PPro CS5 importing 7D footage from mpeg streamclip

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Why do you feel the need to convert? 7D files are already h.264, so running them through mpeg streamclip is a bit redundant and will only lead to loss of quality.

If your machine isn’t beefy enough to handle h.264 content, consider Avid’s Quicktime component. It’s free and includes the DNxHD codec… basically ProRes’s counterpart for Avid systems. Once installed, you can use Adobe Media Encoder to convert your files, it’ll be a new set of codecs under the Quicktime container.

You can download it here https://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=263545

[Ewan Horlock]

thanks for your reply

Yes my system is not too good at handling raw h.264 footage so I definately need to convert to a larger editing format

Right so the DNxHD codec depsite it being for Avid sytems would still be good for PPro CS5? Is this what you usually do with 7D footage

Just out of interest is there anything else which is specifically suited for PPro CS5

I have been trying to use Cineform Neoscene …. which is good and they play fine in quicktime however when I import into PPro I seem to loose the audio on my clips half way through

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Since we use Cuda accelerated machines, we edit 5DmkII and 7D footage natively. Using DNxHD is great when we need to bridge the gap with third parties. It plays back in Premiere CS5 decently, but if you play it back on half res, it gets some weird blocky artifacts – changing your program monitor to play back at full res will solve that but I don’t know if your machine can handle it.

I haven’t used Neoscene, but I don’t see why you would have audio playback problems. Have you tried rendering audio in your timeline to help ease playback? You could also clear Premiere’s pre-render cache in the preferences menu and see if that helps.

[Ewan Horlock]

ah ok it sounds like your systems are much more powerfull then what I’m using 🙂

Just as an experiment I have downloaded Avids QT component and experimented with a bit of footage in DNxHD and the same bit of footage in the orignal raw h.264 format.

My computer seems to handle the native footage pretty well actually ….however Premiere seems to scrub through the DNxHD footage a bit more smoothly and preciseley.

The other big difference is obviously the original clip of footage is 2.2GB whereas the converted DNxHD (exactly the same length) is 8.94GB. Is there any problems working now with a larger file? Or I’m guessing this much better for Premiere as it a larger and less compressed file?

I would be happy to just edit in the orignal raw h.264 footage however I was a bit worried about then adding effects and a grade…which I have heard is a bit more intensive with raw h.264 footage and creates some real slow rendering?

thanks for your help so far 🙂

[Angelo Lorenzo]

When you export to DNxHD, you’ll notice it gives you a list of different video formats followed by a number when you click on codec settings button(There is a bug with quicktime, it might squish this dialog window, but its there if you use the tab button).

Ignore the formats as the codec doesn’t actually convert based on this drop down menu, it’ll convert based on the settings in AME, but pay attention to the number as this is the datarate in mbps.

You can pick any setting with 36 or 60 next to it as its close to the datarate of 7D footage, which I believe is 45mbps, and gives comparable file size and quality if you’re delivering for web.

For the most part, any intermediate codec is going to balloon your footage. You could downsize your footage to, say 720p, edit and then relink your originals before output using the “replace footage” command. This is known as proxy editing.