Pro 2 and progressive DV, solution found!

[jokerdvx]

I just had to share this.

A bit of background.

Premiere Pro 2 removed the option to have a progressive option in the fields dropdown for the DV Pal (and NTSC) Editing Mode option.

(No, I have no idea why either.)

For those of us working with a DVX-100, 102 etc, this is desperately frustrating since any form of motion graphics, like moving layers, or inserting After Effects compositions result in interlacing in a project where you really want a progressive look.

After much searching, I didn't find any real solutions for this problem.

The main solution seemed to be to change the editing mode to Desktop which gave you the right options, but stopped you being able to render out the files in any DV format.

But, I have found a solution after much hair pulling and research.

(Do I sound self satisfied and smug? Damn right! This has been bugging me for months and finding a solution is very satisifying... And the fact that I had to hack XML to do it, means that I am smugger than a smug thing on national Smug Day.)

In the directory ...\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0\Plug-ins\en_US\Editing Modes is an XML file called Adobe Editing Modes.xml

This contains all the standard editing modes that are supplied with Premiere Pro 2.

To get back the progressive option, you need to edit this file, or create a new one with the correct options. My opinion is that editing this file is the simplest option in the short term, so that's what I'm describing here. But I am working on a standalone version that can just be downloaded and installed in that directory. Let me know if you want it...

Anyway...

Note that since this is an XML file, some familiarity with XML or even HTML will help you greatly.

Before you start, make a backup copy of this file, and rename the backup .xml to something like .oldxml. Otherwise it may try to load twice and overwrite your changed settings.

Right click on the file and select properties. Take the tick out of Read Only.

Open the Adobe Editing Modes.xml in Notepad or some other pure text editor.

In the Adobe Editing Modes.xml file there are a number of sections separated by <EditingMode{x} Version="1">. Then at the end of that section is </EditingMode{x}>. These contain definitions of all the editing modes.

(Note that above {x} designates a number, probably 2 or 3 for the NTSC and PAL sections.

Notice all the indents. The indenting allows you to more easily see how each section is related.

For PAL you are looking for a line called <EditingMode.Name>DV PAL</EditingMode.Name>

For NTSC you are looking for a line called <EditingMode.Name>DV NTSC</EditingMode.Name>

Inside that section you will find a block of XML saying this:

<EditingMode.FieldType1 Version="1">
    <Value>1</Value>
   </EditingMode.FieldType1>
   <EditingMode.FieldType2 Version="1">
    <Value>2</Value>
   </EditingMode.FieldType2>
   <EditingMode.FieldType.Count>2</EditingMode.FieldType.Count>

Replace that entire section with this:

<EditingMode.FieldType1 Version="1">
    <Value>0</Value>
   </EditingMode.FieldType1>
   <EditingMode.FieldType2 Version="1">
    <Value>1</Value>
   </EditingMode.FieldType2>
   <EditingMode.FieldType3 Version="1">
    <Value>2</Value>
   </EditingMode.FieldType3>
   <EditingMode.FieldType.Count>3</EditingMode.FieldType.Count>

And save the file as Adobe Editing Modes.xml

Double click on the file to open it in Internet Explorer or some other XML compliant browser. It should open up a page of the XML, along with an ActiveX warning. (I've only done this in IE, so I have no idea how other browsers will handle this.) So long as you see the text you were looking at in Notepad, and not a warning message, you should be good. If you do see a warning message, then a bracket or a line of XML has probably gotten lost. You will need to correct it, or start again with the BACKUP copy of the original file.

When you restart Premiere Pro 2, you should then have the option to select Progressive in the DV PAL or DV NTSC presets.

Yay!

If you start Premiere, and all the Editing presets are missing, then something has come adrift in the XML file. That's why you made a backup. If you can't figure out what went wrong, then simply restore the backup file using the same name.

Please note that you do any of this at your own risk. I take no responsibility for any weirdness or insanity that may result. Although I hope that this may go a step towards curing MY insanity from not having the progressive option.

Hopefully this is helpful to someone.

Cheers,
Norman Cates

 

[Neil Rowe]

there are presets supplied with PPRO 2 ..and i think 1.0 too that are for NTSC 24p DV. for 30p all you have to do is edit a standard DV preset to 30 fps, and change the fields option to (no fields-progressive) . you can also do this by using the desktop editing mode, and you can render out using a DV codec at 24 or 30p or whatever you would like.

im not sure why you couldnt just change the fields options to begin with from the DV presets though. i can change it on mine if i make just make a custom DV project.

 

[jokerdvx]

there are presets supplied with PPRO 2 ..and i think 1.0 too that are for NTSC 24p DV. for 30p all you have to do is edit a standard DV preset to 30 fps, and change the fields option to (no fields-progressive) . you can also do this by using the desktop editing mode, and you can render out using a DV codec at 24 or 30p or whatever you would like.

Yes, but you can't play it back on a DV device while editing. It has no live output to a camera or DV deck while in Destop Editing Mode. Not much fun.

im not sure why you couldnt just change the fields options to begin with from the DV presets though. i can change it on mine if i make just make a custom DV project.

Now that you've pointed it out, it does look like that's the case. You CAN select the DV 24p preset and alter it to a DV PAL or DV NTSC Editing Mode and still have all the options for no progressive etc. But that option is NOT available in the DV PAL presets.

Well, it's good to know that it doesn't require a hack of the XML file.

But it's still careless of Adobe not to have it still be an option in a place that I might look for it. It's another example of a company that sometimes assumes that everyone is using NTSC and doesn't allow for the PAL format.

Ah well. I learned something, even if ultimately it wasn't strictly neccessary.

Cheers,
Norm