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Using Premiere To Transcode AVID codecs to ProRes422HQ
I have to deliver ProResHQ QuickTime files with ten channels of audio as a norm.
Since I used FCP for 11 years this type of deliverable workflow was not a problem.
Now, I’m using Media Composer 6.0.3. It works great. I cut the show and when it is time to deliver I do a video mixdown to either DNXHD175 or to 1:1p 10b MXF. Then, I export a QuickTime reference movie out of the AVID.
Next, I take the QuickTime Reference movie into a Premiere project and sequence and then export that sequence (using Adobe Premiere as a transcoder) to Apple ProRes422HQ. I find that Adobe Premiere does a very good job at this task. I should mention that the QuickTime reference from the AVID is RGB levels, not 601. When Premiere is done, I open the ProRes422HQ self-contained QuickTime and it looks great. The color, the gamma, the sharpness, everything about it looks great. So what’s the problem?
The problem is that Premiere does this transcoding procedure just fine so long as the QuickTime reference movie is of the DNXHD codec. Exporting a 56 minute show takes Premiere approximately 1.5 hours. BUT this last project I chose to do my Media Composer video mixdown using the 1:1p 10b MXF codec instead of the DNXHD codec.
When I bring in a QuickTime reference movie of the 1:1p 10b MXF codec into Premiere and put that in a sequence for exporting I can see the video in the “canvas” window just fine. The problem is that when I set it to export to ProRes422HQ and hit “go” it never gets past about 3% completion. The progress bar stops progressing. The percentage counter stops increasing. The file size of the file in the finder window stops growing. The ETA on the ETA dialog in Premiere increases from 1.5 hours to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and up to 12 hours before I have to just force quit.
I was initially doing this using Premiere CS5. I trashed preferences and restarted and repaired permissions and all the usual stuff. None of that fixed the issue.
Then, I downloaded a trial version of Premiere CS6. Same problem.
My computer is blazing fast and maxed out with everything.
To summarize the problem. I’m feeding Premiere a QuickTime reference movie that was exported out of AVID Media Composer 6.0.3 and is of the 1:1p 10b MXF codec…and I’m using Premiere to export (transcode) that file to a self-contained Apple ProRes422HQ QuickTime movie. Whereas this procedure works just fine if the source movie is DNXHD…it actually does not work properly when the source movie is 1:1p 10b MXF codec.
Please advise.
Thank you.
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1 Reply
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The Avid MXF codec pretty much only works nice in Avid.
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