Premiere import freezes

[pdbowling]

Hello all.

I'm pretty green with all of this so please don't blast me for my questions and bad choices.

I'm using Premiere Pro 1.5.

I'm converting a VOB to avi using VirtualDubMod from the Gordian Knot Rip Pack.

I've exported in several attempts to:
uncompressed
DivX
Xvid
Panasonic DV
Main Concept DV
Indeo.

Most just freeze when I try to import them into Premiere. (importing video box pops up but no progress bars ever appear, left it running for several hours once)

Xvid imports and I can load it to the time line but there is no video.

Uncompressed really surprised me that it just sat there because I didn't think a codec was involved if it was truly uncompressed.

I've reinstalled windows (premiere wouldn't read them then), reinstalled the Gordian knots and have the same issue.

So, am I missing something when it comes to teaching Premiere Pro 1.5 how to read with a new codec even though they play fine in Media Players? Do I need to do something special to show Premiere where the codec is or how to interface with it?

Am I forced to use whatever codec Premiere prefers (it imports things I capture with Premiere fine)? If so, what is the codec called so I can convert to that using VirtualDubMod? Reinstalling Windows is no prob. All of my data is external.

Windows XP
1 GB RAM
Premiere Pro 1.5
Gordian Knot Rip Pack
Gordian Knot Codec Pack

Befuddled.
Patrick

[krisq]

You should try to encode your VOB with some lossless codecs like lagarith or huffyuv. I found this two working great with premiere. XviD/DivX won't work well because of Adobe's crappy Vfw support, besides they're not NLE friendly. You can also omit this step and install AviSynth Import plugin (http://sourceforge.net/projects/videoeditorskit/) for Premiere. Use DGIndex for VOB and import .avs directly to Premiere without re-encoding anything.

[pdbowling]

Great thanks. I downloaded the Avisynth Import Plugin and will try it out when I get home tonight. One thing I noticed though, the zip didn't contain any instructions. Is there a good reference website where I can learn to use this tool?
Thank you.
P

[krisq]

Just drop .prm and .exe in c:\Program Files\Adobe\Premiere Pro 1.5\Plug-ins\en_US\
That's it, you can now import .avs just like other video files.
GUI is used for choosing a resizer which will be used when you're outputting different resolution than you've set in the project.
BTW I also recommend DebugMode Framserver (http://www.debugmode.com/frameserver/) plugin for premiere. This way you can output your project through a dummy .avi file to application of your choice without rendering the project to intermediate file. I'm using it a lot for xvid/divx because of b0rked vfw support in premiere. Awesome tool.