appending videos in Premiere

[ssharp32]

I'm still trying to get comfortable with Premiere, and I have a question that is probably easily answered, so here goes. I have files (one set of avi's and one set of MPEG's) that have been chopped into 5 clips. Each is a continuation of the last. I want to append the second clip to the first, and so on. I can do that, but the problem is that each of the clips are about 28 megs. or so. When I've joined all of the files together and rendered them, I'm looking at a behemoth file that is over 1 gig in size. I have checked the codecs, checked the framerate, quadruple checked the rendering size and nothing seems to help.
To clarify, I'm not trying to mix avi's and MPEGS, I was just saying that I've tried this with both file types and it makes no difference. I'm getting pretty well miffed to wait 2 or 3 hours for this thing to render, only to find that I've only created another file of ridiculous length. Can someone offer me some advice on this? Thanks in advance.

Steve

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Steve,

5 files of approximately 28 Megs is going to be just over a gig in size, when rendered using the same codec.

First, is there anything particularly wrong with a 1-G file size?

Second, if you want a smaller file size, use a different codec. Export as an MPEG, for example.

And third, if render time is an issue, then export the movie using exactly the same settings as the project, after you have preview files made up. 2 - 3 hours to render a movie that has already been pre-rendered in 5-piece chunks is too long.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,


Edward

 

[ssharp32]

Edward,
Okay, now maybe we're getting somewhere. In my pea-brain, I was under the impression that 5 X 28 meg clips would turn out to be about 140 megs, not 1 gig. Why would rendering combining these 5 files into one file increase the overall file size exponentially? All I'm trying to do is stick these 5 files together and make them run as one continuous movie and I simply don't understand why the end product turns out to be 10 times larger than the math tells me it should. However, I will try your advice about trying to reduce the time it takes to render. Thanks for your suggestions.

PS I wanted to point out that this movie in question only lasts about 90 minutes and plays back in at 15 fps in a window that is about 350 X 320, does it seem that a movie with these specs should take up over a gig of space? Just curious.


SS

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

Steve,

Ack, you're right. I shifted a decimal point in my multiplication. mea culpa!

Pretty much the thing that drives your file size is your export codec. For example, if I combine ten 1-minute MPEGs that are super-squashed and then export them using the same codec, the file size will be about ten times the size of one. However, if I export them as an uncompressed AVI, the size will be hemotremongulous (which means very large).

Ah, 90 minutes. Well, that's good data. 90 minutes of 350 x 320 at 15 fps.

Here is what I recommend you do, Steve.

Set your working space for some block of that, only a minute's worth. Then, Export Movie using a variety of codecs (but still at 15 fps and 350 x 320). Save the exported movies with a title that properly reflects the codec. For example:

Sample_QT_Sorenson_100percent.mov
Sample_QT_Sorenson3_100percent.mov
Sample_QT_Planar_100percent.mov
Sample_QT_Planar_50percent.mov
Sample_QT_Indeo_100percent.mov
Sample_AVI_Uncompressed.avi
Sample_MPG_VCDAssetSetting.mpg
Sample_MPG_DVDAssetSetting.mpg

and so on.

Then watch them all and take notes of which ones look good and which ones don't (never assume stuff -- some codecs look like crap for your footage, even at 100% and others can still look good at quality settings as low as 40%). Now, this is only one minute, so it won't take long to export and if you can multiply by 90, you'll have a good estimate of the length of the entire movie.

Find one you like that'll give you the file size you need and use those exact settings to export the whole 90 minute movie.

Sorry about my gaffe. I hope this helps.

Cheers,


Edward