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HDV –> SD DVD Workflow (DebugMode FrameServer, AviSynth)

While
the old thread contains a wealth of great information, I’ve decided to break away from it. It’s too old, too long, too confusing… In summary:

Many users are aware that Premiere/AME/Encore does a “less than stellar” job of converting 1080i HDV to interlaced SD DVD. I (and others) have tried every conceivable combination of options and found none that provided “professional quality” conversions. This is largely due to the way that Premiere handles scaling of interlaced material …
Example #1
Example #2 … and Premiere’s failure to convert from the HDV color matrix (Rec.709) to the SD specification (Rec.601).

In an effort to solve these problems, I developed a workflow (using several third-party freeware tools) that achieves results far superior to that of Premiere and/or Encore by themselves.

I have written
a guide for this workflow, including step-by-step instructions and links to download all the required tools.

This page also contains a link to a more advanced option for doing these conversions (using mostly the same tools). Please do not attempt the advanced version unless you have already implemented my “basic” workflow!

The page and linked files will be updated frequently. It is a work in progress, but should already provide excellent quality. I look forward to comments and suggestions from this community (as always).

Enjoy! — Dan

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.


Adobe CS6 – Breaking News!

Some members of the Adobe CS team(Dennis Radeke and 2 others – sorry, forgot their names, but they were PPro/AME team people) were in attendance at the Atlanta Cutters meeting last night. You’ll all be happy to know that they revealed quite a bit about the next version – CS6. Here’s the quickie info on CS6, I’ve quoted as carefully as I can:

 

- “It’s coming in 2012″

- “It’s going to be amazing”

- “It’s pretty exciting”

 

 

I hope they don’t get fired for revealing all of that info. I’m sure you all are very excited, as I was last night, to be able to gain such an early look at the next generation of video editing.

 

 

In all seriousness, they were very good at the one thing they were really there to do – convert FCP dissidents – and answered a few questions people had – again, mostly about migrating from FCP. Quite nice to hear my FCP friends talking afterward about how it’s a done deal, Adobe is the here-and-now. All this in spite of the fact that Media Composer 6 is basically here now as well.

 

Sorry to get everybody all excited with the thread title…I really couldn’t help myself. It was refreshing, though, to see not 1, not 2, but 3 reps from Adobe at a relatively small user group meeting in Atlanta (150 attendees, more or less) and this is after they’ve already been out here once this year. Says a lot about the development of the production community here in Atlanta for the last few years, but also says a lot about Adobe’s committment to listening to their customers and working constantly to solve problems and develop new solutions that fit our various workflows. I still remember the old days where Premiere Pro was seemingly an unsupported piece of Adobe refuse, meant simply to fill a gap and keep people working with AE. Those days are as long-gone as they can be now, and the good times are rolling on.

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.


Mercury, CUDA, and what it all means

[I'm creating this thread as something that we can all refer to whenever one of the frequent questions about CUDA and the Mercury Playback Engine arises. I'm making this a forum thread instead of a blog post because I expect there to be questions.]

 

‘Mercury Playback Engine’ is a  name for a large number of performance improvements in Premiere Pro CS5.  Those improvements include the following:

 

- 64-bit application

- multithreaded application

- processing of some things using CUDA

 

Everyone who has Premiere Pro CS5 has the first two of these. Only the third one depends on having a specific graphics card.

 

Confusingly—because  of one of our own early videos that was just plain unclear—a lot of  people think that ‘Mercury’ just refers to CUDA processing. This is  wrong. To see that this was not the original intent, you need look no  further than the project settings UI strings ‘Mercury Playback Engine  GPU Acceleration’ and ‘Mercury Playback Engine Software Only’, which  would make no sense if ‘Mercury’ meant “hardware” (i.e., CUDA).

 

The official and up-to-date list of the cards that provide the CUDA processing features is here:

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/systemreqs/

Some of the cards on that list are only enabled if you have the recent updates.

 

On Mac OS, CUDA processing features of Premiere Pro CS5 require Mac OSX v10.6.3 or later.

