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]

Can we get over the comments please?  I was referring to the quality of output rather than whether or not you get paid.  By your definition I could hand a client a bag of my excrement and demand payment even if they gave me files for input.  There's a big difference in delivering your output on a predictable and timely schedule, meeting deadlines and adapting, than just shouting about how you can't get it to work.  If a soldier doesn't know how to take the safety off his rifle, he's got a useless piece of hardware, and if he doesn't realize that he loaded it with blanks, he's probably gonna die confused.  A professional soldier knows how to work his rifle, his grenades, his medkit and MRE's.  There is a big difference... ...RESULTS.

Now on to more important matters.

I consider this closed.  Premiere may not NATIVELY work with broken or multi-rate video, but you can at least get started quickly enough.  I ran a few VFR gamegrabs at about 10min each into premiere following this method and what I ended up with was great looking video, no sync problems in the result.

First, open media encoder... ...No I'm not going to tell you to ingest here.  We're laying some groundwork so pay attention.  First...  Create a new video preset, match the format to your input format, and find the button that says "Match Source", click that.  Now find the checkbox next to FRAME RATE.  Uncheck this.  In the bitrate, you'll want to set your TARGET to match the AVERAGE bit rate of your input and set the Maximum to, you guessed it, the maximum of your input-----I actually created 5 different presets to work with data from 1080p to 4k in various qualities, each matching a different quality of input, but also allowing me to compress it further to save a little space.  Once the bitrate is set, we go to the bottom of the dialogue (not in the scrollable section but below it), where it says "Time Interpolation".  This usually starts at FRAME SAMPLING.  This is a horrible rendering of motion.  Change it to Frame Blending for any FPShooter, in fact any game, and OPTICAL FLOW for emulators of old 8bit systems.  Optical Flow works best if the background doesn't change much, even if the characters move, so most older 8bit games will fit the bill.  Frame Blending works so much better now, and actually weights the blend based on the difference between surrounding frames (larger differences will have more ghosting, but it is possible to get some decent results).  Give this preset a name (I made 5 of them, all based on different inputs).  Save the preset and then export it, placing it in a folder where you can get to it (I will show you why later).

Now, still in AME, Create a New INGEST preset.  "Oh NO, he's telling me to ingest!!!"  Yes and NOOOOO!!! NOT yet ya big baby!  Now sit back and pay attention.  This new ingest preset opens a new dialogue, select your created preset for encoding, and pick a location under TRANSCODE settings, then give the preset a name and save it.  EXPORT the Ingest preset to a folder where you can get to it.  Close AME.  Huh?  What?  Close it?

Open premiere create your project, and open your media browser.  There's a checkbox that says INGEST, check it... ..Next to it is a wrench that chooses your settings.  Click it.  It opens the dialogue for importing\ingesting video.  Select TRANSCODE from the dropdown box, then click the add preset button, find your INGEST PRESET.  Now the TRANSCODE will change to CREATE PROXY and at the bottom you can see your settings, most based on input.  Nice.  Pick a location (I usually keep it with the project in the project folder or dump it out to a folder next to the original so I can swap them fast).  Now click ok.  Find your video, rightclick on it, import.  Boom, the original is in your project... ...AND AME HAS OPENED UP TO WORK ON TRANSCODING FOR YOU!!!  Wait, WHAT?  Relax.  You can work on all you can get to with the file you have already, and when you reach the point where the sync falls and interrupts you, just right click the file in your project browser, go to PROXY, and pick your "Proxy" that AME has made for you.  Close your sequence temporarily, open it again, and for up to 10s before and 5 s after you notice the sync problem, render the previews  It's a few hundred frames, but should be fast in I-Frame Only.  An alternate route:  Check back with AME periodically, while you work.  If you subclip your video, don't worry--it will stay roughly the same, the motion will look different in some areas, but the timing should match within 1-4 frames (generally).  When AME finishes your "PROXY", Rename it to match your original, then OFFLINE YOUR VIDEO, RELINK it to your proxy.

For 10min of video at 1080p 60fps at 30mb\s input shadowplay, and 31mb target with 35mb max in preset, my ingest took less than half the time of the actual video, but slowed in several areas (where the actual type of footage changed the Frame rate for the game itself and for my playback).  It finished very fast.  I ran of 3 videos in the time it takes to actually play one of them, and I had premiere open alongside AME.  I was working with them, then just selected to use the proxy for the video when I hit the sync problem.  I jumped back about 10s marked a work area start, then forward from that mark by 15s and rendered the previews.  When I played it back, the sync problems were gone (why?  I suspect that playing frames back was playing from the original file at first, so renders of a work area where the sync went out created new files to use and new frames, then shifted back to the original file which was slated to use the proxy frames instead, which were fixed rate and linked).

As for the above comment about 144fps... ...holy moley!  Most screens I've seen will do 240hz... ..it's a nyquist double of 120... and they will do it at 1080p.  I've seen some that will do 250 or 260, but only some really expensive ones above 288, which is where you'd need to be for 144fps.  GFX cards can do it, but the playback of any screen will be limited by the HZ value (it's the clock that specifies how quickly the screen can actually change the frame).

NYQUIST:

Originally, his theory was postulated for digitizing sound.  In order to capture it accurately, you had to capture at least one overtone, which meant you had to be able to capture 2x as many samples as your desired primary frequency.  Later, it was discovered that this applied to any mechanism of the type, as in order to accurately repeat an operation on average N times, you need to be able to reach 2N in speed of the clock used to measure the increment, to keep deviation to less than 1\2 of a repetition.  60hz tvs were all the rage back when HDTV first started, as 30i or 30p were common.  Then came 120hz and motion estimation that would blur FIELDs where applicable in 60i so motion was smooth.  Ive seen a few tv's in the expensive set at 480hz, but very few.  Those are designed for gaming and are made to be "Forward Compatible" (they will keep up with gaming speeds in the future), but they also have technology that you download to your console or computer to make sure they keep sync (it sends data to the device over a network or over the connection so it can adjust it's rate clock).

