Hello!!

Hopefully I am posting in the proper section. If not, I will be glad to repost in the proper area.

I am hoping that a fellow ModtheSims2 member who has experimented with movie making in the sims 2 and Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 could answer my question:

I have been toying around with movie-making in the game


I film (or capture)the video clips (or shall I say computer game animations)using the game's best option of a resolution of 640 x 480 at 30 fps with audio at 11025hz 16-Bit mono (compressed). As you are surely aware the game saves the file into AVI format with the VP61 codec.

When I open and view the AVI files using Microsoft Windows Media Player, the image is beautiful and crystal clear!!
If I import the AVI file into Windows Movie Maker 2.0, same thing, the image is beautiful and crystal clear!!

But here is the problem, when I import the same AVI file into Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, and play the file into the source window, the video is heavily pixelated, in fact very large square pixels...It almost appears like a mossiac over the entire video.

I tried turning the frame blending off in Adobe Premiere under 'clip' and then 'video options' but that does not appear to help.

All the latest drivers for everything on my PC have been installed.

Here are my specs

Windows Media Center Edition 2005
P5W-DH Deluxe ASUS motherboard
Intel Dual Core 2.4ghz processor
2 XFX NVidia 7950GT graphic's card (512mb)
4GB Ram (although windows xp only uses about 2.5 to 3ghz of it)
1 200gb hard drive
1 500gb hard drive
Audigy 2 Platinum zs sound card

Maybe Adobe does not support the VP61 codec, but I have not been able to confirm this anywhere. However I did find an article from the Adobe website about two machinima artists that use Adobe Premiere to make 'Sims 2' videos.

Here is the link to that article: http://www.adobe.com/motion/roosterteeth.html

When I record using the game's top setting of 640 x 480 30fps, I am playing the game on a 20" widecreen LCD monitor with the resolution set at 1024 x 768. Might this be the problem?

I found a 'cheat' on the internet to change the game's settings in the game's config. file so that it would capture the animations at 1024 x 768, like the resolution for my PC monitor. But once played in Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, the clips still have the large square pixel problem... Its like big white and blue squares all over the image...

But Maybe since I am using a widescreen monitor I must capture and edit in a true widecreen format like 1280x720 or above???

I dont know. I just find it weird that the AVI files play fine with Windows Movie Maker and Windows Media Player but not with Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0

Being the amature I am with Adobe, maybe I am doing something wrong. But I did search all the forums and cannot seem to find any info to fix the problem...

Maybe I must convert the AVI files before importing them into Adobe, but if it could be avoided that would be cool ...

so if you have any info that could help me it would be much appreciated!!

Cheers!
Prez28
Sims 2 movie-maker and Adobe-Beginner

I'm afraid I haven't used Adobe Premiere, but have you checked on their site and support forums? I've used TS2 video clips in other movie editing programs in the past, so the format does work - it certainly sounds like Adobe is having issues there. Have you tried different codecs? You may also want to go have a look at sims99.com, a TS2 machinima site, which may have more info.

Thank-you for your reply - I did post this question at the sites you mentionned and suprisingly received many responses from the Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 support forums

It would appear the Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 does not like compressed AVI files and it would also appear that Adobe does not like the VP61 codec that the Sims 2 game uses to compress the movie file (AVI).

When I capture the Sims 2 movies by setting the options to 'Large' (640 x 480) and 'High' (30fps) - then the clips will not play properly in Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0

But when I capture the Sims 2 movies by setting the options to 'Large' (640 x 480) and 'High, uncompressed' (30fps) - then the clips play properly in Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0

I thought I had tested this originally, but that it was not making a difference. But I must of messed up, because as I say, if I film compressed, the clips have the pixelation problems in Adobe. If I film uncompressed there is no problems with the clips in Adobe.

The only downside is that uncompressed clips are very large. (Like 1.5GB for 60 second clip)

Cheers!