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Activity Forums Adobe Premiere Pro GPU-support for upscaling: Which graphics card for Mac Pro 3,1?

  • GPU-support for upscaling: Which graphics card for Mac Pro 3,1?

    Posted by Dieter Heinz on April 3, 2012 at 5:38 pm

    Hi All!

    My project: Export an existing SD (digibeta) project to 1920×1080 Prores for use in Da Vinci Resolve lite.

    As I read, Premiere´s Lanczos Scaling algorithms are available only when a Premiere-compatible CUDA graphics card is installed in the machine, in my case a Mac Pro 3,1. Did anyone test this? Does Lanczos scaling in this case really make a major difference in respect to quality?

    There are some discussions about Premiere and GPU support. Adobe gives a list of supported graphics card here – BUT:

    – On Mac, the choice seems to boil down to the NVidia GTX 285 and two Quadro cards.
    – The 285 is not really available in Germany, only for a too high price (500 Euro). The Quadros are too expensive anyway.

    So – do you have any recommendations for alternatives? Maybe:

    – Just take a GTX 285 for PC and hack the thing, if needed.
    – Find another NVidia Card with Mac Drivers, for ex. some people get a GTX 580 to work, which is on Adobe´s list for compatible Windows cards.
    – Maybe there is also a another way to upscale (for ex. directly from Resolve in the end)!?

    Thanks for your help!
    KH

    Dieter Heinz replied 14 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Ann Bens

    April 3, 2012 at 5:47 pm

    There is no support for upscaling with or with out a cuda card.
    SD (as in 720×576) will look awfull in HD.
    If you want to upscale you need something like Instant HD from Red Giant.

    ———————————————–
    Adobe Certified Expert Premiere Pro
    Adobe Community Professional

  • Dieter Heinz

    April 4, 2012 at 10:51 am

    Hi Ann.

    Thanks for the info.
    I had done a test and was halfway OK with the scaling. But of course you are right, there´s nothing like motion estimation involved. Red Giant doesn´t report about their methods. But I´ll give Instant HD a shot; just dl´ed the trial, will report.

    Talking to a Premiere Pro Expert I have another important question:

    When exporting HDV-footage (one part of the project is shot in HDV, mpegs captured with PPro, the rest digibeta) to Prores (HQ), luminance values above 100% are crushed down to 100%.

    I tested the files with AJA Kona output from Premiere and FCP. It seems like Premiere doesn´t handle Prores Export that well. With export to Uncompressed the problem is almost solved (there is a slight shift in values, too) but of course the files are huge.

    I thought about switching to a Cineform workflow. As I wrote I want to continue working in Da Vinci Resolve Lite.

    Cheers,
    KH

  • Ann Bens

    April 4, 2012 at 11:08 am

    I cannot answer those questions.
    I am on a pc with no third party hardware.
    However i do use Cineform from time to time, and its great.

    ———————————————–
    Adobe Certified Expert Premiere Pro
    Adobe Community Professional

  • Dieter Heinz

    April 4, 2012 at 5:11 pm

    So,
    did a side-by-side comparison. I still think Premiere´s scaling is quite good! Saying this compared to FCP for ex. but still without CUDA-card installed and therefore without Lanczos-algorithm. But I also agree- Instant HD gives at least the impression of a bit more detail, so could be done. Unfortunately the sharpness it adds also applies to noise in the pictures so seems to be just a spatial contrast enhancer. I still have to test the anti-aliasing feature.

    Anyway I still don´t know what to do graphics-card wise. Does anyone have experience with CUDA-cards on Premiere on Mac? My original question was which one to choose. I don´t want to order the GTX 285 for Mac from Hong Kong, wait 3 weeks for Christmas just to realize it doesn´t add to my quality any further- being scaled with Instant HD or not.

    And- if anyone knows a solution concerning the crushed super-whites in Prores I would be happy, too!

    Cheers,
    KH

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