Is VFR HERE TO STAY?  Not as an output format.  Standard video capture from cameras may have reframes, but VFR or MFR (more accurate for gaming to say Multiple Frame Rate) from gaming uses the same notation in the header for a different kind of adjustment.  SHould ADOBE SUPPORT THIS?  Yes and no.  No for VFR.  MFR... ...if the capture software used a different header tag, it could be done with a dialogue box!!!!!  USE MFR MARKERS!!!  Ask to interpret the footage!!  BINGO!  Simple as that.  But start at the capture software please... ...It would take a ton of resources to try and work with the same way as VFR, and a whole different engine.  Let's not reinvent the wheel by making it a square.

Let's recap... ...FOR ALL YOU GAMERS... ...Your problem isn't the standard VFR problem.  Yours is MFR or MULTIPLE FRAME RATE video.  Variable Frame Rate is a similar term, but in standard video, it means frames were dropped for some reason or data corruption.  If you have multiple rates, and markers for the changes (again the actual marker design should be similar, but the header readout could note a different way to handle it) with a single header tag, then markers could hold the new frame rate, and the beginning and ending frame of each rate section could be made an i-frame or fullest frame, that way the compression wouldn't hurt quality so much, and the motion should be smoother.  Bigger files sure, but smoother, and easily handled by interpretting in any app, and premiere allows you to interpolated that in several ways for best look.  Add a control to place cut marks at the points where the rate changes, or rewrap the file as separate clips, and viola, easy pesy,  you can parse the problem into something even more artistic.  Start with your input.  Remember, GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT.  It's a computing paradigm that still applies today, and will until humanity is long extinct.  You canoot process what you don't put in.  You can only process what you put in.  So logically, if you process what you put in, and get output, your output and even your processing all START with what you put in...  I support the MFR movement.  Not the VFR one.  Play those back on a DVD and YUCK!!!  I just threw up in my mouth a little thinking about it...

I hope this post helps.  It may not be perfect for a solution, yet.  But make some demands on the capture hardware\software.  It's easier to simply change the markers a little to start, and then add support, than it is to support something that isn't operational yet.  VFR is not operational.  It doesn't play back on EVERYTHING.  It breaks on many outputs.  Some old cameras fix it in the transfer software by creating a blended frame while transferring.  How do I know?  My old camera does it if I set it to MP4 and transfer by wifi.  If I do it by cable, with the same file, I get VFR problems.  It's about 4 years old now as mine, but about 6 or 7 by design model.  Anyway, for you gamers, MFR might be a good thing to have access to.  It would certainly aid in mixing it with camera footage, which I've done more often than simple capture tutorials.

[mainfocus89]

Literally my first time ever commenting on these forums. I just had to jump in. The ignorance here is incredible. Whether you want to believe it or not, gamers are making just as (if not more of) a steady career in the video production industry than many of you ever will. The audience for it is MASSIVE.

Fact one: There are over 1 million gaming channels JUST on YouTube.

Fact two: Most gamers will use the capture software that comes with their video cards, which records only in MP4 and will record only in a variable framerate.

So that is 1 million (minimum) potential customers that are highly likely to jump ship to Vegas Pro because it's 2017 and PP still does not support variable frame rates.

Ok, now that's out of the way, in response to your original question. I actually ended up here looking for a solution to the same problem. My solution (for now) is to use Aimersoft to convert my captures to .MOV format. This allows me to edit in PP without the A/V sync issues that occur due to the variable frame rate. This works but it's not ideal as conversion can take up to 40mins for each clip. I'm currently looking into third party capture software which can capture in .MOV format and so far OBS looks like the best bet. I don't know much about the software you use but maybe have a look in the settings and see if recording in .MOV is an option.

I feel your pain, switching to Vegas Pro after 20+ years of using PP is an absolute last resort for me and it's ridiculous that in 2017 a lack of support for variable frame rates is the factor that would give me cause to abandon the editing suite that I know and love.

[R Neil Haugen]

I believe OBS is used by a fair number of people for original capture avoiding the whole VFR issue.

I agree that it would be useful for PrPro or at least SOME Adobe editing program to handle VFR properly. I don't do screen-capture of gaming, I do of tutorials though (on using PrPro actually) and am using Camtasia for that. So again, I don't have to worry about VFR there either.

I do at times generate a lot of 4k VFR files from my phone on "personal" trips (which often become part of my testing and such work). I've learned how to batch-process those to CFR using a custom preset in HandBrake ... and they do ​not​ make things easy & obvious in that program either! You can select the option to convert to CFR ... but ​if​ you use the choice to leave the frame rate as set by the camera, or automatic ... what it will actually export is ... VFR! You ​must​ both select "Convert to CFR" ​and​ select a specific frame-rate.

And the whole batch process is ... intriguing. But once sorted, quite useful.

And like ingesting for proxies, I do this as I'm getting ready to take a break. Lunch ... a session ... a meeting ... over-night. Working emails or the forums here. And come back to my computer all ready to go.

There are some here who yes, are rather old-school as to not seeing gaming coverage as professional at all. I think ... from many discussions here on this ... that that has changed and the difference is whether PrPro should be designed towards a more broadcast style NLE or a web-style NLE. Or both.