 

CUDA is an Nvidia technology, so only Nvidia cards provide it.

 

If you don’t have one of these CUDA cards, you can still use Premiere Pro CS5; you just won’t get the advantages of processing with CUDA.

 

Here’s a list of things that Premiere Pro CS5 can process with CUDA:

- some effects

- scaling

- deinterlacing

- blending modes

- color space conversions

 

It’s worth mentioning one set of things that Premiere Pro CS5 doesn’t process using CUDA: encoding and decoding.

 

Note  that whether a frame can be processed by CUDA depends on the size of  the frame and the amount of RAM on the graphics card (VRAM). This article gives details about that, toward the bottom.

 

Processing  with CUDA doesn’t just mean that things are faster. In some cases, it  can actually mean that results are better, as with scaling. See this article for details.

 

The  term ‘Mercury Playback Engine’ refers to Premiere Pro. It has nothing  to do with After Effects. After Effects CS5 is a 64-bit application, and  it has been multithreaded for a long time, so those improvements are  there. But After Effects doesn’t use CUDA (though a few third-party  plug-ins do).

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.


Can’t find Adobe Gamma to use to calibrate monitor

I have Photoshop Elements 6.0 and wanted to calibrate my monitor using Adobe Gamma which I understand comes with Photoshop. When I search for Adobe Gamma, I can’t find the application. Any suggestions on how to find this, does the program have to be re-installed?

Original Post

Posted in Photoshop Elements.


Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 MKV support?

Is there any way to get Adobe Premiere to support MKV files or it simply just doesn’t support it?

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.


How to transcode Canon 5D mark II H.264 video into something editable?

QT Pro v7.5 plays my 5Dm2 native video files just fine. Premiere CS4 however… unusable. I’ve heard that transcoding the H.264 40Mbps videos to another format allows a better editing experience.

Hardware:

Dell Precision 690, 1 quad-core 3GHz processor, 12GB RAM, 15000 rpm SAS system drive, 1TB SATA video disk (non-RAID), 1TB SATA temp disk (non-RAID), Quadro FX 3500 graphics card (non-CUDA unfortunately)

Question is… what is the most efficient format to transcode into?

A tutorial on Vimeo for Final Cut Pro on a mac mentions HDCAM EX as a format to use. (http://www.vimeo.com/2373679)

I don’t see that option as shown on the Mac from my Vista box using either Adobe Media Encoder CS4 or MPEG Streamclip v1.2.

If I start a project in Premiere CS4 using the HDCAM EX 1080p presets, what is the corresponding Media Encoder format to choose for converting my clips before importing to Premiere?

I’m currently testing the following output format in AME:

MPEG2 Blu-Ray: 1920×1080,23.976 fps, Progressive, Quality 5, no audio, VBR 2-pass, bitrate setings of 25 min 35 target 40 max.

Has anyone determined a transcoding process that provides full HD quality while maintaining any ability to scrub and edit Canon 5D mark II video in Premiere CS4?

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.


The best Codec for Premiere CS4

I am trying to learn more about codecs, but still having trouble understanding it fully. I have a new computer, so it makes sense that I need a certain codec to install in order to view my video as I edit on Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. My footage works on Windows Media Player, and the quality is somewhat Poor when I play it on Quicktime (but at least it works).

 

Now a few questions I have. First, does anyone know the best codec to use for Adobe Premiere Pro? I import DV files from my camcorder, and almost all of my video files are “.avi”

 

Also, I notice that the codecs are different for each media player that I apply this footage to. And I simply see instructions to download the correct codec. Well first I dont know which codec would be best for my setup, plus my second question: Once I do install the correct codec, will Premiere automatically know to use that codec? Or do I have to adjust a certain setting in Premiere to make the correct codec function? I could not see any setting that allowed me to change the codec…

 

Anyone’s help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

-Rick Phillips

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.


FAQ: How do I choose the right sequence settings?

