cs4 impossible to edit hdv in mpeg format, extremely slow

[Jon Barrie]

Hi Philip,

Cineform is not proxy workflow – it’s another format that maintains quality. So you wouldn’t use it as a proxy workflow you would edit the files and use them as the online too.

– Jon Barrie

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Ty Wood]

Also note,

Working with HD footage (and especially with a format like HDV, problems of which discussed above) really needs a high end system for optimal results.

Check out the suggestions I came across recently from Adobe in regards to Premiere and After Effects:
https://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/production/performance/?trackingid=FBZRT

“Memory rarely an issue” at 16-32GB of RAM, and “For optimal performance, we recommend a minimum of 12GB of RAM” .

However, I do have to admit Premiere just stinks at what it’s doing. It’s core is obviously built 10 years ago for SD.

I am in a situation where I have a MacPro 8-core machine that only has 2GB of RAM. I don’t want to spend the money to upgrade the RAM because it’s an older machine, and it’s not mine–so when the computer gets given back to it’s owner, I’d be stuck with a bunch of RAM that I can’t put into anything else.

I’ve did a lot of testing w/ trial software on this machine, and with all 8 of my cores and 2 GB of RAM, Final Cut runs fine when HDV is captured to ProRes422 codecs. Avid runs fine when HDV is captured to DNxHD codecs. And on the PC side, Edius runs fine when HDV is captured to Canopus codecs. Where is Premiere’s “magic” codec? I don’t get it. It captures to some MPEG format with absolutely horrid performance.

My solution? I’ve found it helps quite a bit to actually go into my sequence settings and change the sequence codec to ProRes, or Canopus. Then, I use the other program to capture my footage. And then import the captured files into Premiere. This helps out a lot, it’s not nearly as robust as these formats are in their native editors (Avid and Edius fly, you barely have to render), but at least it runs somewhat smoothly and it actually renders with all 8 cores (with Premiere’s default, it renders with only 2 cores).

And that solution is a step down from CineForm and Matrox. With these companies you get a codec that is actually built to work well in Premiere. I haven’t had the chance to test out how well it works. Phenomenal, I’d hope!

Here’s to hoping “Mercury Playback Engine” is that “magic” that Adobe is 10 years behind on.

– tw