Neil

[HarleyTDavis]

Check youtube downloads, genius.  They're all constant frame rate, as youtube reprocesses the video for compatibility.  The reason adobe doesn't "Support" it directly in the program is because it would nearly double the resources needed to run the playback and high end effects, pushing it out of range for the cost of the machinery, plus it destroys the basic functionality of after effects when you get down to the frame level (here's a hint: high end Effects need to be able to function based on a set frame rate). You're saying they should separate it from the other software entirely, force you to render the uneffected clips so you can add effects, then render that for placement back in premiere, adding hours and hours to the workflow, instead of just fixing the compatibility by ingesting video (which they give you Media encoder and Prelude for)? I'm sorry, I just don't see it.  For pros, a consistent workflow begins with ingesting the video through Prelude Media encoder and speedgrade, and processing it out to the same codec for consistent color, and processing style, with as little strain on your machine for playback as possible, especially if you intend to add effects.  It's cost effective on your rendering machines and allows you to work quickly, the same way, over and over, without interruption or issue.  ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, step 1 is: INGEST VIDEO TO WORKING FORMAT

If all you have to do is wrap it for youtube, use ffmpeg or vegas.  They are consumer grade.  Adobe is pro grade.  Learn the difference, it will help you decide what software package best fits your needs.

IF you don't need to add effects or process anything that needs to know the frame rate, you're safe with VFR.  Posting to youtube gamer channels is not a professional operation on it's own.  Posting to youtube is a simple operation anybody can do with a finished product.  THe starting product should match how you're going to work with your video, but when it doesn't, Ingesting it helps fix that.  Your endpoint is only relevant to choosing the workflow you'll use, and that will choose the machinery of your starting point.  If all you want is a video to go right to youtube, get a cheap software that doesn't fix VFR, wrap your video and upload it.  Your recording hardware can be cheap too.  This is consumer or hobby style.  Adobe is Pro style.  Your camera should be CFR, but you can ingest to fix VFR, and you will probably be adding some effects, music etc, all of which require CFR.

Get a clue.

Gamers are not CINEMATOGRAPHERS on their own.  A Cinematographer, can be a gamer, though.

I hope this clears up the whole issue for you.

They include Prelude and Media encoder for a reason.  Reasonable people get it and use it.

[jasonvp]

Check youtube downloads, genius.

Geez; settle down a little there Harley.  There's no reason to pop a valve.

It's cost effective on your rendering machines and allows you to work quickly, the same way, over and over, without interruption or issue.  ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, step 1 is: INGEST VIDEO TO WORKING FORMAT

No, it shouldn't ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS be step 1.  Because step 1 takes too fricken long, even on a fast machine.  And some of these folks need to cut, edit, export, and upload videos very rapidly.  Waiting for their machines to transcode to anything, for any reason at all, is a luxury they don't always have.

Premiere supports editing h.264 files.  It needs to do that superbly and with no excuses.  Right now, it can't and doesn't.

If all you have to do is wrap it for youtube, use ffmpeg or vegas.  They are consumer grade.  Adobe is pro grade.  Learn the difference, it will help you decide what software package best fits your needs.

And here's where you fall into the same ignorance that JS does: thinking that gamer video production is somehow "amateur" or hobbyist.  These guys can make millions upon millions upon millions of dollars annually doing this.  They're as professional as it gets.  The simple definition of the word professional that seems to elude you and a couple of others is: someone who is paid for work done.

You might not agree with the work they're doing, but that doesn't matter.  They're pros.

If Adobe wants to be able to tap into this professional market, they need to start supporting editing VFR footage without the audio going out of sync.  That means doing it natively without transcoding/converting before hand.

[R Neil Haugen]

Ok, Harley does get a bit strong there ... but then, some of the people who've been on here asking for VFR capabilities have been rather insulting on their own. I know they've felt ignored and dis-valued, but still ... the two parts of video editing don't have much in common in working processes. So they've come in with a chip on their shoulder, and the discussions haven't been always the ... gentlest. Or respectful, sadly. Many of the "regular" editing crowd here have gotten a bit burned at times, as someone who clearly displays not-a-lot-knowledge starts throwing around pejorative comments. Which get returned. Yep, not always such a calm & peaceful discussion.

Having viewed and at times participated in the discussions on this for over five years now, my ​sympathies​ lie with those such as yourself working the screen-capture and/or gaming re-cap business.

Yes, I've seen the live gaming competitions ... complete with the play-by-play & color commentator in a studio in Australia, one competing team from S. Korea in another studio with their four massive gaming computers and a huge screen showing each person's individual work in a section and the overall above it. The other team is in Japan or the US or Thailand ... in another studio with the same setup.

It's streamed Live just like a major boxing match or other premium for-pay live event ... to a couple hundred thousand people. For a ​very​ premium price. And there are commentators that make a pretty good living recording that main match, then adding in their own commentaries & pushing out to their own for-pay feeds.

That trade ... highly professional in every way. ​Except​ the nature of their media ... much of the re-cap trade is of course, VFR in capture. I'd like to make the living that quite a few re-cappers make! Ah well.

Then there are those who get two major gamers playing against each other in whatever game you want to mention ... capture the whole thing, and put a running commentary on top of it. Some ​highly​ entertaining people, some just trying to be highly educational for those wanting to learn how to be a real beast of a gamer in name-your-game. ​That​ trade is all about VFR.

So to me, the question of whether many in the gaming crowd are doing "professional" work or not is pretty silly. Might as well say a professional baseball player is a real sports professional, and a professional golfer isn't.

What the discussion seems to actually come to, is ... whether or not a single high-end editing program can do ​both​ VFR and CFR work. Harley does bring up some good points, that they may require a ​very​ different underlying coding and processing. From what I've heard talking going on in the aisles at NAB, he might be right.

For so many of the users, PrPro ​must​ play well with AfterEffects ... and some of the other high-end apps & plugins that some of us use. That's not up for discussion.

If a major re-coding of the underlying software of PrPro is required ... it will necessarily require a complete re-encoding of AfterEffects ... which users use a ​ton​ of spendy 3rd party plugins ... it's a whole ​chain​, not just one program.

