Windows hates my camcorder files...

Reeves · Thu 03 Dec, 2009 19.43

Okay, I own a Panasonic HDC-SD5 camcorder, importing files using the Panasonic HD writer, and editing with Premiere Elements 4. Within the past couple of weeks, things have been falling apart. Premiere keeps "dying" everytime I try to edit these files, and any MPG file (whether it be movies off the memory card or Premiere exports consisting of those files) now play without sound on Windows Media Player.

Again, this has only started to occur over the past couple of weeks. I wiped Vista and installed XP and it's suffering from the same issue. Can somebody please shed some light onto this? Many thanks

Gavin Scott · Thu 03 Dec, 2009 20.06

Reeves wrote:Okay, I own a Panasonic HDC-SD5 camcorder, importing files using the Panasonic HD writer, and editing with Premiere Elements 4. Within the past couple of weeks, things have been falling apart. Premiere keeps "dying" everytime I try to edit these files, and any MPG file (whether it be movies off the memory card or Premiere exports consisting of those files) now play without sound on Windows Media Player.

Again, this has only started to occur over the past couple of weeks. I wiped Vista and installed XP and it's suffering from the same issue. Can somebody please shed some light onto this? Many thanks

I don't know, but in recent weeks, perhaps a month or two, my Premiere CS4 is crashing using HuffYUV clips and when exporting to MP4. Don't think its the codecs as I can render the same clips in CS3.

Stumped.

Oh..... except it was also happening in After FX but I fixed that by altering the amount of RAM and priority settings it uses, somewhere in the preferences.

Try that in Premiere Elements, and I'll do the same in CS4.

*Hey*

Reeves · Thu 03 Dec, 2009 20.30

Cheers for that, Gavin, but I can't find any option that let's me do that. As a bit of an update, I've realized that it's just the one Premiere file that seems to keep dying, and it's whenever I stop playback or go to add any other video files imported from the HD writer.

Any advice?

Dr Lobster* · Thu 03 Dec, 2009 20.49

i'm afraid you might just need to transcode the video to dvi and edit that copy of the file instead.

photoshop elements is notoriously shite at editing certain mpeg containers.

just drag your unedited footage onto the timeline, save it as a microsoft dvi file (high quality, keep native resolution so you don't degrade the quality etc etc) and see if that makes it better. do it with a small clip first and see if you notice any difference.

Reeves · Thu 03 Dec, 2009 20.59

Thanks Dr Lobster, but I'm trying to work out why everything was fine and then things started to play up. I thought a fresh Windows and a re-install of Premiere Elements would do the job, but obviously not. The video files are still mute.

Dr Lobster* · Thu 03 Dec, 2009 21.58

have you tried installing (the dreaded) quicktime?

the no sound problem is a codec issue. it's difficult to say why premier elements has suddenly start misbehaving, it's likely that it's something you installed or changed. did you try to use system restore to go back to a point where it was working correctly?

Reeves · Thu 03 Dec, 2009 22.27

Dr Lobster* wrote:have you tried installing (the dreaded) quicktime?

the no sound problem is a codec issue. it's difficult to say why premier elements has suddenly start misbehaving, it's likely that it's something you installed or changed. did you try to use system restore to go back to a point where it was working correctly?

Quicktime is installed, but it needs updating. As mentioned, I wiped Vista completely and installed XP because I was sick of it, so whatever installation or change I made shouldn't be present if it's a fresh install, surely?

Also, what kind of codec would I be looking for? They've been exported as MPEG files; all over MPEG files play fine except for these ones; only the likes of VLC allows me to play the files with sound.