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.

[HarleyTDavis]

Ran out Proxies???  You probably just reframed the video in the proxies!!!  LOL!  This would negate most issues that occur with audio sync.  Try the raw video.  If it doesn't skip or get out of sync, your system might be reframing or you may have consistent video.  Your camera may have rebuilt the frame for you (some do when you pass the file out through the camera's plug to the computer).

[Jeff Bellune]

I've had good success with ProCamera 8 for iOS. Until I get more of a chance to experiment with Filmic's settings shooting different types of subjects in different conditions, I like PC8 better for quality/file size.

EDIT: As of now, Cocologics only has an iOS version -- no android.

[Garrett_C]

Nope, Cinema did nothing, and FIlmic Pro did not work either, nothing works except rendering the video in constant using another NLE or compression tool, I just have to dump Adobe in the trash and go to the competition, I give up.

[R Neil Haugen]

On my Samsung S7, Filmic denotes which shutter speeds it can record CFR with, and which it cannot. I can use either 24 or 30 fps. Did you check for that on your rig?

Neil

[Garrett_C]

Yep, I saw the asterisk which denoted that, I recorded at 30, and it didn't even come out at 30, it came out at 29. something or other, and the file I transferred was VFR.

Just all around let down by Adobe, regardless, looking at Corel and Pinnacle, though I'll be leaving the entire Adobe suite over this madness.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hello Garrett C,

Nope, Cinema did nothing, and FIlmic Pro did not work either, nothing works except rendering the video in constant using another NLE or compression tool, I just have to dump Adobe in the trash and go to the competition, I give up.

Filmic Pro works perfectly for me. What settings did you use? How long were the clips?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Garrett_C]

As I've said the Android version is abysmal, I set it to 30fps audio sync as others have specified, and the clip was around 40 minutes.

Pinnacle handles the footage perfectly, so I've dropped Adobe, good luck to everyone contending with this madness.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Sorry to hear the news, Garrett. If there's anything we can do for you in the future, please let us know.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Garrett_C]

Filmic reached out to me after my disappointed review and apparently it is entirely the fault of the Android video encoder. I have been unable to find any app using their own encoder, and Filmic is building their own encoder for Android to prioritize framerate. They're having a beta in the coming weeks so I may yet be able to use my phone, though this only solves one capture issue, any desktop/application capture is going to be VFR as well.

[jasonvp]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Garrett+C  wrote

any desktop/application capture is going to be VFR as well.

I thought so too, but it actually depends on what you're using to cap the video.  OBS Studio (freely available) is a big player for Twitch.tv streamers and video game recording.  As it turns out, the h.264 files it produces are CFR.  Which is very helpful.

[Garrett_C]

Sadly not, while software has a setting for that much like android it prioritizes framerate just about last, and because Bandicam/Fraps/OBS are titanic resource hogs your odds of getting CFR on anything that doesn't take live sacrifices vanishes. Using Shadowplay/ReLive enhances your odds due to dramatic performance improvements but then you're at the mercy of the actual game's framerate. The best and most expensive solution would therefore be a capture card/box, but they are notoriously unreliable and mine for instance produces VFR if the game ever struggles.

All the things that could be solved so easily for so many people if not for Adobe.

[jasonvp]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Garrett+C  wrote

Sadly not, while software has a setting for that much like android it prioritizes framerate just about last, and because Bandicam/Fraps/OBS are titanic resource hogs your odds of getting CFR on anything that doesn't take live sacrifices vanishes.

I guess I'm not really following here.  I use OBS Studio for hours every day, and have gobs (and gobs, and gobs) of h.264 files recorded through it.  I simply use their NVENC encoder and let it do the rest.  It doesn't tax my system in the least bit while I'm playing any my graphically intensive games at 144FPS.  I get a solid, CFR, 59.94 FPS file every single time.

[Garrett_C]

You might continue reading the reply, as in that last sentence.

[jasonvp]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Garrett+C  wrote

You might continue reading the reply, as in that last sentence.

I'm trying to help you and understand what's not working for you.  You seem unwilling to be helped.  No one in this thread (save one, specific individual) disagrees that Adobe should support VFR footage.  But until they do, there are very easy and usable work-arounds.

So, do you want to try again?  Or do you want to continue being somewhat stand-offish?

[Garrett_C]

Jason, I appreciate that you have a machine more expensive than a used car, that is the point I was making, but if you don't then software solutions fall back on VFR, which I think you'll agree is not a solution.

[PrestoSur]

Dear Mr. GravyImage!

I'm not sure what kind of shrooms you're on THESE days, but apparently, they've killed off enough brain cells to allow you to continually spew idiotic comments all over this thread.  Anybody with even half OF a brain would know that to FIX the variable frame rate problem, you could run your source footage through HANDBREAK, and it SOLVES it.  But of course, you wouldn't have even close to the mental capacity to come up with that. It escapes me how someone who thinks they know so much about video could be so lacking in intelligence. Good day to you sir, and may GOD have mercy on your soul.

And by the way......PS4 is WAY better than X-BOX, Windows is better than APPLE, And Trump should have won the presidency!

