Help for CS6 premiere pro with 5d footage

[CJRodgers]

Hi, Im quite new to video editing so please help if you. I am using adobe cs6 on a windoes 7 64bit machiene. I have directly imported my 5dmkii footage into my project before and its been fine. I am trying to do so again, and out of 12 files, only 3 are importing, and the other 3 are giving an error saying 'header error'. I have read this is could be due to an non supported file type, but then why would it allow me to import 3 of them OK? I have transcoded the files or anything as I was under the impression you didnt need to with CS6. Please help Im trying to splice some footage together for a wedding montage for myself and im starting to get stressed

thanks in advance if you can help!

 

[CJRodgers]

**UPDATE**

I just record 4 more vidoes (3 aprox 10 seconds, and 1 roughly 1 minuite). The 3 videos imported fine and the longest video file did not. Same error (header error or damaged file). I then recorded two more long videos (roughly one minuite) and again i get the fault. I use an external harddrive to store all my files (F drive). I then tried putting these onto my main computer drive and importing them... and it worked! So do I have a corrupt hard drive or does my external drive not like long files for some reason? Or does premiere pro not like importing from my external drive if they are long files?

Thanks

 

[paul13walnut5]

I had this issue on my 7D with sandisk extreme udma cards, canon denied a problem as they always do until they launch a firmware fix, which they did.

I never managed to retrieve my files, am on a different camera, using different software and different platform.

But, heres some options:

Try data recovery from the cards, i had software called rescue pro elite which camd with one of my cards, and could find most files and even attempt repair.

Failing that, download mpegstreamclip free from squared5.com, make sure your quicktime is up to date, see if it lets you open all or part of the file, set io points to transcode as much as you can.

I also tried through handbrake, which is also free (but may be mac only) as its worked on yukkt avc based files for me in the past.

The 2nd most horrible option msy be to try and capture from the cameras video playback.

I don't even want to speak the words of the most horrible option.

If you find domething that works, please share.

 

[CJRodgers]

**Update 2**

The 'corrupt' video files work when I import them onto my main C drive, then into cs6, but not if I import them to my external F hardrive. However, if I copy them from C to F after importing them, and then load them from F drive into CS6 they work. WTF is going on? Not sure if it is the cf card now?! But i also dont get why it would be the F drive if it works after being transfered from C drive.

Does something happen to the files when imported from the camera that my main SSD drive might be doing differently from my external drive? I dont have enough capacity to store files on my main drive so this is a problem

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

It sounds like a bad usb cable or slow USB connection. While its fine to store files on a external drive with a USB connection, you should consider using a E-SATA connection if you want to edit them directly from the hard drive. There is a lot of data moving around, and larger files will be more difficult.
Internal hard drives are pretty cheap, if you have room for one, just pop a 2TB drive in. Lots of them for $110 with free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007603%20600003269%20600003300&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=100

 

[CJRodgers]

Thanks,

Its USB3 so i dont think data rates are a problem? What do you think? Im just scanning now to make sure it doesnt have any corrupt areas on the drive. I only got it because after the thailand floodings a few years back hard drives got very expensive. Might need another one now Im suspecting its the camera or cs6 software less though which is good.

 

[Axilrod]

Thanks,

Its USB3 so i dont think data rates are a problem? What do you think? Im just scanning now to make sure it doesnt have any corrupt areas on the drive. I only got it because after the thailand floodings a few years back hard drives got very expensive. Might need another one now Im suspecting its the camera or cs6 software less though which is good.

Do you have Quicktime for Windows installed on your machine? That could be causing the problem, it's worth a shot. I know not having quicktime can throw the header error in Premiere. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure a header is just a small bit of information in the file that gives information about the codec, duration, etc.

And you sure your computer has USB 3.0 ports? And if it does are you sure the hard drive is USB 3.0? Regardless, you want to get your media on some kind of external drive, I would try and to use an eSata connection if possible (it screams). I don't know much about PC's anymore, but I'm pretty sure it's easier to get an eSata connector on one than it is on a Mac. Regardless, you shouldn't be getting that error due to disk/connection speed, it has to be something else.

 

[paul13walnut5]

Could it be a fat32 limitation?

On a pc your drives should be ntfs, for most practical purposes limitless file sizes.

Your cf card will be fat32 and if you are writing files back to it at all, or if any of your other drives are fat32 formatted (say your selected render disk) it will stop you creating files above 4gb.

Depending on your project timeline settings the rdnder files (i.e the 'on the fly' transcodes) are slmost certainly going to be bigger than the source files, possibly above 4gb and therefore not usable with any Fat32 drives.

Answer, copy your movs to a drive other than c, select another drive for your video and audio render (also not c) having made sure both are NTFS.

This may solve your problrm.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Thanks,

Its USB3 so i dont think data rates are a problem? What do you think? Im just scanning now to make sure it doesnt have any corrupt areas on the drive. I only got it because after the thailand floodings a few years back hard drives got very expensive. Might need another one now Im suspecting its the camera or cs6 software less though which is good.

USB 3 should be fast enough, providing that its actually operating at USB 3 speeds. You can run a drive utility to find if there is a speed issue.
HD Tune is a good one, there is a free vwersion that does not have all the bells and whistles, but should indicate if there is a speed issue.
http://www.hdtune.com/

 

[CJRodgers]

Yeah its definately USB3 and seems to be running fine. I think the NTFS / FAT32 thing could be possible, and it makes sense as to why it might work on one drive and not another. Ill check my disk formats when i get home. Im hoping if it is just this, that I could partition the drive to have an NTFS section and use that!

