The Making of the Demo for Adobe's Premiere 1.0 for Windows
Adobe Premiere 1.0 for Windows has the unique feature of being both QuickTime compatible and Video For Windows compatible. Therefore, I decided to make a demonstration movie combining elements created on both a Macintosh and a PC.
The Results
I learned three very important things:
1. Premiere 1.0 for Windows is a good way to exchange digital video and audio files between Macintosh computers and PCs.
2. Apple Computer's QuickTime 1.1 for Windows might have some problems.
3. Premiere 1.0 for Windows makes it easy for Windows' movie makers to get their movies scored by Macintosh musicians using QuickTime and Passport Design's Producer 1.1.
Digitizing
The video footage was videotaped on a Sony TR-101 camcorder and scanned into a Macintosh LC II 10/240 using the Video Spigot LC card. Each clip was made to be less than 1.4 Megs so it could be transferred on floppy disk. Most of the clips were recorded at the highest resolution (but a few were not, so that they would be small enough to fit on a floppy).
Flatten
I used ComboWalker from the QuickTime 1.5 Developers' CD for QuickTime 1.5 to flatten the file. Premiere 3.0 for the Macintosh does this automatically but the CD-ROM version had not been released when I made this movie. (Also, the original version of Apple Computer's Movie Converter will flatten files, but the current version will not.)
Transfer
The files were transferred to a DOS floppy using DOS Mounter 3.0 which comes with MacLink Plus, version 6. This worked very well.
The files were copied off the floppy using Windows' File Manager on a 386 PC. The file extensions were manually changed to ".mov" and imported directly into Premiere 1.0 for Windows. We did not need to do any translation for the files, so this was very easy.
Later, when we went back to the Macintosh using DOS Mounter 3.0, I experienced problems with file name extensions. I assume this has been fixed in the newer releases of DOS Mounter. When I could not fix the problem using DOS Mounter, I used Apple Computer's ResEdit to change the creator and type signatures. This was easy but annoying.
Sound Effects
All sound effects came from my library of sound effects CDs. I tried to capture the clips using QuickTime 1.6.1 with a AppleCD. QuickTime 1.6 on the Macintosh allows you to read each track of an audio CD as a QuickTime movie clip. However, the audio levels of the clips were too low when converted to 8-bit audio and it was too hard to correct with Macromind's SoundEdit Pro audio-editing software for the Macintosh.
Therefore, I used SoundEdit Pro to digitize the analog audio from the CD into the microphone port of the Macintosh LC II. This adds some background noise. Ugh!
At first, I tried to bring the sound clips into the PC as a QuickTime file which has no video tracks. However, Premiere 1.0 for Windows could not handle a single-audio-track QuickTime movie. I think the problem is in QuickTime for Windows.
Then I tried to import the sound effects as AIFF files. It worked perfectly and was much easier than creating a flattened QuickTime movie file. Once I knew this, all the remaining audio file transfers were extremely easy.
Musical Scoring
Currently, there are no Windows programs for MIDI sequencing which can play an AVI movie file or a MOV movie file while sequencing musical instruments. So far there is only one program for doing musical scores on the Macintosh computer. Therefore, to create a musical score which is synced to the action of a movie created on a Multimedia PC, you must use a Macintosh computer.
Therefore, after the movie was rough edited, a tiny copy of movie (60 by 40 pixels) was transferred to a floppy disk to be sent to our Macintosh MIDI musician.
This is probably the best use of the QuickTime compatibility of Premiere 1.0 for Windows since it took only two seconds to change the output options of Premiere to make a QuickTime movie rather than an AVI movie.
Passport Design's Producer 1.1 costs under $100 and is the only program which can play a QuickTime movie on the Macintosh screen while recording the musician's keystrokes from a MIDI keyboard. The program cannot edit the tracks you produce but after working with the program for a few months, I no longer need to do any editing. (Producer 1.1 is not compatible with EZ Vision on the Macintosh, which is the only MIDI editing program I recommend for beginners.)
Soon, Producer 1.1 for the Macintosh will be discontinued; its replacement, Producer Pro, will cost $1,490. This program is aimed at the multimedia-presentation market which is now dominated by Macromedia's Director.
The finished musical score was recorded on a Fostex four-track tape recorder. I used a Windows PC and the Sound Blaster Pro card to digitize the musical score since SoundBlaster Pro is stereo and the Macintosh LC is only monaural.
To fit the three tracks of sound effects, the two tracks of dialog and one track of music, I had to combine tracks before the final mix. Premiere has only three tracks of audio. The mix down was easy with Premiere 1.0 for Windows but even so, I will be glad when they have more tracks in Premiere for Windows (as Adobe now offers on the Macintosh using version 3).
The Finished Movie
The movie was saved in two formats. First, as a QuickTime movie and, secondly, as a Video For Windows AVI movie.
The results were very surprising! The QuickTime version was slower and looked worse than the Video For Windows AVI version. Also the audio did not play well using the SoundBlaster Pro card. This was extremely surprising since the original clips were created in QuickTime and save with the same QuickTime CODEC.
During the next month, I will try to track down the source of the problem. I am not completely sure if it is QuickTime or Premiere 1.0 for Windows that is the problem. Most people I have talked to say it is QuickTime for Windows which does not work.
Back To The Mac
The greatest difficulty came when trying to bring the 8-Meg movie back to the Macintosh on the "sneaker net." ("Sneaker net" means running back and forth with floppy disks.) The movie was saved in 10-second segments and these were transferred to the Macintosh and concatenated with ComboWalker using the "use fewest tracks" option. Using this method, I saw a definite loss in quality at the transition points.
I tried other options but they did not work correctly. I could not read the QuickTime files in Apple Computer's MovieShop or in Premiere 2.0 for the Macintosh.
Because my Macintosh is monaural, I have no way of knowing if the movie's sound is correct on the Macintosh. I did notice that the stereo of the AVI version is reversed from the stereo of the QuickTime MOV version.
Conclusion
Elements made on the Macintosh work well on a PC if you use Premiere 1.0 for Windows on the PC. However, there is still a problem getting some elements from a PC to work well on Macintosh. Probably, the problem is QuickTime for Windows.
Movie making will always be a group effort. The tremendous advantage of Premiere 1.0 for Windows will be to let Macintosh owners work together with Windows PC owners on the same movie.
I highly recommend Adobe Premiere 1.0 for Windows for anyone who owns a Windows Multimedia PC with at least 8 Megs.