[donb18693182]

Premier Elements has the same problem.

[John T Smith]

Playing and editing are not at all the same

If you need to edit from an iphone, you probably need to use Apple software

[Guest]

"How is it possible Premiere still cannot handle variable frame rate video?"

Let's flip this around. My question is: "How is it possible that these non-videocam devices still cannot produce constant frame rate video?" Why do people use such low quality capture devices and expect PPro to bail them out?

I can see Adobe maybe adding some transcoding features into, say, Prelude to transcode non-conforming video into something usable by PPro, as part of the process of handing it off to PPro. But adding this to PPro, which already supports the vast majority of video standards, is just piling on.

[rmshro0]

Fair enough, but argument there would be that while Xsplit is $30, Premiere Pro is...much more.    Also, this program is not the only that records in variable frame rate, sometimes by necessity.  I mentioned above that recent iPhones will often dip into variable frame rates in low light.  And if a user can't know for sure if its variable or static, I just think software should make good faith efforts to plan for it.  Obviously Sony's Vegas has done so.

I'm not saying something couldn't be done on both ends.

[excited_Genie16B8]

if a user can't know for sure if its variable or static, I just think software should make good faith efforts to plan for it.

I think the opposite.  The user should know how their tools function and plan accordingly.

[videaha]

And also…

Jim Simon wrote:

if a user can't know for sure if its variable or static, I just think software should make good faith efforts to plan for it.

I think the opposite.  The user should know how their tools function and plan accordingly.

Yes, it's a valid point and you have made this point repeatedly, despite the OP and many other pointing out how little relevance it has in this particular conversation. Perhaps you are fortunate enough to be able to tell your clients they're not using the right tools, but I and many others are not. I have very little control over how my raw materials are captured. Nonetheless, I am required to produce professional videos from these materials for my clients.

[Personal insult removed]

[Jeff Bellune]

Again, a reminder to keep things clean and civil.  Personal insults or attacks, no matter how thinly disguised, are not permitted.

Jeff

[gregb98056542]

In response to your point, let me explain a little bit about adding features.  This is not just true of Adobe, but all software development.

It comes down to a balancing act.  We only have so much time per software cycle to get new features added into Premiere.  Even simple additions take some time to implement and test before they can go live so there has to be some prioritizing happening.

So, to prioritize we look at several factors.  First, how many customers are asking for a feature.  Some features are in demand, overwhelming our product teams.  Others are for a specific niche market, that could really use this feature but it is not something the majority of our users would even notice.  The way we gauge this demand is through customer contact:  feature request forums, these forums and direct customer feedback.  That gives us the best possible picture of what all of our customers want.

Second, we have to look at how difficult it can be to implement the requested feature.  Some features can be easily added - moving a button in the interface for example.  Some features are very difficult to implement - the warp stabilizer was the result of a lot of hard work.  What you are asking for may be very difficult to implement, even if other software companies have implemented it.  I do not know.  The people who know this are the engineers who are looking into what features they are going to focus on.

Third, we have to look at all the feature requests we get.  From a pure time budgeting perspective, it is impossible to get every feature enabled.  We all have pet projects we would love to see implemented that there hasn't been time to implement yet.

We have to take all of those criteria, and balance them.  So, sometimes we get a feature that is easy to implement, that many people are demanding, and we have the time and resources available, so it becomes included in the next version.  Often, it doesn't come together that nicely.  We do keep going at it.  Maybe we don't have the resources this cycle.  Maybe the demand is growing between cycles. 

The short part of this long story is the fact that we are still looking at all possibilities.  Send in those feature requests - higher demand is always a good thing.  We reevaluate those on a regular basis.  We do not ignore anybody because we think they don't have the right equipment.  We just are looking at a very large picture.

On another note, this thread has gotten very contentious.  Keeping things on a civil level helps too - the people who decide the features to implement are human too and can have preconceptions if it appears that someone is acting irrationally.  I mean that for everyone involved - we need to act like professionals.

[videaha]

Thanks for your reply, Greg. I actually work in software development myself, and the videos I produce are part of our user testing process, so I understand where you are coming from better than most.

I think your reply is probably more relevant to the OP or others on this thread. As you will notice, I simply came here to congratulate someone on their constructive comment. On reading the thread again, I felt compelled to point out once again how unhelpful one commenter has been throughout. I'm new to these forums (having created this account solely for the purpose of congratulating Levyimage) so I can only assume MVP is a badge of some sort for valuable contributions. In this case, I feel that if it is not already abundantly clear, this person has nothing of value to contribute to this particular discussion.

As I said before, this forum is itself a tool. I have now seen how it functions and I will plan accordingly. Some tools are less necessary than others. Readers will kindly note that my initial message (prior to further moderation) was, in fact, self-censored and entirely civil.

Adieu.

[EDIT]

+1 for Greg's excellent explanation of the challenges faced in software development.

In the interest of helping others who might come to this thread looking for information on how to work with screencaptured footage in Premiere, we have found iShowU HD Pro to be an invaluable tool.