The best codec to use in Premiere?

[Nick Lovell]

Hey, all! Another FCP guy considering jumping ship here!

I like the interface quite a bit, but I’m having some issues with basic play and editing speed.

I’m trying out a small project with files from a 5DMkII. Thus far, native files play the best and the smoothest. Bringing in my old friend ProRes makes for extremely slow rendering times, even compared to H.264!

However, there’s still a lag when I “J K L” around in a clip on the native fooage. This is very similar to what happens in FCP when I’m using H.264 without an intermediate/editing codec… It’s clear that the machine is working hard to play the H.264, and can’t keep up with my going back and forth. This is on a Mac Pro 2.4 Quad Core, 8GB RAM.

Now, later in the evening I tried installing a trial of Cineform on an old MacBook Pro. I know that this is a bit of apples-and-oranges here, but I don’t have admin privileges on the tower, so…

Anyway, I installed all the Cineform Neo stuff, got the plug-ins setup for Premiere. Converted a file to Cineform (I used the “High,” middle-of-the-road quality setting) brought it into Premiere. It was a jerky mess… Couldn’t play the file smoothly, kept stuttering. Tried different playback and resolution settings (1/4, 1/2, full), all had the same problem.

Just to see if it was an issue with the older laptop, I converted the same clip to ProRes, brought it into FCP and it played beautifully, and instantly responded to my commands.

Any ideas on a solution? I know that my MBP is a little long in the tooth, but in this little informal test, FCP kinda spanked Premiere as far as performance, which is the exact opposite of what I was expecting.

Let me know your thoughts! Thanks!

[Tom Gomez]

So far I’ve found Premiere to be a bit clunky on quicktime-dominated macs. My studio will be going Premiere or Avid, and there’s a good chance will be saying bye bye to our macs. Partly because of clunkiness, but mostly because we don’t trust what Apple’s going to do next. However, AfterEffects runs super and always has on our macs.

I’m still exploring… but so far I like both DNxHD and CineForm in Premiere on a mac. Both rock for editing and are gorgeous codecs, and store alpha channels. Very comparable to ProRes. CineForm is a teeny bit buggy rendering on mac, but they are working to solve this. I don’t know what would cause the problems you’re having. The only playback issue I have discovered is at 1080p and highest bit rate, both playback a bit stuttery on a mac. I think it’s QT that is not interfacing nice.

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[Brian Cooney]

Hi. I was told to set sequences to an MPEG format to avoid taxing premiere AMAP. I had previously had prores422 as the sequence setting.. will using cineform, being mpeg2 give me better performance? thanks.

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[Jeff Greenberg]

It doesn’t matter *what* the rendering codec is if you’re looking for highest quality (MPEG2, a very common Premiere Pro sequence template is fine.)

If you leave the export of media at it’s default (don’t check use previews), Adobe Premiere Pro will create the highest quality export via Adobe Media Encoder- going back to the source footage.
The major reason to use ProRes, DNxHD, or cineform is to give you an I-Frame render, that’s reusable; perhaps you need it later in your post chain (or want to make your exports faster by rendering as you go.)

Best,

Jeff I. Greenberg
Author/Master Instructor/Speaker/Consulting
My contact info and more

[Brian Cooney]

thanks Jeff! what s the typical set up to get best performance and the least rendering and still be able to export at high quality. I have media encoder set up with various prores configurations.. so I think I’m good with export. But in program.. what would be the optimal configuration for performance and rendering time? 😀

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

[Jeff Greenberg]

[Brian Cooney] “thanks Jeff! what s the typical set up to get best performance and the least rendering and still be able to export at high quality”

You’ll have to pardon me, I’m at the inlaws answering before I head out to dinner.

If you have a beefy machine (2-3 gigs per core, not much more or less) and a great video card = least rendering. Fast drives to keep access quick.

I wish I could be more specific than that. I haven’t tested your specific hardware, your footage.

Best quality is to export via Media (to Adobe Media Encoder) and ignore renders. This yields best final quality.

I’d do your own render test on your own system. There are a bunch of sequence presets that are literally the same except for their names. The sequence presets are there to make it easy for people. But I’d pick one that matches your footage, set up a minute long clip, put some heavier filters (some GPU accelerated first…and some non-gpu accelerated) and try a couple of different codecs. Hmm, this sounds like a good blog post. 😀

Oh yeah, there’s this book I wrote with some other guys that has a chapter that goes over some of the Adobe Premiere Pro sequence settings. Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro – there’s a great illustration of what all the preset use for their rendering codec.

Best,

Jeff I. Greenberg
Author/Master Instructor/Speaker/Consulting
My contact info and more

[Brian Cooney]

thanks! so how do I get a signed copy of the book? 🙂

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