Import Photostory wmv into Premiere

[rrstudio2]

This may not be the best place to post this, but I am hoping someone
may have a clue....

I use MS Photostory 3 to make some nice slide shows, and like to
incorperate them in with other family movies. I recently purchased
Adobe Premiere Elements after using Moviemaker2 for some time.
Premiere elements is supposed to import wmv files, however it seems
that a number of users (judging from the Adboe premiere elements user
forum) have had issues related to importing wmv files from
Photostories. I am not sure if it is an issue related to just wmv
files from photostories or any wmv (all the topics I have seen are
about photostories wmv but not many other applications allow you to
export only wmv files). The problem is that you can import the wmv
files and they seem to play fine in Premiere, however at seemly reandom
times the video fades to black, stays black for a few seconds, then the
video comes back in. The music continues during this video blackout.
I also recently tried Ulead's Movie factory to convert the wmv files to
DVD MPEG files just as a test, and the black video also appears.
TMPGenc seems to encode these fine to DVD MPEG files. I really want to
be allowed to import them into Premiere elements as wmv files and was
wondering if anyone has any ideas on what would cause this odd problem
in some applications? Later, I am hoping to try Papa John's NTSC PS3
profile and see if that makes any difference. I had been exporting as
800x600 profile for computer since the qualiy of those files works
pretty well for TV although I do lose some pixels since the dimensions
are correct for the TV.

I know that I could import them into MM2, and then export them as
DV-AVI, however this takes more time, hard drive space, and doesn't
increase quality so I don't really like that option, however will do
that if there are no fixes for this issue. Let me know if you have
successfully imported PS3 wmv files into Premiere without any issues.

Thanks,
Andrew V. Romero

 

[Rehan]

I suspect you already have the correct solution !!! (of re-encoding the
file through Movie maker).

I would expect even WMV output from movie maker would work correctly in
Premeire elements. The PS3 outputted WMV is encoded using a very special
codec and I am not surprised if some applications have difficulty with them.

 

[Wojo]

I agree completely except that there may be another problem involved here.
Maybe a bad codec?
Only because I import PS3's WMV files into Movie Factory all the time
without a problem.
-Wojo

 

[rrstudio2]

I am always a little confused when talk of codecs come up. I know the
basics about them (i.e. what they are, what they do) but how do I know
what codec is being used and more imiportantly, how do I change which
codec is being used? That is interesting that you import them into
MovieFactory, I am 99% sure I tested that and still got the black video
but I was running so many test, perhaps I will try again.

So PS3 wmvs have a very special codec...interesting. I must admit, I
really like photostory 3. It makes it very easy to put pictures into a
slide show that is interesting to watch. I wish it had a few other
features soch as a better wat to sort the pictures in the story line
(i.e. being able to select multiple pictures at a time and slide them
around as a group), but the quality from it is really good. I do wish
it outputted some more common file fornats so I wouldn't have these
issues.

Thanks for the tips,
Andrew V. Romero

 

[Wojo]

I am always a little confused when talk of codecs come up. I know the
basics about them (i.e. what they are, what they do) but how do I know
what codec is being used and more imiportantly, how do I change which
codec is being used? That is interesting that you import them into
MovieFactory, I am 99% sure I tested that and still got the black video
but I was running so many test, perhaps I will try again.

Codec's confuse me as well and I am glad (knock on wood) that I never seem
to have codec issues.
It is something that confuses me actually, all the problems I read in this
NG about Movie Maker, many of which I am able to help solve, and I rarely
ever have or had these problems. I sometimes have to purposely try to create
a problem in order to be able to help solve it for the person posing the
question.

So PS3 wmvs have a very special codec...interesting. I must admit, I
really like photostory 3. It makes it very easy to put pictures into a
slide show that is interesting to watch. I wish it had a few other
features soch as a better wat to sort the pictures in the story line
(i.e. being able to select multiple pictures at a time and slide them
around as a group), but the quality from it is really good. I do wish
it outputted some more common file fornats so I wouldn't have these
issues.

Thanks for the tips,
Andrew V. Romero

There are many things Microsoft could do to improve PS3. When I create a
story I always have to import my pictures, drag them around to the order I
want them in, all of which is just fine, but then I have to skip all the way
to the end and import my music so I can click BACK--BACK--BACK and then
start adjusting the timing. I also agree with you 100% that a simple feature
to add would be the ability to select multiple images at once to apply
transitions etc...
As far as the codec issue you seem to be having have you tried importing
your PS3 .WMV file into Movie Maker and use that to create an AVI file that
will import into premiere or Movie Factory?
-Wojo