H.264 editing in PremierePro

[Chris Borjis]

absolutely.

I do it often.

cuts through it like butta!

only issue might be a generations loss from the export compression.

[Nate Weber]

Works. Quality loss on export is evident, and fine tune cutting sometimes leaves information from unseen frames due to interframe encoding. It works, I use it in a pinch, but still prefer an intermediate codec when I have the time.

[Brian Cooney]

Thanks so much.

MotionFoundry, Inc. Video Post
Clients: GM, AOL, Kohl’s, 3 Doors Down, IKEA, Kelloggs, Toyota, Thomas Nelson, NASCAR Affiliates

[Tom Daigon]

Your experience cutting h.264 will be reliant on your systems ability to handle it (i.e. CPU, GPU, ram and I/O spped from media drives).

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRIg6h-LIm0
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Tim Kolb]

Keep in mind that “quality” is relative…

There are more and more acquisition formats that are using H264 as their base format. Premiere Pro processes in 32 bit, 4:4:4…so it isn’t as if there is degradation from just cutting the stuff. Extensive effects and aggressive color correction will likely expose some weaknesses…

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

Adobe Certified Instructor

[Shane Ross]

What would the “intermediate codec” of PPro be? Some MPEG variant? I’m a strong believer of intermediate codecs for some footage, like H.264.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Walter Soyka]

[Shane Ross] “What would the “intermediate codec” of PPro be? Some MPEG variant? I’m a strong believer of intermediate codecs for some footage, like H.264.”

Trick question? You could use just about any format you want for intermediates: ProRes, DNxHD, CineForm, HQX, uncompressed, DPX sequence, etc., but Adobe does not have a preferred, native codec like ProRes in FCP, DNxHD in Avid, or HQX in Edius.

For Brian, as an FCP switcher, there are a couple things Premiere Pro does differently than FCP — and native editing is one of them. FCP’s philosophy is that you should convert everything to a single common preferred format upfront (transcode to ProRes). Premiere allows you to cut with the native media, moving the transcode to the output side of the workflow.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Nate Weber] “Quality loss on export is evident”

There should be no quality loss on export when using native media versus transcoded media. If anything, you are actually skipping a generation of additional compression by using native files directly. If you have seen a difference, maybe we can talk about your workflow some to see if there are other variables at play (perhaps using low-quality preview renders in the export?).

[Nate Weber] “fine tune cutting sometimes leaves information from unseen frames due to interframe encoding.”

I have seen some on-screen artifacts appear in the UI while shuttling or trimming, but they did not appear in the exports.

[Nate Weber] “It works, I use it in a pinch, but still prefer an intermediate codec when I have the time.”

I absolutely agree that intermediates are still worthwhile and can really improve editorial performance. Better intermediate format support is one of my top feature requests [link] to Adobe.

However, Premiere was built to handle native editorial, so if you’ve got the hardware to support it, it’s perfectly reasonable to build native editorial workflow. Intermediates are not necessary here as they are with some other NLEs.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Brian Cooney]

Good stuff you guys. Thanks. yeah I am used to transcoding everything to prores first. You lose time on the front end but I’ve always felt you got it back in the ease of editing and the shorter render times. I recently edited XDCAM content natively in PPRO and thought the rendering time was pretty substantial. XDCAM probably not a good example since I’d have to convrert to HDV in a third party program and then to Prores in compressor for FCP use.

MotionFoundry, Inc. Video Post
Clients: GM, AOL, Kohl’s, 3 Doors Down, IKEA, Kelloggs, Toyota, Thomas Nelson, NASCAR Affiliates

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Brian,

If you have a Blu-ray master you had previously burned, the content from that can be copied to the hard drive and edited natively in Premiere also.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers