we push closer to higher framerates (the hobbit was shot using 48 fps, more and more HFR 5,000 FPS content such as phantom youtube videos) data storage and or transmition might become less effecient. What I'm getting at is simply this.... use HFR on scenes that matter for motion and then LFR on scenes that don't matter for motion... and all in the same video file. So for example... let's say we had an intellegent camera that increased frame rate depending on motion in the scene to capture details otherwised missed and then captured very few frames when there was very little motion... I think that would be a more effecient way to record data than recording excess data that isn't needed.

Edit:

Oh btw...

This thread is now #1 result for keywords:

adobe premiere VFR

and

adobe forum premiere VFR

(at least from Google results using my IP addresses)

[AndyON24]

Wally' suggestion of using Handbrake I find the most helpful. It takes about 20 min. per hour of 1920x1080 footage on my Mac to convert, but the degradation is slight and the resulting file fully functional in PP. If PP were to accept VFR footage, there would still be a conversion as frames must be added to fill in the gaps for 30P/59.94 or whatever your timeline is using. Perhaps if PP were to add a batch conversion app. so users need only set the timeline format and drag the VFR files to the content folder. You will have to wait to edit, but that is the way of things unless you have one of those DOD uber computers.

[MrLevy]

Hi Andy,

You're right you will get degradation and it's time consuming in processing for transcoding.

But by extracting the video and audio assets from the flv file you can recombine them into a MP4 file that is compatible with premiere which this whole process takes on average 15 to 20 seconds with the method I shared. With no degradation mind you. So it saves me a lot of time, but either way can give premiere serious sync issues when the framerate drops drastically at any point. Which is specifically what I would love a fix for. Something like twixtor to fill in the constant framerate gaps in the timeline really well when the souce clip fps fluxuates.

@Greg yea you're right.... sorry.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Levyimage wrote:

Hi Andy,

You're right you will get degradation and it's time consuming in processing for transcoding.

Hi Levyimage,

Yes, it's true that you do take a slight hit when transcoding. It's hardly noticeable in many cases, though. I do understand about the time savings.

Levyimage wrote:

Something like twixtor to fill in the constant framerate gaps in the timeline really well when the souce clip fps fluxuates.

You can make a feature request for any of your ideas here: http://adobe.ly/feature_request

Thanks,

Kevin

[Greg Baber]

This is a great conversation, and extremely helpful.  I want to keep the discussion going and healthy, but we will need to keep things on a friendly basis.  Remember, we have strict forum terms of use that forbid personal attacks. 

Let's keep the conversation civil so we can keep participating.

[R Neil Haugen]

Having "watched" this thread pop in and out for some time, and other threads about VFR source material, to my very inexperienced and NON-coder brain, AndyON24's suggestion of a batch-decoder plug-in or 'sub-program' is probably the easiest and most workable idea yet posted.

I can see that on-the-fly high-end editing of 10 visual/6 audio tracks with cuts, wipes, transforms, lower-thirds, masks & keyframes that ALSO has to meld-in non-standard FR data is a right bastard to code. However ... being able to simply load all the VFR tracks in a "bin" and say "create 1080p/23.976 of this" would be all that would be needed for the majority of the people in this thread who've posted a need.

Maybe ... huh ... this should be done in say Prelude? As that app is designed for the "prep" side of things, basic in/out cuts, metadata added to files, that sort of thing, wouldn't this be a natural addition to that program?

Neil

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi R. Neil,

R. Neil Haugen wrote:

Maybe ... huh ... this should be done in say Prelude? As that app is designed for the "prep" side of things, basic in/out cuts, metadata added to files, that sort of thing, wouldn't this be a natural addition to that program?

Neil

Well, yes! I think you've hit on a very important point. Why not transcode variable frame rate footage while doing a partial ingest in Prelude?

More info here: http://helpx.adobe.com/prelude/using/prelude-projects.html

It's really the best advice to give going forward in the near term. In the long term, make a feature request to have these formats supported: http://adobe.ly/feature_request.

Thanks,

Kevin

[JeremyBinns]

Thank you Walter.Johnson - your suggestion in using HandBrake worked for converting the vfr video I was working with into a non-vfr file that is compatible premiere.  I just had to select 'constant frame rate' under the video settings during conversion.  It does appear that there may be a slight loss in quality, but since I am working with somewhat low quality streaming video anyhow, this isn't detrimental.

It is still a time consuming extra step though that needs an in app solution.

Here's a link to the free download of 'HandBrake'. http://handbrake.fr/

[Web Magi]

Filed bug report.

I’ve had access to Premiere Pro since CS4 Master Collection. Now I have the full CC subscription. I should not have to go outside of PP just to piece together a simple video shot by someone working on an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. Especially since that someone is me. I don’t have an expensive video camera. Never needed one. But with the explosion of mobile devices, and everyone and their dog recording video with them, PP is behind the times, at least in that regard. It should be able to handle variable frame rate video.

[cc_merchant]

But with the explosion of mobile devices, and everyone and their dog recording video with them, PP is behind the times, at least in that regard.

How are your dog's shooting skills with your mobile and how well developed are his editing skills? Are you suggesting Adobe should adjust their programs to cover that market area?

[Web Magi]

How are your dog's shooting skills with your mobile and how well developed are his editing skills? Are you suggesting Adobe should adjust their programs to cover that market area?

Funny.

[Zakkaru]

Just chiming in that I have submitted a Feature Request for this and that everyone else should too.

OBS does have an option to "Force CFR", but the files will still have a tiny bit of variance.

You guys do a wonderful job and your updates have always added much needed features (Cropping / Masking of Effects, I love it.), but this feature should be higher priority (in my opinion).

With $970 million dollar deals by major companies to invest in live streaming services, combined with the new $50 a month subscription service (making your service EXTREMELY accessible financially), there will be many, many more Consumer/Semi-Pro users of your software. Whom, which I'd hate to say it, may chose another software because of this feature. I do the extra step needed by using Handbrake to re transcode, but professionals themselves know that this is a poor choice & only a band-aid.

Major YouTube players, for example, 4 million dollar a year star PewDiePie (judgments aside) have stated on Twitter that they have tried switching from Sony Vegas to Premiere Pro and have a hard time & ended up switching back.

I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, like I said, you guys do a great job, and I LOVE your software - but I think with the increased accessibility to non-pro users, this feature should be towards the top of the list for you guys.

Best wishes,

-Zach

[Peru Bob]

Achmetha wrote:

I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, like I said, you guys do a great job, and I LOVE your software

We are not Adobe. This is a user to user forum.  We are consumers just like you.

[Guest]

I really think that "professional" software should be able to handle this. In the future more and more material for the "professionals" are coming from the public and in the wild the standards might not apply. I think that variable framerate will be big issue for every one that is working with video game footage, since game engines often render (in optimal conditions) video at 30fps in the cutscenes and at 60fps in the gameplay. Other software can handle this and so should Premiere, but as it stands now Premiere is bad for video game related production.

Photoshop is the only product that Adobe can rest in their laurels, rest seem to weaker compared to their competitors - thanks to this "we know what is better for you" attitude. 

[cc_merchant]

Professional software expects a professional videographer to use professional tools, not cheap toys.

If the stuff you use has variable frame-rates, you are suffering the results of buying gear that does not meet professional standards. Good luck.