There are other NLEs that are at times mentioned as "Well, this can do it, why not PrPro?" and the answer is ... they're not hard-wired into so many other apps. PrPro, AfterEffects, MediaEncoder, Audition, and Prelude all have to play very tightly together.

I would guess the management teams at Adobe are very aware of this. I look at all the mobile apps they're working on and testing ... they're moving into all sorts of devices constantly. I've no clue whatever how they're planning to respond to this particular issue ... or if they are. But it wouldn't be an easy or quick modification, from all I've heard, and much of it from professional software people ​outside​ of Adobe.

I ​would​ appreciate if the discussions about this were a bit more respective of the needs of and professionalism of others. And the limits that frequently aren't obvious to someone from a different set of experiences or knowledge.

Jim & Harley have heard my comments on this before. Again, my background is similar to theirs (as far as no gaming experience) ... but my sympathies lie towards the gaming crowd on this. And trust me, there are some things you could find yourself puzzled or hammered by in editing, where you'll ​want​ Jim or Harley helping you out on this forum. They know their stuff.

Just ... if all could step back, and acknowledge that "pros" come in all sorts of things & ways. And needs. But as people, just ... be respectful.

Neil

[HarleyTDavis]

OMG.  You guys love to bash the one who's got the stones to tell it like it is.  And No, I meant no disrespect to gamers or people who build tutorials on strategy, and some of them do make bank on gaming.  But their knowlege of video capture as opposed to video playback is, in many cases (by my experiences from working with several of them), nonexistent.  Playing back images at variable frame rates with multiple clocks for different sets of data (video and sound are separated in most consoles) is a lot different than playing back two streams on one clock, and no matter how you try to explain that, none of them seem to get it.  I'm glad some of you have taken to ingesting with handbrake or another software.

On the fly, I use youtube pre-upload.  I load to youtube onsite, then drop it back out for premiere.  If you're going to youtube anyway, upload to it, then download the reformatted file when you get back to the edit desk.  I download proxies that way, and start the download of the full video after for output.  It saves time and processing power.

For those who haven't figured out the adobe suite (a sarcastic and exhasperated sigh here)...

Okay... ...I'll give you the basics of editing in a nutshell so you can all avoid actually going to school and working for it.

Have you even heard of PRELUDE?  Do you know what it is?  You don't sound like you do.  I'll get to that in a moment.

Do you know what LOG AND TRANSPORT is?  No?  I'll get to that too.

Put your data into prelude, clip it up into rough cuts, then send the timeline to premiere, and ingest the files in prelude out to useable data for premiere, then relink them in premiere for best results.  Most of your work is done in prelude for the preliminary cuts.  Once you've placed any transitions on those cuts in premiere, close premiere, delete the old data files that have VFR problems and then relink to the new files.  It will show a problem with audio in premiere when you use the old VFR, but not prelude, it assumes there are issues with your video, and it's engine corrects for it; premiere assumes you've fixed those problems in Prelude.  It's like they were made for each other, huh?

Once the frames are repaired, and the files relinked, you won't have a problem.  Make sure of the following, though, for the best quality:

--Audio shouldn't be formatted to different sample rates from the original file

--Any clips you output from prelude should be output to files with a new file format (change the entire extension if you want to fix VFR)-->YES it would be great if all your files could end up in the same format if you want to grade the color easier, but if you're just slapping the clips together, close is usually enough, and different formats will work fine (even different audio formats) in a timeline in premiere and it will all get conformed later (though this takes almost 2x as long as with a common file format that matches your output).

Now...  Let me ask this question:

Do you work only with one type of video?  Is it only that VFR style?  If so, then you can still conform it to one file type, and try to match your output style to it, which will take a lot less time (the audio won't take as long to conform, neither will video).  However, if your video comes from more diverse places and devices, you'll want to identify a format that none of them use and conform to that format.  IF that will take exceedingly longer than you like, you'll have to guess at a common format to use.  The less you have to conform between clock and frame speeds in AV, the faster the render.

Again I'll say it...

Step One is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS... ...To ingest your video data.  That's why Adobe built PRELUDE and why I said the ALWAYS so many times.  The functionality is already there waiting for you.  Read up gents, learn the software.  You'll find out that PRELUDE is akin to the Apple Final Cut function for Log and Transport, where you can mark clips, ready them for timelines, and their proxied for you (apple likes to take a ton of your resources from you at the start and keep it from you until the files are ready; adobe is nowhere near that snobbish), so you can start on timelines.  PRELUDE allows you to do the same, called transporting, as it transports your ideas of the basic structure of the finished product, but doesn't do any effects or advanced edits; it'll line up events for your timeline, a rough cut, so you have a great start going by the time you get to formatting the files (Called Logging, or catalogueing the files into a standard format for use in advanced edits) and you can push that rough cut to premiere, then set the files to formatting, and begin putting in your transitions or markers for effects.  Once the files finish formatting, you should be able to relink them and you'll have no audio sync issue, and you'll be about ready to go to output, unless you need to put effects into play, which you can do with AE.  You should also be able to remix your audio if you have the need.  I believe prelude allows you to export clips as well, so you can mark clips, place them into a rough cut and export them all so you can use them in premiere (same operation of logging but with smaller clips so you can save some time in rendering, and in space).  It's all there, fellas.  The question is, How many of you will actually use it?....

[R Neil Haugen]

Harley,

Not 'bashing' you at all. You do get very direct on this, and give information that is solid and at a detail level that gives great educational value to your posts. Yet some of it can come across as a bit dismissive. I have posted similar missives especially on color corrections ... and yea, they come across to some viewers as dismissive.

Do many of the people posting about this need to learn some technical background? Oh Heavens ... YES! And thank you for providing it.

Neil

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi mainfocus,

We know that we need to add this support. Please let the product team know how you feel here.