In general, the settings of a sequence should match those of the primary footage type in the sequence. Though Premiere Pro can mix footage of various types in a sequence and compensate for differences in characteristics, performance and quality are maximized when such conversions are avoided.

 

See this video for more information:

How do I choose the right sequence settings?

 

Also see these sections in Premiere Pro Help:

Create a sequence

Sequence presets and settings

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.


Flash CS5 crashing when saving

OK! What’s the deal?

 

I have just purchased Adobe Master Collection CS5, all $4400 worth! To give the software it’s credit, I formatted my HDD and clean installed Win 7 x64 OS. I then clean installed the entire CS5 suite! As I have to somewhat justify the purchase to my boss (who paid for the software), I have gone to continue doing some work, (not even trying out new features!!), I needed to complete a task, so I got onto it.

 

I opened up an existing file which was created using CS4, noticed a few bugs that arose when published out using CS5 (mainly around the way that fonts were referred as), fixed those, then all was going well. As we have all done, I got involved with the work, and worked for a long time without saving. I realised this and quickly went to save. The dialog box came up advising that it needed to change versions to CS5 (rather than the original CS4), so I cancelled out and did a file Save As.

 

I thought I would create a new file so that if anything went wrong, I would have a backup. BLOODY LUCKY I DID, as when I went to save as, Flash crashed, loosing all the work I did. I did manage to get a screenshot of some of my AS which was lucky, but when I looked into the folder where I tried to save, there was a completley useless *.fla of 1kb in size which was completely corrupted and couldn’t open up.

 

Resigned to the fact that I lost all my work (nothing new – as we all know it happens every now and then), I thought I would open up Flash, and the very first task would be to save it as CS5 format. Low and behold, Flash crashes again, again leaving a corrupted file in it’s place. For $4400, you would think you could at least save the work you have done!!

 

In other tests, it seems it can save new files, and some simple animations created in CS4, but what the hell do I do with all the existing work that I have spent the last year developing? Can someone please help me, as I really cannot work until this issue is resolved.

 

HELP!

 

Duncan Buchanan

Original Post

Posted in Flash.


Flash – CPU Usage – FPS – Frame Rate

Ok, I first want to apologize if this problem has been
answered and fixed before, but I have spent days pouring over
forums, and I still can not fix my problem. It requires a little
bit of background first:

I can’t remember how long ago it started, but whenever I am
viewing a Flash file (a game, videos from youtube, advertisements,
etc.) My CPU usage increases to 99-100% and remains there until I
close the program that is running it, or go to a different webpage.
I normally use firefox, so for the longest time I was searching for
the problem relating to firefox exclusively. I came across
FlashBlock, and I still use it in Firefox. However, this is not a
SOLUTION to the problem, just a “work around.” If I actually want
to view the Flash content – bye bye CPU usage.

So for the longest time I focused on firefox. I completely
uninstalled and removed Flash and firefox from my computer, and
reinstalled. I even tried it with an older version of flash,
because I can’t remember always having this problem, and the
problem persisted. But now I have everything up to date, and the
problem is still there.

Then I decided to use IE for a little bit because I was upset
at Firefox. I was surprised when I was on youtube, or playing a
Flash game, that my CPU went up to 100% and remained there. SO
instead of googling “Flash firefox cpu” I just googled “Flash cpu”
and I have been doing some research/experimenting. I am – by no
means – a very technical person or a programmer, I am an ordinary
user that is upset about this problem. I went to this page
http://www.bezzmedia.com/swfspot/samples/beginner/Show_the_Current_Fra mes_Per_Second
and watched my cpu usage go up to 100. But when the animation goes
to a lower fps, from about 1-5, my cpu usage goes down, but only to
about 80. So what happens is I can do control-alt-delete and watch
the performance tab’s graph. After letting it run for a while, I
get almost an perfect, symmetrical mountainous “landscape” if that
makes sense – with bumps up to a hundred, and coming down to about
80. It is so consistent that I am positive my system cannot handle
even normal frame rates for some reason. However, I am running on
XP Pro with a Pentium 4 2.80GHz processor and 2.5 gigs of RAM and I
should not even be having this problem – I can run tons of programs
and not have my cpu usage go above even 50, but a Flash video puts
it at 100. It is ridiculous! I don’t have a virus or anything, and
I actually take pride in keeping my computer clean and efficient.
It happens to all users on the computer as well.