Thanks for the help, ill let you know what happens tomorrow. Its V Day today so ill get murdered if I start messing with computers tonight!

 

[paul13walnut5]

Also what spec is external drive? Is it ssd? Hdd? 5400? 7200rpm? Cache capacity?

All factors, a 5400rpm drive with a bandwith of 30mb/s is only ever going to transfer data at 30mb/s whether its on usb 2, usb 3, fw or tb or whatever else.

Ideal drive config:

C drive for dystem and nothing else (ssd brilliant for sheer speed, but not much capacity)

Scratch disk 1 for storage
Scratch disk 2 for renders

Scratch disks should be drives of same spec, ideally seperate raids (so thats 4 drives) to get speed for hd video bandwith (can be up to 200mb/s+ depending on output spec) if not you are hamstrung by the slowest drive.

Bus powered usb 5400s laptop hdds just too slow, even 7200 3.5 hdds slow for video these days unless in raid set up (i get 250mb/s from two seagate barracudas in a raid, would only get 125 or so from single drive, APR HQ codec is around 180-200mb/s) drives configured internslly in software raid via e-sataii.

You could raid a couple of ssds and get 500mb/s, if done via esata iii no bottleneck.

Do note earlier post about disk formatting, could also be fat32 limitation, reformat to ntfs.

 

[CJRodgers]

OK So at the moment my main drive C is an SSD, which my adobe suite is installed on. I then have my F drive which is western digital drive WDBPCK0010BBK-EESN. I cant find out the rpm or cache capacity, it just says 5gbs transfer speed, and it does feel fast for a hdd. Also it, says it comes formatted to NTFS, so that may elimante the possibility of that problem!

I have my scratch disks set up to the F drive, but I cant remember how much space I have given it all. What are the ideal settings for cache and scratch disks in a project file?


If it turns out that its just the disk is too slow, can someone just explain why it can handle shorter .movs<1min but not .movs roughly >1min? And if it was too slow, why would it work after the .movs have been transfered to the F drive from C drive rather than straight from the card?

 

[paul13walnut5]

If you are just using a single external drive for all scratch disks then you are basically reading all the data from one drive, the computer is transcoding it and writing the new data back to the same drive you are reading from.

Its trying to get the drive to shift a lot of data around all at the one time, two seperate drives would be better, one for you to have your source data on -the H264s for the camera, this could be set up as the capture scratch disk (although this termonology is slightly outdated)- and a second hard disk for your computer to write the (much larger) transcoded files to, set up as the render scratch disk.

This would keep the data flowing through your machine, rather than putting all the data in one place and the disk struggling to read and write at the same time.

The shorter movs are playing back from RAM, which will be lovely and fast, but of a small capacity, the longer movs are being read off from the drive, which isn't fast enough.

64 bit processing is great, 64 bit OS is great, 64 bit apps are great, loads of RAM is brilliant, but the real speed killer is and always has and always will be the speed at which the data gets around your machine, the hard drives are the weakest link in the chain, and a fast interface is not the same thing as having a fast drive connected to that interface, and this appears to be the root of the problem.

I've not used a PC in years, but in terms of the hardware being more or less equal, RAIDs have vastly reduced my rendering times and vastly improved my playback quality and system stability. For fluid editing with massive data rates, such as the transcoded video files, you are going to need to look at either a couple of SSD's or internal / external RAID HDD's.

Sorry man, but thats the nuts and bolts of it.

 

[CJRodgers]

Thanks for explaining it.

So would the current usb drive I have be good enough for the capture scratch disk, and then i could buy a faster drive to have as the render scratch disk. Or do i need two new drives one for each? There is literally 4gb left on my main c drive so i dont think i can use that for either.

Cheers!

 

[paul13walnut5]

The USB drive will be sufficient for playing back the camera files, be that for preview in premiere or for background transcoding, as even at the lowest compression the data rate is pretty low (20-30mb/s should be sufficient according to 5D3 handbook) certainly at or below the speed your USB HDD disk should be capable of, so you'll be no worse off getting data in at real time.

You would ideally have a much faster higher specification disk to set up as Premiere's render disk. I think either single SSD or 2xHDD set up as a RAID would be the minimum, as the transcoded data rate is far far higher.

Premiere will build so much of a preview in RAM, but this is a short clip.

You will be able to alter preview quality settings, so you can do an 'offline' cut with fluid playback at lower quality, and then do a final render as you output your timeline.

 

[CJRodgers]

Ok I think I will buy another SSD. I might get a bigger one, then i can swap my current C Drive for the new one and use the 64gb one just for scratch disk stuff. Will that be ok? Id love to get two more but Im beyond skint due to the wedding!

Should it be obvious which scratch disks I set to which folder? If its not could I PM you when I have it?

Thanks

 

[paul13walnut5]

Set the render disks to the fastest available non systems disk, there will be audio and video render, put both in same place.

Set the capture disk to the slower USB disk, and copy your camera files here, and take them into premiere from here.

The main thing is that premiere is pointing the renders to the fast drive.

64gb isn't an awful lot of space. If your system is running happily from the 64gb then let it be, use the new bigger one for renders. They pile up when you start making changes, adding colour correction, text, tweaking audio etc.

You can always trash renders once your project is completed and you have a high quality finished version.