Cheers,
Kevin

[HarleyTDavis]

Sorry if I came off dismissive, not my intention.  But it seems like you are all asking the rest of the world to carry the excess costs of your video production.  I'm not for that.  I'd rather you move to a software that matches your chosen workflow (by all professional standards, a lazy or unrealistic deadline workflow).  I don't mean that last part as an insult.  That's actually the technical jargon I use with clients.  For an instantaneous turnaround, I use my LAZY workflow, and my LAZY software titles.  They have fewer requirements for learning and only do fast cutting to a file that's just as broken as the original clips, then upload to youtube and let them know it may take time to become available due to google processing overhead.  I call it lazy because it's done in a lazy fashion, I don't use any real exactness in the cuts or edits.  For that I use vegas or another low cost software.

I use premiere for pro work.  I use prelude and media encoder.  Even for lesser demanding clients I sometimes use them just because it's so much more comfortable and artistic to sweat the details.

Prelude is the solution.  Use it.  It will let you maintain a fast turnaround, just use a phase by phase cutting workflow.  Rough cut placement, then effects and transitions, then output.  While you work with the rough cuts or just after you can start the reframe formatting, and a quick relink will set you up in premiere for output.  Many times I've found it faster to do this.  Most in fact.  But when I want to feel a bit lazy about it... ...I use vegas or windows movie maker.  For other times, I go to labs with CC and utilize it all.

[R Neil Haugen]

I tried your workflow the other day ... as far as taking phone footage through Prelude, and comparing it with Handbrake converted media. It works, but there's a couple places where Prelude it seems repeated a frame or something where the Handbrake conversion was smoother. But just a frame here or there.

Now ... I just used a standard Cineform transcode to get out of VFR, I didn't even check which frame blending mode it used.

Neil

[HarleyTDavis]

You're braver than most R Niel....   And where you think it "Copied" a frame, it probably just blended two of the same frame a few back, and pushed a frame forward to make room.  That's typical.  IF it jumps then this happened at a point where the motion changed drastically.  Handbrake uses a motion adaptive form of blend that's similar to the apple-mac compressor variety.  It's bound to be a bit smoother where the motion is rapid or a complete video jump occurs.

  But I've been wrecking myself over this for some time trying to figure out where your problem is being introduced (this is to all the gamers)...  I think I can see where you fall into a crack.

If you intend to input a video in pure form from a game, you can get VFR so easy because almost every game I've ever played uses a playback engine that will slow down frame rates during heavier load, or with some games, with little to no motion for a set amount of time.  Most new games will try to avoid dropping rate below 24p, and won't slow down in low motion, but can get as high as 160fields in an interlace format.  Therein lies your problem.  Your capture device reads the frame rate constantly, and the proprietary software folds it into your video file... ...OUCH!! 

Premiere is designed with cinema in mind, not the gamer...   However, that does not mean that you cannot utilize it for your gaming.  Try inputting your video directly through premiere;  not all capture cards or usb dongles are supported perfectly, but you'll stand a better chance of capturing a video format that can be read and processed normally.  This could be tweaked to capture a standard frame rate that could keep you from the problems you had before, and it'll shorten the upload to ready time in youtube\vimeo etc.  Try the Capture function.  I don't have a capture card to test right now.  Check with the manufacturer for OHCI compatibility, and if there isn't any, you may try taking a laptop with minimal requirement for premiere down to your local shop to test out a floor model (not a lot of shops are willing these days; it can sacrifice an expensive piece of equipment to the floor model listing).  If you are using another kind of input card, like a master card designed for camera inputs, I don't exactly have a list for you on which ones will work seamlessly, but many will work as the system will pass their input to the capture function.

I'm trying guys, to find out how you all can USE this software.  Try using the capture function and setting your frame rate in the options, I don't know for certain if it will work.

I don't know why I'm compelled to try and help you.  but so far the only surefire way is to injest the video through an encoder before bringing it into premiere.

Adobe, please don't do as these guys ask.  The overhead on the clocking and synchronizing alone will kill the rest of us for functionality and it won't make your product any faster for the majority of the market (it will actually be slower).  They tell you there's a large market for gamers; I say don't forget the rest of the market that's 50-100times that size.  It will just promote bad practice, impatience and ignorance.

2 methods:

First is prelude or media encoder for injesting (handbrake works too).  They really do work well when done in the right order.

Start in prelude, mark up and subclip, and send basic sequencing to premiere, then go back and have prelude reprocess your files for CFR, and relink them in prelude.  Check your clippings and placement, then add transitions and such, audio, effects.  Finally, export your output file.  It's the same processing as you would normally do in premiere, but you do it methodically and with a forced playback engine that shouldn't show any sync problems even if they exist, allowing you to focus on the artistic placement and logging of the clips.  While they're outputting, you can start putting in transitions and effects, which should remain after a relink.  Then you can play with audio if you need to, make a few touch ups and export.  Most of the work is simultaneous.  (It's an old hollywood style, where they'd set dailys on special machines that would allow them to roughly mark the cuts and clips, and do basic sequencing before sending them to the final master, and the clips would be fully mastered later, and placed back in the pipeline for the final edits; the old EDL file was the way it was all moved around, and it allowed for horribly tight deadlines, with hundreds of hours of video).  This method has worked every time, and has done so quickly, even when started from an older, less powerful machine.

Second is... ...Use one of those other programs that doesn't give a rats tail about how the final product looks.  Keep premiere in your pipeline somewhere, or when you've got the time to injest, do it and take a little more care with your edits.  For no-time to lose, use cheap and dirty.  YES, I do it sometimes.  Even pros go dirty once in a while, to make the deadline.  That's how they stay pros.  If you play through and it looks ok and in line with the pay, go for it.  No problem with that.