Again, I am not a programmer. Is there some option somewhere
that I can tell my Flash content to reduce its frame rate, or not
go above a certain number? It seems that many people are having
this problem. I think I remember someone somewhere saying that with
the newer versions, they are trying to perform “better” than an
older version you had, and the frames per second increases, but I
have no idea if this is true. Should I roll back to a later
version, like 5? I already tried it back on version 9 but I still
had the problem.

The “ideal” solution is to figure out what is going on with
the frame rate on my computer. Maybe if I could just right click
the flash, and tell it to play a lower fps? Does hardware
acceleration have to do with this? Also, changing the “quality” of
the Flash content from low to high or medium doesn’t affect the cpu
usage – it stays at 100%.

Please help out an ignorant person if you can. I want to
preserve the life of my computer as long as possible. If someone
could help me – in layman’s terms – I would greatly appreciate it,
and so would all the other upset people googling “Flash cpu
problem.” Thank you!

Original Post

Posted in Flash.


ACR 6.5 bug with Photo downloader

I run Macs with OS 10.6.8, use Adobe Bridge CS5 version 4.0.5.11. My work flow is to put a card in the computer, open Bridge and use “Get Photos From Camera” which opens Adobe Photo Downloader. I convert them to DNG’s, put some copyright info in the metadata and write them to a folder of my choice.

Since I upgraded ACR to 6.5, when in Adobe Photo Loader I try to chose a folder to write the files to, it freezes. I went back to using ACR 6.4 and the problem is gone. Fortunately I don’t have a camera that needs 6.5 so I’m ok for now but ………………….

Original Post

Posted in Bridge.


How to set the default "Save As" path?

Hi, guys.

 

I’m an Adobe Acrobat user.

Whenever a pdf is to be “saved as”, I have to change the save path to my favorate location.

It is boring.

How to set the default “Save As” path?

 

Thanks in advance.

Original Post

Posted in Photoshop.


labs wiki

Hello,

I’m putting together a wiki for my site and I really like the
style and layout of the wiki in Adobe Labs. Is the skin, used over
MediaWiki in the Adobe Labs, available for re-use? Please let me
know. I can provide my contact info / email if needed.

Thank you much for your consideration.

Original Post

Posted in Photoshop.


Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 (5.5.1) update

Hi all,

 

The Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5.1 update is now live on Adobe.com:

 

 

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=98&platform =Macintosh

 

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=98&platform =Windows

 

 

The readme will be posted shortly, and expect the AAM updater to come out in the next week or two. Here’s the summary from the readme:

 

 

The Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 5.5.1 update fixes issues that were discovered when using Adobe Premiere Pro with Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). The update also fixes an issue where XML project files created in Premiere Pro don’t work with DaVinci Resolve.

 

