which is CS5’s preferred codec for HD editing?

[Brian Louis]

What platform are you using CS5 on?? What are your computer specs?

[Dan Matley]

Windows 7, Athlon 64 X2, 4GB RAM and a 256mb NVidia graphics card.

[Tim Kolb]

First off, DSLRs shoot H264, but they don’t shoot AVCHD…it’s a different specification.

CineForm is an approach that works on either Mac or Windows. ProRes is good but it requires FCP…and a Mac to do the transcode.

H264 depends largely on processor power. CS5 works smoothly with it, but you need a system that is up to the task.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Steve Brame]

Cineform has been the ‘go to’ codec for a while to edit AVCHD files in Premiere. However, since CS5, we haven’t felt a need to transcode to Cineform for our AVCHD media, as CS5 handles them without any problem at all. That being said, we have an 8-core PC with 24GB of RAM and a nVidia Quadro 4000 card. Of course machine capability determines AVCHD edit smoothness.

Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Dan Matley]

I think it’s time for you to upgrade your system! ha.

Okay thanks for your help – which is a good transcoder for this? This is probably my best solution.

[Steve Brame]

It’s available from Cineform.

Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Jeff Pulera]

I imagine that your CS5 is running in “software mode” – a fairly inexpensive upgrade that would REALLY help with editing performance would be to get a proper NVIDIA card to take advantage of the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine in CS5.

The least expensive “approved” card is the GTX 470, but if you search for “nvidia hack for CS5” you will find additional options if the budget is tight. Short of a new system, this should make a big difference in performance.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Steve Brame]

Couldn’t agree more. There is actually a selection, even if you have an approved card, to turn off the Mercury engine and force CS5 into ‘software mode’. The selections are mislabled. They should read…

1 – Get work done
2 – Watch paint dry.

Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Tim Kolb]

[Steve Brame] “Couldn’t agree more. There is actually a selection, even if you have an approved card, to turn off the Mercury engine and force CS5 into ‘software mode’. The selections are mislabled. They should read…

1 – Get work done
2 – Watch paint dry.”

I’m not sure I understand…are you advocating shutting CUDA acceleration off?

“Mercury Playback Engine” is the technology used for playback 100% of the time whether you have a CUDA card installed or not.

I’ll just stress again, in case anyone still misunderstands, CUDA acceleration speeds previews by taking over the effects computations of the CUDA-indicated effects (you’ll see a designation for ‘YUV’ effects which don’t transcode the video to RGB to work, you’ll see ’32’ to indicate those effects that work in 32 bit float, not truncating your RED RAW footage or AVC-Intra 10 bit footage to 8 bit… and the little arrow symbol indicates CUDA acceleration).

It can help a computer decode video more effectively as it takes over those effects so the CPU can focus on video decoding…but CUDA accelerated operations do not help directly with video decode (nothing says it may not in the future…but it’s deployed for effects preview at the moment).

So in theory, if all someone was doing was cutting footage and doing nothing to it at all (color correction, etc.), a CUDA card will actually show very little effect…not that it’s likely that many of us work this way, but the point is that some beef in the CPU department is still helpful.

I love what CUDA acceleration does in PPro CS5 BTW, I’m not recommending against getting a CUDA card, I have one and I depend on it…I just want a person who’s going to spend money to understand what benefit they’re receiving.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Steve Brame]

Thanks Tim. I guess I was mistaken in exactly what CUDA acceleration affected. I was under the impression that it accelerated previews as well as encoding(which is actually what is going on in preview generation). Wasn’t aware that it only accelerated specific effects.

Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions