Monitoring DVCPRO HD

[Vince Becquiot]

You could always drop a small amount of cash ($250.00) on a Blackmagic intensity. That’ll get you HDMI or Component out (and in).

The problem is that if you shoot 24PN or 30PN like many people who use P2, none of these cards will support it (not even the nice AJA series).

I’ve heard that CS4 now supports preview on a second monitor. I don’t need it so I never checked into it, but maybe someone else did.

Vince Becquiot
Director | Editor

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Bo Skelmose]

I have a Toshiba Qosmio G30 notebook – it outputs the timeline player window on the HDMI output. Looks greaet in HD. There must be some graphic cards for Staionary PC’s that is capable of that too.

[Mike Cohen]

You can indeed monitor timeline playback on a 2nd monitor in CS4 via the Sequence settings drop-down. Actually you can do it in CS3 but you need to setup your project to work this way from the start.

Make sure you make your Premiere only occupy one screen, or you can lose access to some windows.
HDV looks sweet even though it is conforming to the monitor’s resolution and dimensions, one can imagine DVCPRO would as well. Seems very dependent upon a good display card. I have a GeForce 8500 GT, it plays pretty smoothly, but there is a slight pause between starts and stops of the timeline. Obviously you can spend thousands on a display card alone.

Mike Cohen

[Jason Henries]

Thanks one and all for your comments.

After hours of searching the ‘net yesterday, I found the resource I was looking for… just as Mike Cohen said.

I’m building a new system for the CS4 production bundle, but not all the bits have arrived yet.

My old system is a P4 2.4GHz with an AGP GeForce FX5900 running CS3. No I/O card. You can imagine HD hurts a bit.

After finding a post here (https://premierepro.wikia.com/wiki/Monitor), I ran down to pick up a cheapie nVidia PCI video card to test in the old system.

I installed the PCI card, hooked up my 37″ 720P TV, and opened CS3. I set up a new project with the “Desktop” custom settings, but left everything as is native to DVCPRO HD 720/60P. I set the playback settings to output to Monitor 2.

The project opened, I imported some DVCPRO HD footy, and voila… my footage was displayed full screen on the TV.

Now for the bad part. It shows raw DVCPRO HD footage as non-native. There’s a red slice over the clip when you drop it on the timeline. It also won’t play back real-time. And rendering the slice takes FOREVER.

So, my question now is… will CS4 allow you to open a “stock” DVCPRO HD 720/60p project, and THEN change the settings to preview on a second (or in my case, 3rd) monitor??? If so, then I think this setup will work in the new system, if not… CURSES!

Anyone have experience?

Thanks!

[Vince Becquiot]

The render line often indicates the wrong type of project for the files on the timeline. Does it only appear after you change the preview to the external monitor ?

If so, like you said, that P4 is way outdated, and given the extra processing required for an external full screen preview, the render bar probably just means that you don’t have the processing power needed to play back native footage, or at least not at high quality.

Any machine like a Core2Duo and above should handle it with no problems, even non native without rendering.

All you need is just a little patience for that new machine I think…

Vince Becquiot
Director | Editor

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Jason Henries]

[Vince Becquiot] “The render line often indicates the wrong type of project for the files on the timeline. Does it only appear after you change the preview to the external monitor ?”

Nope. It’s there all the time. I even pulled the PCI card out and re-opened the project. The red line remains.

I think the problem is that the “custom” project settings disassociate all of the installed codecs. So Premiere suddenly doesn’t understand that you’re using native footage. Everything has to be rendered.

Some of the “stock” project types will allow you to modify the playback settings without selecting the custom “desktop” setup. DVCPRO HD 720/24 or 30P, for instance will allow me to modify the playback output. 60P won’t.

Maybe CS4 will make the difference. Certainly the new machine will help render times and smooth out playback. I just hope it will recognize that my HD footage IS native.

Oh, and it’s a Quad.

[Vince Becquiot]

Alright I reread your post more carefully and here’s what’s probably going on.

If this is truly 60P (not 30P over 60i) and you want it to play on a 60P timeline, you’ll have to interpret the footage as 60P in your project panel.

By default, Premiere converts all 60P footage to the 30P. Very convenient if you like slow motion in a 30P timeline, but I never understood why it did that in a 60P timeline, but that should solve your issue.

Vince Becquiot
Director | Editor

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Vince Becquiot]

Actually, on second thought, that makes sense since I am referring to variable framerate. So I guess my question would be, is that 60P in VFR mode or 60P with audio ?

Either way make sure the project panel indicates 60P.

Vince Becquiot
Director | Editor

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Jason Henries]

Negative. Didn’t fix it.

[Vince Becquiot]

So is it 60P with or without audio ?

Vince Becquiot
Director | Editor

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area