  • MAC: Fixed an issue in Mac OS X 10.7 where the Universal Counting Leader is missing countdown numbers
  • MAC: Fixed an issue where Adobe Premiere Pro would crash upon quitting when running on Mac OS X 10.7
  • WINDOWS: Fixed an issue where the Preview was not functioning properly in the capture panel for HDV
  • Fixed an issue where imported Final Cut Pro XML projects that contain multiple mono clips will lose some audio when project is closed and reopened
  • Fixed an issue where exporting to DVCPRO HD 720p60 QuickTime does not complete with graphic, image or synthetic in the sequence
  • Fixed an issue where a clip is repositioned when a CUDA Invert is applied to the clip
  • Fixed a crash in Adobe Premiere Pro when viewing sequence clip in source monitor
  • Improved scrubbing performance with Canon DSLR files
  • Fixed an issue where Adobe Premiere Pro could not find files after changing location of project
  • Fixed an issue where Adobe Premiere Pro would randomly crash on startup
  • Fixed an issue After Effects comp with a background other than black would result in no alpha transparency when Mercury Playback GPU Acceleration was enabled
  • Fixed an crash in Adobe Premiere Pro if you create a new sequence from After Effects, you had the sequence presets tab in focus and no sequence preset selected
  • Fixed an issue where Adobe MXF files are not readable by Sony XDCAM HD Deck, Final Cut Pro nor Media Composer
  • Fixed an issue where Adobe Premiere Pro’s commit size increases when closed captioning is enabled
  • Fixed an import failure with ProRes files created by ATOMOS with 4 tracks of audio
  • Fixed an issue where MCC files exported from MacCaption with a FrameRate set to 50 or 59.94 fails to display in Adobe Premiere Pro’s Program Monitor when attached to sequences that match their frame rate
  • Fixed a display failure with NVIDIA driver 275.36
  • Fixed a problem with incorrect data written to XML files for AVCIntra exports
  • Fixed an issue when a AVCIntra sequence with an adjust start times exports it has an unsupported string in the “StartTimeCode” tag in the XML
  • Fixed an issue when the Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration enabled, opacity effects are being ignored after second transition
  • Fixed a hang or a crash in Adobe Premiere Pro when loading a merged clip with disabled audio channels
  • Fixed an issue where media from Avid Unity QuickTime reference files are not imported
  • Fixed an issue where XML project files created by Adobe Premiere Pro do not work with DaVinci’s Resolve
  • Fixed an issue where image sequences lose their frame rates
  • Fixed an issue where when adding a transition the edges of the clip are highlighted during the transition

 

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.


PPro CS5 GUI on mac really jerky

Moving clips around on the timeline of CS5 on the mac is like playing Russian roullette; you never know where the clip is actually going to fall. It’s like the interface has a refresh rate of 5fps or something. It seems to take forever for clips to snap against each other, and this lag causes the user to think something is wrong and then move the clips around more than necessary.

 

Please please tell me that this will be addressed in a point release. I don’t want to have to pay to upgrade for a solution to a problem that should never have made it to a full release.

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.


JPEG conversion for printing

Hi All

 

I teach a photography class at a local college where the students have to submit assignments regularly. Our requirements are that they hand in a print and an unedited RAW file. Because we are focusing on their photographic technique, they aren’t allowed to edit the photos at all.

 

They then print the photos at local photo labs (fuji fronteir machines) but the printing results are inconsistent and sometimes shocking.

 

to cust down on possible workflow problems, I have advised them to build a relationship with their printer, use calibrated monitors (which we have at the college), etc. etc. However, I am starting to suspect that the problem lies with the RAW to JPEG conversion and possible the color spaces they are using. Most of them shoot in Adobe RGB and use that in their computer workspace.

 

So far I have told them to make sure that they convert the files to sRGB before printing – to save the RAW as a PSD file and convert it to a JPEG using image processor with the “convert to sRGB” option turned on.

 

I am now at a point when I am going to arrange a workshop so I would love any help or advice that you may have.

 

I look forward to all the great suggestions I know I am going to get.

 

Regards

 

David Ceruti

Original Post

Posted in Camera RAW.


Firewire output of Hardware MPE – I give up

Ok… I’ll forget about IEEE1394 output of hardware MPE.
I suspect it isn’t likely to be resolved in CS.anything.
The technical challenge of routing a DV signal from the CPU/GPU
back through a firewire channel may be an insurmountable hurdle.
But it’s really tough to let go of your pet peeve.

 

If nVidiAdobe were to develop a companion card to the primary GPU
that allowed realtime SDI and Component output of hardware MPE
to a broadcast monitor and/or deck, I would gladly buy one in a second…
regardless of cost.

 

Using third-party hardware and sequence presets, or employing the
suggested hinky workaround using a consumer grade monitor that
requires monthly attention to maintain its color calibration using
third-party hardware and software, or any other suggested approach
I have read here are IMHO, all flimsy second-tier dead ends.


