anti aliasing renders

[Jon Doughtie]

What version(s) of Adobe software are you working with? Also, what are the basic system specs? Where is your footage stored?

[Isaiah Magana]

I’m using Premeier pro cs4

Mid 2009 MacBook Pro
2.8ghz core 2 duo
8gb ram
Mac OS

Footage is stored on the HDD of the computer so not being viewed or edited from external drive

[Ht Davis]

I’m slower than that and my video is fine…

My workflow:
Use Prelude to select clips and output to ProRes of my chosen level (for longer shoots, use proxy for file size drop). DO NOT RESCALE. We’ll do this later in a more workflow centric manner. You can use AVC intra that matches your size, but you may have to play with the settings.

Create a disk image with about 60-100g of space, and a compatible filesystem (exfat, fat, ext2\3). Now open premiere, create a project and place it all on that disk image (except scratch space, leave that alone; but previews should be with the project and they will get big depending on your chosen settings). I render both audio and video together (in preferences of premiere), but to each their own.

Import your AVC intra or PRORES to adobe (leave them outside the disk image, and it doesn’t matter where–external or internal; most prefer external esata or usb\thunderbolt with plenty of space to save internal drive wear and tear). Once imported, you can build the project file methodically.

Start with your main sequence settings:
set up your sequence to match the output you want to get, equal or lower than resolution of your largest resolution clip (I usually target a blu-ray output and my input is set to match that frame rate, so I resize down to what adobe will transcode anyway). Set the previews to an MPEG or compressed output size, and you can set the resolution to be small enough for your main monitor (small enough to view clearly). Now you should be able to work, but the video will still be choppy… …What to do… …What to do…
Remember this montra and you’ll be fine:
oOOOHHH… …Render in the morning,
Render in the evening,
Render round supper time…
Rounder out the lot at the start, at night, and when the edits are done.

Basically:
Do an initial render. This will hash out a preview for you to use while you work. It will take a while.
As you go, you’ll find the video gets choppy about every 4 or 5 edit marks (when you apply effects or transitions), so render only the effects in the work area constantly, and it will be pretty fast. When you are done for the day, set it to render it all out overnight. When you are done editing, you can pipe your preview straight out and view the whole thing pretty easily. This will give you some idea of how it will look when you output your finished product (as most are compressed products anyway), simply tell the first encoding operation to USE PREVIEWS.

If you’re like me, Quality and Speed are not mutually exclusive. I set my previews to an uncompressed format (or lightly compressed proxy style file) that renders quickly when done right. I skip the overnight rendering completely, and render each transition. I do an initial render to hold the previews, and then I work until I have about 10-12 short areas of yellow or red for render quality (small bar area above video tracks but below the work area bar is green when rendered, yellow when may need a render, and red when needing a render). Since my previews are very standard and not very compressed, I get short runs of them, just fine, but they do get choppy, unless I render out a compressed preview.
I get around this by creating a second sequence, then fiddling with the preview settings, and nesting the first sequence into it. I render that one overnight. Doesn’t hurt my work a bit, and when I want to see my work smoothly, a render of the offending areas will do. Yes this implements a double render for smooth playback. But in the end…

My last step is to render out my projects. I have to get my output work flowing. Since I use a mac, I can use Compressor for a lot of the work. If I want to have a blu-ray video, I just output the bluray video; and I can actually FARM with compressor if I have it on 2 or more machines. This will cut down render time by concatenating the renders from separate machines. I have the file output to my disk image. Why? Later…
I output my premiere sequence using my proxy format and select USE PREVIEWS. It won’t take long to tie those together. I then move to compressor, and set it for my desired use. I’ve been dying to try and use the X264 components in this manner (farming), but there isn’t much info on it. Doesn’t mean I won’t try it soon… But I output with a blu-ray standard, and set it to work on the video only, then do a separate setting for the audio. While that’s working, I can work my sequence in premiere, making all of my markers for encore, and sending my audio to an audition project. I can have audition output my audio or wait for compressor, but either way, it will probably be recompressed in encore.

In encore I send my premiere sequence, and my audio to a timeline, then build anything else I need. Then output to a separate disc image, stored on the original disc image.
I then burn the video disc.

I then burn my Disk IMAGE as a single DISK IMAGE FILE (not in image to disc mode, but in data to disk mode, I want to drag a single file someplace and have it be compatible instantly) to a BDXL and dump it from my system.

A disk image can be opened on any system and almost instantly be compatible. If you have a script to edit the xml in your project files that changes the notation for moving between systems, perfect.
I always name my drives on mac by the project. This gives you a leading name of /Volumes/[disk name]. On a PC, the lead is simply: {disk letter}:/ and conforms to dos naming. Using an XML properties editor, or a text editor, you could change all occurrences of one to the other. I prefer starting with a fresh project and importing the other. This will allow you to simply relink some data, and poof, your file’s are up and running again. Why does this matter? I like to output to AVCHD for alternate blu-ray disc burning encodings, and I usually have to do it on windows. When I do it, I output an AVCHD file into the disk image. Because it has a compatible file system, I can move that image anywhere, by any means. Once on windows, I can open the image, and output my final video straight back to it, then go back to encore and poof. The workflow bounces around, but I can cut my work to weeks instead of months, and it’s all done on a slow 2.16ghz 4gb ram 256mb video card 2xhdd (2tb) macbook pro, with an occasional borrowing of a buddy’s avhc encoding program on windows.

PLUS:
Some Disk Image formats can be compressed, saving a little space. When you are finished you can burn the image right to a disc in image-to-disc mode, or, (more preferable) you can burn the entire image as a file to a disc. Now you can duplicate that disc any way you want, but you’ll always have a backup, and you can archive your work easily.

My final note to you:
I always burn disc images of my flash cards to disc so I have the original video; I make 3 copies. I dump the uncompressed version, usually (as they are hundreds of gb), but occasionally, I use a disk image, and have a special burning algorithm split the file; I make 3 copies. I archive my project on a disk image, and I make 3 copies. This results in a 12-30 disc archive, with one disc for output and my drives are cleaned afterward.