Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Selecting project settings: Lesson 4-1

Up to this point you've been working on projects I've started for you. This time you will start a project from scratch. That will give you an opportunity to see the many ways you can configure your project as well as set user preferences once you've started the project.

The basic rule of thumb when selecting project settings is to match the settings to your source material and not to the final output. Maintaining the original quality of source material means you'll have more options later. Even if your goal is to create a low-resolution video to play on the Internet, wait until you

finish editing and then reduce the

output quality settings.

It's possible you might have a mix of source mediawidescreen and standard, for example. The best approach here is to set up your project to match the majority of footage it will contain or to match the look you want to achieve. For example, choose a widescreen setting for a project with mostly widescreen videos that contains some standard definition video that you'll place in a "pillar box"a black frame within the 16:9 aspect ratio widescreen.

Two types of settings menus

Premiere Pro has two settings menus: Project Settings and Preferences. Their similarities can lead to some confusion. For example, both contain General and Capture submenus. The Project Settings menu is also called the Custom Settings menu in the New Project window.

Project Settings apply to your current project. Your first step before opening a new project is to select that project's settings. Once you start a project you can't change many of the Project Settings.

Preferences, on the other hand, generally apply to all projects, and you can change them at any time.

We'll start with a brief lesson on Project Settings. The purpose is simply to check out the various Project Settings options and consider under what circumstances you'd use them.

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Custom settingsproject settingsoverview

When you start a new project, you can review and change project settings in this Custom Settings window. You should do so only if none of the available presets match the specifications of your source media.

Later, you can open Project Settings from within the Premiere Pro workspace. The interface is virtually identical to the Custom Settings window. The only difference is that the Project Settings menu does not have the file location and name section at the bottom.

Since some settings can't be changed after a project is created, confirm all project settings in the Custom Settings window before starting a project.

The Custom Settings window has four submenus: General, Capture, Video Rendering and Default Sequence. Click on each in turn. Here are some brief explanations (refer to Premiere Pro Help for further details):

• General Adjust these settings to match the specifications of the most significant source media in your project. There are six general sub-categories. I explain them on the next page. Usually, the editing mode you select at the top of the menu determines most of the settings in this window.

• Capture This submenu has only three options: DV, Adobe HD-SDI and HDV. The editing mode you select in the General submenu auto-selects the correct capture format, so this is essentially a redundant submenu.

• Video Rendering If you select DV in the General submenu, there are no preview options. Preview options appear only if your source media are Adobe HD-SDI or SD-SDI (both require AJA Xena HS video capture hardware).

• Default Sequence Each time you add a sequence to a project, Premiere Pro displays a menu that lets you select the number of video tracks and the number and type of audio tracks. When it pops up you will generally accept the default values. This menu lets you set those defaults.

Creating a custom preset for new projects

You can create a customized new project preset: simply make your choices in the four submenus and then click the Save Preset button. Give your customized project settings preset a name and click OK. It will show up in the New Project > Load Preset menu.

Checking out the new project presets

• Adobe HD-SDI For editing high definition (HD) video only on AJA Xena HS System (www.aja.com).
  

• Adobe HDV A compressed HD-style format that records to standard DV cassettes.

• Adobe SD-SDI For editing high-quality DV in a standard definition (SD) format. This works only on AJA Xena HS systems.

• DV-24p This preset was created for use with 24p DV cameras like the Panasonic AG-DVX100 and Canon XL224p. It's sometimes used for film that has been shot at the film-standard 24 frames per second and transferred to DV.

• DV-NTSC What most Premiere Pro users work with. NTSC is the TV display standard for North and South America and Japan.

• DV-PAL The TV display standard for most of Western Europe and Australia.