Multiple monitors and/or Reference monitor in Premiere Pro
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/744683

 

With CS6 perched on the horizon, It seems Adobe is in the perfect position
to continue its inexorable march toward taking charge of the NLE market.
Most serious FCP editors are Ae users already.  Give them a good taste
of expanded native file support along with Dynamic Linking  and throw in
some new capabilities and reliability to Pr, and they will wonder why they
were doing things the hard way for so long.
Fellow pros used to snicker and roll their eyes at me when I said I was
using PPro2.  But, when I mention CS5 they will always have a few
questions about how well things work… and the snicker is long gone.

 

However, I feel the lack of realtime uncompromised external monitoring
is an issue that must be natively resolved before Pr can take the lead.
Adobe and nVidia should find a way to work this out.

 

I think a rhetorical question can be found here somewhere.

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.


FAQ: What computer and components should I buy for Premiere Pro or After Effects?

See this video for a discussion of the various components required:

Overview of System Requirements

 

See this page for the official minimum system requirements for Premiere Pro.

See this page for the official minimum system requirements for After Effects.

 

Note that the minimum system requirements are just that: a minimum to run the software. You will need components that exceed the minimum system requirements to achieve satisfactory performance in many cases.

 

These resources are also excellent starting points for informing such decisions:

 

Specific to the questions of certain kinds of components:

 

Also see these resources:

optimizing for performance: Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.


What’s a decent set up for a Premiere Pro, CS5 noob?

Hey there, I’m a Premiere Pro noob and I’m trying to assemble my first editing PC.  I’m completely new to all of this, so I’ve just been doing some research and I have come up with this list.  I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions of changes I could make, or maybe there are things that I’m missing that I should consider.  I assume one of the first things I’ll hear is the the hard drives are too small – 3 x 320GB.  I’m mostly concerned with keeping the cost down.  I was hoping to set up my PC for 1500, so I’m spending that little bit more already.  I don’t want to overclock and I’ll be mostly editing AVCHD, so there’s no need for RAID afaik.  Any help or suggestions would be very much appreciated!

 

IWANT.PNG

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.


What PC to build?

A question often asked is what system to build for NLE.

Basically you can think along three roads, a budget PC, an economical PC and the warrior PC. Notice that MAC is not mentioned here. There are three reasons for that, one is I’m not qualified to really advise on MAC’s, two is that they are way overpriced and three they are severely limited in component choices. So this is all about PC.

Whether you want to have a budget, economical or warrior PC, there are a number of common components that you will always need, a case, a PSU, CPU cooler, monitor, keyboard, mouse, DVD/BR burner and stuff like that so I’m not going into those components.

So what is this all about?

1. CPU
2. Motherboard
3. Memory
4. Disk setup
5. Video card

This is certainly not intended to be a full description of what to buy, but only to point you in a direction that will make it easier to make your own list of components required.

CPU
Budget: i7-860, Economical: i7-930, Warrior: Dual X5680

Motherboard
Budget: ASUS P7P55D, Economical: ASUS P6T WS Pro, Warrior:  SuperMicro X8DAH+

Memory
Budget: 8 GB, Economical: 12 GB, Warrior: 24+ GB

Disk setup
Budget: 3-4 SATA disks, Economical: 5-8 SATA disks (plus raid controller), Warrior: 12+ disks and Areca ARC 1880iX-16/24 controller

 

Video card
Budget: ATI HD 5670, Economical: nVidia GTX-285, Warrior: nVidia Quadro FX 3800+

Effectively at this moment (March 2010) that means in approximate costs for the 5 components and not counting everything else you may need,

 

Type PC
Approximate budget
Budget $ 1,200
Economical $ 2,100 (excluding RAID controller)
Warrior $ 8,500 (including Areca RAID controller)

These figures are around minimum to budget for. I hope this gives you something to ponder about.

Original Post

Posted in Premiere.