Premiere encoding

[John Chay]

https://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/features.html#categorylens_c972_featureset_62f1

It’s called Adobe Media Encoder. I haven’t messed around with it too much yet. But it looks like it will do what you need it to do.

http://www.john-chay.com

Editor/Videographer

[John Pale]

Adobe Media Encoder is included and is superior to Compressor in many ways (is 64 bit and very fast). It doesn’t have the encoder farm capability of Qmaster, if you use that.

Adobe does not have a code comparable to ProRes. If you keep FCP installed on the same system, you can continue to encode to ProRes in Quicktime applications, including Adobe’s. If you don’t wish to keep FCP installed, you can give Avid DNX a try. Its a free download from Avid and is comparable in every way to ProRes.

I have read that MP4s that are encoded by AME do not support progressive download (meaning they don’t play until fully downloaded from the web), but that may not matter to you.

I like DVDSP better than Adobe Encore for standard DVD’s. Encore supports BluRay and DVDSP doesn’t, though.

[Simon Ubsdell]

[John Pale] ” It doesn’t have the encoder farm capability of Qmaster, if you use that.”

But it will automatically use all your cores which is a great performance boost over Compressor without qMaster clusters.

Plus it obviously supports Flash which of course Compressor doesn’t.

And it will make MPEG2’s with as large a data rate as you like up to 80 Mbps – even the new Compressor is still limited to 40Mbps.

A very powerful tool – shame about the progressive download limitation.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Andrew Landini]

I’ve been using Adobe Media Encoder for about 2 years. Made the switch from Compressor when we began exporting BluRays to Encore.

In a hurry? Drop into After Effects and render with multiprocessing. Careful about the TC.

[Brian Cooney]

so DNX will behave and render as quickly as prores? that’s good. IS DNX something Adobe plans to develop further and maintain s part of their production suite? Do they see it as necessary or only a response to prores? Just wondering. I had heard there were some rendering features and times Premiere had that were better than FCP .

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Brian Cooney] “so DNX will behave and render as quickly as prores?”

My subjective experience is that DNx is not as good as ProRes but I am sure there are people here better able to give you an expert opinion.

I don’t see that you need to abandon ProRes justbecause you are not using Final Cut though … It’s just a codec like any other (although in my view better than msot others) and will play nicely with Premiere, and indeed Media Composer.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Andrew Landini]

Adobe really needs to develop its own DNxHD/ProRes substitute or push for FCP Unity to be replaced with Pr.

Native playback of high bitrate files still results in lag, unfortunately. Both DNX and ProRes.

[Hector Berrebi]

[Brian Cooney] “so DNX will behave and render as quickly as prores? that’s good. IS DNX something Adobe plans to develop further and maintain s part of their production suite? Do they see it as necessary or only a response to prores? Just wondering. I had heard there were some rendering features and times Premiere had that were better than FCP .
“

DNX is not ADOBE, it’s Avid’s, and though supported in premiere, it is not optimized for it as it is for avid products. Just like ProRes in premiere. In my opinion the lack of a proper mastering/proxy/unifying codec in premiere is one of it’s strongest weaknesses. Was sure Adobe would be smart enough to acquire Cineform… Now they have to buy GoPro too 🙂

Avid will maintain and further develop DNX (hopefully) as it is still invaluable to many Avid workflows

As for DNX

[John Pale] ” you can give Avid DNX a try. Its a free download from Avid and is comparable in every way to ProRes.”

DNX is good and solid, but it is not ProRes, not yet at least. For one, it does not have SD or greater than HD options, in fact, it is strictly HD 720 or 1080. Furthermore, it still does not have a 444 variant, and always clips to 709. And last, ProRes 4×4 is 12 bit color depth, DNX does not top 10 to my best knowledge.

All that said, I use Media Encoder all the time, it’s amazing for encoding flash, it works fast, converts hours of weird .MTS files to good looking ProRes in no time and it’s simple to use.

Recently I had 3D animations in different sizes and resolutions I had to unify to 1080. I tried compressor ( with every possible setting) and Episode, but Media Encoder blew them all.

Hector

Hector Berrebi
prePost Consulting

[John Pale]

[Simon Ubsdell] “My subjective experience is that DNx is not as good as ProRes”

Probably a better discussion for the Avid forum, but what problems did you have with DNX. In my experience, its indistinguishable from ProRes. It was developed a few years before and on some tests I have seen fares a tiny bit better than ProRes…though in a way thats only truly observable on scopes.

The only problems I have had with Avid DNX is converting between it and Apple ProRes, which under certain conditions, causes a gamma shift.

I haven’t tried capturing it from a deck in Premiere, but if its possible, it would be great.

Having no compressed tape capture codec, for HD at least, is a bit of a problem with Premiere, unless you are equipped to work uncompressed. Blackmagic offers a preset for MJPEG, but I would prefer a more modern codec like ProRes or Avid DNX…which are good enough for online.

[John Pale]

[Hector berrebi] “DNX is good and solid, but it is not ProRes, not yet at least. For one, it does not have SD or greater than HD options, in fact, it is strictly HD 720 or 1080. Furthermore, it still does not have a 444 variant, and always clips to 709. And last, ProRes 4×4 is 12 bit color depth, DNX does not top 10 to my best knowledge.
“

Ah…thanks for the info.

DNX does offer 10 bit (use the variants that have an X after them). No 12 bit or 4444, though. DNX does offer an alpha channel though. ProRes only does in ProRes 4444.