Just a note:

Get the software that matches your workflow.  With no time, spend no $$ and don't worry so much about looking absolutely perfect.  If you can stand to spend a little time on it to get it right and have it ready to launch at a set time, while you pay attention to the details, and make it look just right, Adobe prelude and premiere will get you there.  You just have to learn how to work with them.

[CCCDE]

I understand that there are constant frame rate screen capture services, however are there any that work with iPhone? I have an iPhone 7 and the only way i know to capture my gameplay is through QTP and apparently that is variable, because i have spent the last 4 hours trying to figure out what is wrong with my video when opening in pp.

[HarleyTDavis]

unfotunately DTCsoundbooth, there are actually very few ScreenCap services that will capture gaming with a standard frame rate.  The problem is that they all use a passive polling for the frame--it means they only get a frame when one is pushed to the screen.  What you would need is a FRAMESERVER that would actively poll the data stream that's in your current buffer at a set rate.  There are a few that will do so, but you tie them to your graphics card in some funny ways--they're more for the experienced or more geeky type of person.

I just tried something with a buddy though.  We used a DVR device to pass the video from a console to a dvr box.  The result was constant frame rate.  Why?  Because the DVR will just poll the data input buffer for a frame!  Ta da!!!  Yeah... ...We took RGB inputs from an xbox, to an hdmi converter, to a DVR and then to an input card on a computer and recorded with both machines.  The DVR produced a 30p video (cheap hdmi box that maxed at 30p).  When recording to the computer however, we got VFR...  There was a pass through going on, but the recording function is on it's own clock in the DVR.  Not all will be like that, but if you can find one that will record CFR video, it may be the solution.  You might also try passing it through an old vcr or DVD player and then back out to you capture card.  Those also produce a standard video rate for older tvscreens, and their digital outputs run at a similar clock (older outputs are often interlaced output framing, so check that).

[HarleyTDavis]

I can't believe I forgot about FRAPS!!!!!

For those of you who can get your capture to run as Playback only in Full screen, FRAPS can monitor your screen and run at a set frame rate that you select!!  This gives you a video rate that you can use in anything.  Fraps is older now, and I haven't used it in a long time.  But the functionality should still be there.  You might have to run it in compatibility mode.  Look it up in google.  There are 2 others I've used with similar functions, but I can't remember their names.  Fraps is lighter on the system.

For Iphone users:

IF you can get your iphone to play out to your capture onscreen with an app that connects it to your computer for playback (not just direct to screen, but to the actual computer so it passes through your OS), you can use FRAPS as well.  Set the playback to fullscreen, and you should get something you can record in a set frame rate.

For the rest of you who aren't gamers:

Turn off your OIS if you really don't need it.  IF you do, then grab handbrake.  If you have a mac, and you are totally about the quality, grab compressor and do a motion adaptive at a low amount in your output style.  If you'd rather get started on site and you have enough data per month, upload to youtube onsite, and head home; then download it back using firefox and FlashGot.  You'll grab the youtube processed version, which fixes the VFR for compaibility with older systems.  Now your ready.

That's all I got, Guys, do with it what you will.

[jasonvp]

HarleyTDavis  wrote

I can't believe I forgot about FRAPS!!!!!

FRAPS is best left forgotten specifically when it comes to game capture on the same system the game is being played on.  The reason is that FRAPS is completely CPU-bound and will adversely affect the game play during recording.  Capture applications such as FRAPS, DXTory, et al are on their way out because there's hardware encoding available that captures game play, right on modern day GPUs (both NVidia and AMD).  And it does this while putting nearly no load on the gaming machine, meaning game play is not affected in the least.

Harley, you can dance around the issue all you want; I do appreciate the technical explanations why Adobe may not be able to (or want to) add support for VFR into Premiere.  But there's a very simple fact: gaming video production is a HUGE thing on YouTube right now, with a total market measured in hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars annually.  If Adobe wants Pr to be relevant in this market, they HAVE TO figure out a way to add VFR support to it.  Otherwise, the content producers will avoid Pr and stick with what works.  And what works is: Sony Vegas.

It's OK if you don't agree with it, but that's the way it's going right now.

[HarleyTDavis]

You really had me laughing, JasonVP.  I don't dance.  The issue is the same no matter how you slice it.  WIth low grade gear, you get low grade input, and you have to fix some of it before you can work with it in a PROFESSIONAL APPLICATION (HIGH END).  And Adobe has support for VFR, it's called Prelude.  IT's a log and transport app for fixing the problem.  When you post to youtube or almost any other video site, the servers check for VFR and RECODE the video themselves for compatibility with TVsets, and broadcast applications.  You CLAIM that you are the market; I'm evidence to the opposite!  You're talking about a market that only caters to itself and claiming that it's among everybody?  That's even funnier than my dancing!   Explanation:  You talk about the gaming video market... ...Made by gamers, for gamers... ...Premiere targets the pro market that makes videos for EVERYBODY, and that's the appeal.  Prelude helps fixing the problems hardware creates, and sits as a decent way to start a workflow, setting up most of your Premiere project for you.

Now then...  FRAPS...

Yes, it does take some system resources.  IF you have a gaming system, and have to run it on that system, you'll see gaming performance drops.  However, most gamers I've worked with have a cheaper Work machine, and an expensive Gaming machine.  I was getting at the fact that many gaming towers have multiple graphics cards or at least multiple outputs that can be mirror-oriented.  Take the mirror output, plug it into an input that's handled by a cheap machine running FRAPS.  No longer get VFR.  It's so simple.  STOP USING THE SAME MACHINE TO CAPTURE THAT YOURE USING TO GAME!  IT's causing VFR problems, so maybe it's not really the right way to do things.  There may be a better way or more correct way.  You seem to acknowledge that VFR is the problem, but you fail to see that it isn't standards compliant (which adobe is).

