[Albert Trevino]

Hmmm…

Actually through further inspection. We only had one shoot that has 4:2:0 footage. One was shot on a RED and others on XDCAM EX 35 with all being 4:2:2.

So I am thinking revisiting all the already keyed attempts in Premiere we did and the one’s that look questionable, take those to After Effects for keying.

What a pain… but… with little budget we couldn’t get a consistent camera the whole time. We had to hire locally while the shots where at different places in different states.

Gotta work with what you got!

I am trying to keep the workflow simple and less taxing on computers and HD space.

[Albert Trevino]

I figured I couldn’t encode to ProRes out of AE without being on a MAC.

We actually went through all the footage in Premiere and using the ultra key plugin. It turned out ok, but some of the shots of people who have blonde hair and other odd aspects of each shot caused us to question our method. So maybe just using something more powerful with tweaks like AE for keying would work better overall.

I have read in several places that converting the footage from 8 bit 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 (or higher) using 5DtoRGB actually helps with color correction and keying in regards to color depth, etc. So this is why I am thinking of NOT using the original footage but instead converted footage.

Now coming out of AE into Premiere I could just use dynamic linking instead of exporting all the keyed footage. Just not sure about stressing out the computer to do basic editing with all that going on.

[Albert Trevino]

Thanks for your replies.

Main editing is on PC, so FCP isn’t an option nor do I have it.
The footage was taken by several different cameras and different locations, it wouldn’t be easy to set up one key setting and have it work with all the footage after cutting it up. Therefore, it would be easier to key it in advance then do the compositing/editing in premiere. So the workflow has to be AE first for keying, then Premiere Pro for editing/compositing.

Most likely going ProRes into AE then export with alpha channel for editing in Premiere.

My main questions now are now:

1) Using 5DtoRGB, does it matter on the Decoding Matrix setting? ITU-R BT.601 or ITU-R BT.709?

2) What about converting the AVC/H.264 original to AVI (Lagarith Codec)[RGB] instead of ProRes for keying?

3) What about not converting the footage and using the original AVC/H.264 footage in AE for keying?

4) What would be the best option (keeping HD space in mind) when exporting out of AE for a file with Alpha channel? I was thinking AVI Lagarith [RGBA]

[Albert Trevino]

That’s what I was thinking too. Converting to uncompressed would make the files almost too big for our current storage. We have about 1.3TB of footage in AVC/H.264 format. We would run out of space so quick.

Is there a reason to not use ProRes as a codec for keying footage? It would help with file size if I did in this process. Also being on a PC for the main editing wouldn’t allow us to render out as ProRes to send to Premiere.

[Albert Trevino]

From what I remember, Photo Jpeg is a lossy codec rather than PNG being a lossless codec. I would personally choose a lossless format for video footage you want to preserve what you shot.

[Albert Trevino]

Hi,

I am using CS5.

I am ripping the files directly off of the DVD’s into VOB/MPEG2 format.
One of the things I do in VirtualDub as well is cropping the files correctly. It is just easier to work with the AVI/MOV that has been prepped for editing. Plus there will be other projects that will use the same AVI/MOV file too.

I haven’t used Premiere Pro to do any of the IVTC/Deinterlacing yet. I could experiment with that to see how well that works.

I could never get frameserving to work…

All my encoding is done on a separate computer on a network using a watched folder.

[Albert Trevino]

ok… so here is basically what I do.

Well, here is my basic work flow for the main part of my work. The source files I use for editing are from DVD content or MOV [DV codec] files directly from record labels. I am a music video remixer/editor for DJ’s worldwide. So I use those sources and I IVTC/Deinterlace them when needed in VirtualDub. I export them out of VirtualDub in AVI [Lagarith Lossless Codec]. Sometimes I use I have to convert HD MP4/MOV files down to SD for my projects. In those cases I convert them using MPEG StreamClip to MOV [PNG or SheerVideo]. I need the files to retain as much information as possible when editing, so therefore I chose to use a Lossless Codec with AVI or MOV as an editing file. I export in the files out of Premiere Pro as a Lossless AVI [Lagarith] and use Sorenson Squeeze to do all the file encoding to H.264 MP4 for DJ’s to use.

From what I understand… using a Lossy codec, you lose some of the quality. Whether it is luminance, some color, etc.

So I did some testing for quality and size on a file I had to convert to MOV.

I used the following codecs as the final MOV output.
ProRes [Lossy]
PNG [Lossless]
SheerVideo [Lossless]

The ProRes file looked like it was brighter than the original file, and didn’t look as crisp.

The other two lossless files look more like the original. The SheerVideo one was SMALLER than the PNG and the ProRes.

So I don’t understand the real reason to use a Lossy Codec? What is the point?

[Albert Trevino]

I was curious of using SheerVideo instead of PNG. Both are lossless and from testing SheerVideo actually has a smaller file size and is much FASTER to export!

thoughts?

[Albert Trevino]

ok…

trying a little trick to help with getting video to stretch/compress/move a little more accurate if needed. But I may need some expert opinions from pro users of premiere pro.

I started a project with a sequence that has 60fps. The source video is 29.97fps. I did my edit… moving, stretching, compressing the video to sync lip movement with the separate audio track. … ok now the trick… if I start a NEW sequence (29.97fps) and nest the first (60fps) sequence on it and export it at 29.97fps… will the video project be effected by the original sequence that is at 60fps?

[Albert Trevino]

I have used that tool. And I found a way to move the audio freely and have it NOT snap to frames. But I was curious about doing the same with the video. You CAN’T trim, move or anything to video without it snapping to frames.