Adobe has a primary user base already.  You'd have everybody else take on excess overhead just so you could say you use Premiere?  You really are funny.  There are 50 other titles that target the VFR market: Gamers and Home Users, and you want the Pro applications to do the same?  I Agree that VFR has become a larger market share, but maybe instead of talking about software you don't know how to use, you should read first.

PRELUDE is the SUPPORT for VFR in adobe software.  You can start there.  The rest of the Pro market with VFR does.  It works EVERY time, the same way.  It's predictable and near perfect for small defects.  For larger problems, you can run it through AE first to get down to the FRAME level and reframe it yourself.  Both are fixes to a problem that the home market and other VFR markets rarely care about.  Pros and Artists care.  Adobe is an artistic suite and caters to that.

I wouldn't be opposed to adding an app to the repertoire that's only for VFR.  Perhaps a choice of engine at the opening of Premiere, so that they could support it.  It might be prudent to offer a second engine that you can switch around with a keypress while opening.  That might work.

[jasonvp]

HarleyTDavis  wrote

And Adobe has support for VFR, it's called Prelude.  IT's a log and transport app for fixing the problem.

And here again, you're completely missing the point.  The producers of gaming videos on YouTube do not want to run their footage through some other application that ISN'T an NLE before they edit said footage in an NLE.  Get it?  Using Prelude is no different in time than running the footage through Handbrake.  The results to the producer are the same: a huge waste in time.  Again: they shouldn't have to "fix" their VFR footage; the NLE should work with it somehow.  Natively.

Otherwise, the producers go to another NLE.  Simple, easy, done.  Most of the big time YouTubers that I socialize (and game) with don't use Premiere.  They use Vegas.  And one of the big reasons is that Premiere can't ingest their VFR footage properly.  Vegas can.

You CLAIM that you are the market

No such claim.  I've earned precisely $0.00 from anything I've ever posted online.  I've never even attempted to earn anything off of it.  I do it for fun.  Others I play and socialize with, however, are in that market.  And Pr is not on their list.

You talk about the gaming video market... ...Made by gamers, for gamers... ...Premiere targets the pro market that makes videos for EVERYBODY, and that's the appeal.

Again: you're missing the definition of "pro" - he (or she) that gets paid for a product or service.  Full stop.  And these folks get paid.  Lots and lots of money, too.  Way more than you or I will earn in a year, almost assuredly.  Stop confusing the word "pro" to fit into your world of video production and distribution.  That's not what it means.

However, most gamers I've worked with have a cheaper Work machine, and an expensive Gaming machine.

That is simply not the norm and more the exception.  Most gamers record on their gaming machine, and then edit on their gaming machine.  Because their gaming machine is powerful enough such that they don't need a second machine.  Why add another heat generator to an office when it's not needed.

When online broadcasting (eg: Twitch.tv) is involved, then you may see a second machine, along with expensive video capture cards and whatnot.  But for simple video production (eg: YouTube), it is, in more cases than not: a single machine.

STOP USING THE SAME MACHINE TO CAPTURE THAT YOURE USING TO GAME!  IT's causing VFR problems, so maybe it's not really the right way to do things.  There may be a better way or more correct way.  You seem to acknowledge that VFR is the problem, but you fail to see that it isn't standards compliant (which adobe is).

"The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from." --Andy Tenanbaum.

The issue here is whether Pr should be changed in such a way that it can grok VFR footage.  You seem to think it shouldn't or can't be.  I say: fine.  VFR isn't going away.  That's fact.  It's here to stay as input footage.  So again my point: if Adobe wants Pr to be relevant in this expensive market, they HAVE TO figure out a way to make it work.  HAVE TO.  Otherwise, people are just going to use other NLEs that do support VFR natively.  It really is that simple.  The "It's too hard" answer is one that will, ultimately, cost Adobe potential new customers.

Adobe has a primary user base already.  You'd have everybody else take on excess overhead just so you could say you use Premiere?  You really are funny.  There are 50 other titles that target the VFR market: Gamers and Home Users, and you want the Pro applications to do the same?  I Agree that VFR has become a larger market share, but maybe instead of talking about software you don't know how to use, you should read first.

Again with the misunderstanding of the word "Pro", and somehow believing your specific profession is some how "more pro" than a gamer's.  And you're also attempting to be insulting at the same time; I'd strongly encourage you to stop that.  Note that not once did I say anything derogatory towards you in the least, in any of my posts.  I'd expect a similar amount of respect from someone that considers himself a professional.

In other words, cool it with the cheap shots.

[HarleyTDavis]

Again you insult me, Jason.  I'm trying to be as uninsulting as I can when I write.  If I "Missed the point", you haven't exactly made one.  Only broad comments that amount to misinformation.

In video and graphics work there is a tradeoff.  The more accurate your edits need to be, the more complex the software and pricing model, and the more complex the workflow.  If all you're doing is a quick slice and upload, you're looking at the "Low" end of processing.  That's what I've come to call my LAZY workflow.  It produces output, but that output quality is unpredictable on its own, and only gets predictable on upload.  The software is pay once to own, pay again to upgrade, but all at once.  For my more exact software, I pay a little less at the outset, but it's a monthly charge, so it's more costly in the longer run.  I rent it all from the labs or pay for the time in my office, or even use it for class with my own account.  I'm constantly learning more of the technical function, artistic aspects, and processing methods so that I don't run into problems.  You seem to be allergic to that amount of work, so I'll just lay it out.

Another tradeoff is hardware:

The more nonstandard the operation, the more you have to do to get the output to work with your other gear and software.  It's that simple.  If you "Miss the Point", there's no simpler way to lay it out.  Sorry.  You are SOL.

[Ann Bens]

Play nice guys otherwise the thread will be locked down.

[Jim_Simon]

Again: they shouldn't have to "fix" their VFR footage; the NLE should work with it somehow.  Natively.

The better (best) solution is to not use variable frame rate footage.  Hardware capture devices solve this issue perfectly.

[jasonvp]

Jim_Simon  wrote

The better (best) solution is to not use variable frame rate footage.  Hardware capture devices solve this issue perfectly.

And that's not going to happen.  What is going to happen is gamers will just stick to using Sony Vegas and not anything from Adobe.  Jim, I really don't care if you don't like VFR.  But as I stated previously: it's here to stay.  It's not going anywhere.  Adobe can adapt and overcome, or have their product ignored by the growing and thriving YouTube community.

That's their call, not yours or mine.

[HarleyTDavis]

Okay... ...You don't like Prelude or AME... ...fine then...

I was reluctant to throw this one out there because its old and it requires you buy another piece of software from adobe rather than use the tools for strict video editing.

Reasoning:

Premiere will fix one or two frame drop with frame blending, but not the kind of drop from game graphics.  Some systems won't run it at all, and I think it's a 32bit background app, so some systems will have trouble going from 64 to 32, some wont.  Sorry, you're SOL there, boys and girls.  Prelude will fix it but only after a pass through adobe media encoder to recode the video, and that can take a lot of time for longer videos with more to fix.  I get your angst, I usually have more time to work, so it doesn't bother me, I have plenty of coffee (a giant 5gallon coffee maker in the corner).  Let's see...

One more possibility for you is an old trick from cs5.  It's called comp interpreting.  You place your input video in after effects, interpret the footage and place it into a comp.  The newer AE engine will work in the background to blend dropped frames (or in your case, frames that didn't happen).  Drop the COMP into premiere, and use that as your source video.  It will be a bit slower to edit, but it *should* work without passing your video through prelude or handbrake.  The downside is that you'll have to buy after effects to get this capability.

Maybe another piece of hardware instead?

Some newer external video encoders by Maxxon or similar companies are HDMI based, and allow you to controll the aspects of the encoding.  Any time the frame rate drops, the encoder compensates.  They are more expensive than your cheaper game capture software or screen cap app, or the parts you can buy at Frys.  The difference is, they don't give a rat's hairy tail about the input rate except as a calculation for what they need to do to match to your chosen output rate.  They were all the rage back in the day when everybody wanted some old-style tv to be remade for today's standards, and the pulldown was commonplace.  Sounds to me like they should make a comeback here.

Bottom line:

If you are only going to youtube, get a software for just that purpose, because premiere might be too much for you.  If you do other stuff with premiere, and have no problems, you might want to try the solutions above, and you might want to get another piece of software just for your VFR gaming capture.  If you are capturing with the same machine as the game is running on, you will often have VFR problems.  It isn't standard video, and it isn't a recognized standard in video.  It is recognized in graphics rendering in gaming.  The two are very different processes.  Graphics rendering is like an automated video editing operation being done on the fly based on a bunch of if switches and object data, where a bunch of the images are composed together in each frame.  Video is readymade frames being played back at a set rate related to the rate at which it was captured, and the capture rate is often set to maintain smooth look of motion.  It's not a lot of pieces being comped on the fly, so the rate is set and the quality is higher.

And finally... ...Here's a possible solution for hardware manufacturers to take on...

The AVCHD video codec in most cameras creates a multiplexed set of files at a set amount of space per file, then wraps them up in one big folder that gets a video file extension.  This is because set top players use that model.  It's been in there since DVD format.  Check the VOB folder. all those tiny files are sized for the standard buffer in the player.  AVCHD is a blu-ray or HDDVD sized video, but it uses the same slicing for the buffers.  If your game capture hardware could do something similar at the frame rate changes, it would be easier to deal with.  Each clip would have a set frame rate, and would adjust to fit the sequence's rate when dropped in.  The only drawback would be the audio.  It might clip horribly.  The alternative to this is to capture the audio separately in it's own stream, or drop out an audio render while you work with the video cutting, then add your audio back in.  Without frames in the stream, it should match the time a lot better, and it's a fairly easy step in the latest CC.  Maybe you  guys could talk to some hardware manufacturers about that.  If I saw that happening, I'd buy like six of those and start getting into the tutorial market to get rich off the nubees trying not to get PK'ed all the time.

What I don't agree with, however, is the statement that VFR is here to stay.  It isn't.  As graphics processing develops, gaming is getting closer to set frame rate video.  This won't be a problem for long.  But since you are having an issue, try the above, or get something that will handle it until you can afford something that will remove the problem entirely.

[neilb69570407]

I can't believe this guy is still posting his "you shouldn't have done it in the first place" statements FIVE years later in this thread.

This is a forum for people to get answers for all manner of issues in Premiere.  And 'don't do it in the first place' isn't a solution, I can't believe in FIVE years, you still don't see that.

I would love to see a hospital run that way:

"doc, i got shot!"

"well, the better (best) solution would be to not stand in the path of the bullet.  NEXT!"

I work at NBC and the live feeds we get from Radio City Music Hall are always VFR.  Now according to you, I need to march right up to the CEO of this multi-billion dollar company, demand they overhaul their equipment and reshoot the event.  When that is a viable solution, I will let you know.  In the meantime, I suggest CONSTRUCTIVE comments that actually solve the problem.  You are neither solving the problem, nor getting the job done, as you claim.

When companies as big as NBC are using live-streaming equipment that outputs to VFR, Adobe needs to take notice and address this in their software.

[Jeff Bellune]

I work at NBC and the live feeds we get from Radio City Music Hall are always VFR.

Just curious -- are those live streams meant to be edited and prepared for broadcast, or are they just streamed live to whatever device is signed up to see the live stream?

If they're meant to be edited and re-broadcast, how is NBC handling that now as far as hardware and software editing solutions?