Cal Johnson
Forum Replies Created
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Thanks for the clarification!
Cal
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Hi Randall, I have the Canon XL2. For what you are describing, I would recommend the GL2 over the XL2. The XL2 is just a larger, bulkier camera that will be harder for you to pack around. I think there is some weird feature where you can “capture” a picture with the XL2, but I’ve never used it, and I could be wrong.
In the heyday of Standard Definition, both of these were great cameras. However, I think for your purposes and the money you’re willing to spend, you’d be a lot happier with a newer HD tapeless camera… something that shoots on to SD cards. You’ll get great image quality, and the tapeless workflow is so much nicer that logging and capturing Mini DV footage. It is nice to have tapes as a backup, but the ease of a tapeless workflow far out weighs this in my opinion. There’s many tapeless HD cameras to choose from out there that are cheaper than the XL2 or GL2.
Cal
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Thanks guys, but I’m not trying to make a 720×480 DVD… hehe.. done that a thousand times. It just needed to be an MPEG2 file that is 1920×1080, and using the latest version of Squeeze I was able to do it no problem.. no letter boxing and played just fine. Thanks anyways!
Cal
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Hi Ann, thanks for checking in. What I’m trying to do is take AVCHD footage and edit it on my PC using Premiere CS4 (which I’ve been able to do no problem) and then output it as an MPEG2 video on a DVD at 1920×1080. I’ve finally figured out how to get my output/export settings to match my sequence settings, and rendered out a Quicktime file using the animation codec. I then used Sorenson Squeeze to create the MPEG2 file, and burned that to DVD using Windows Movie maker. Odd thing is that I get slight letter boxing when I watch the DVD on my TV. I haven’t worked with a lot of HD footage, just some HDV stuff that got compressed to the web. All these formats and trying to guess which will work is wearing me down, but I guess that’s the biz these days!
Cal
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I’m wondering about this camera too… I’m not great with keeping up on all the different formats out there, its hard to keep up with it all. It seems to me from JVC’s press release that this camera is really aimed at Final Cut users… basically a camera designed to work specifically with one editing platform. I spoke with the JVC rep who also mentioned the optional SxS capability, but that it comes at an extra cost. I’m using Premiere Pro CS3, and wonder what would be the problem of working with the Quicktime format that the JVC will be recording in.. is it for some reason different from the .mov format that CS3 can read? Is there some reason one would not want to use the .mov format if they were going to be editing in Premiere?
Cal
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Just taking a total guess at it, I think that they might have filmed it with a small shutter angle, and then just skipped some frames in post. I haven’t tried, but again, if I was given one shot at it, and had to guess how to pull it off using a video camera, I’d shoot at a fairly high shutter speed, ask the talent to do a slow walk, and then in post just try dropping frames at random, playing around with different ratios of dropped frames to kept frames, until (IF?) I got the desired effect.
On a side note, I know in “The Grudge” some of the scenes, the girl was just able to sort of bend and contort, it wasn’t even an effect.
Cal
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Eric, how well does the dynamic link function work? Are you able to bring in an AE comp into your Premiere timeline and play it ok?
Cal
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Well this thread seems to be opening a big can of worms, and I thank everyone for their input. Jon, I may have mis-stated my computer situtation. BOTH systems were within the specs recommened by Adobe. One was very close to what you stated, having everything but the new i7 chip, whatever that means! I’m really sorry, I’m not a tech guy, but I did pass on your recommondations to my wife who is way better with computer hardware than I am.
Here’s something though. Since posting I have been able to see CS3 and CS4 in a back to back test on the same machine (my wife’s work has CS3). The Dynamic Link feature I originally asked about worked perfect with CS3. Not only were the rendering times way faster, I didn’t even have to render to preview the After Effects composition that was brought into Premiere. It played well enough in Premiere without generating a render preview, and when I did do a render preview or output, the time was way faster than CS4.
Keep in mind that this is working with exactly the same file, the composition at the same resolution in both cases (setting the composition resolution to half or full in AE made no difference for helping CS4 render times, as someone suggested.)
The way Dynamic Link works in CS3 has tremendous value to me. I can now skip the render process in AE and take the comp straight into my timeline in Premiere. It also allows me to update AE comps and have them update in Premiere without re-rendering an intermediate compostion.
Dave, I agree with Tam and Mike. I shouldn’t have to be thinking like a lawyer and trying to find the pitfalls or loop holes in Adobe’s marketing. Tam is absolutely spot on. I ask you this then: if you can bring in an AE comp into Premiere, but you can’t preview it, it will take you forever to render it, then where is the VALUE in it? How does that serve an editor? And yes, I say “cannot preview”. We tried the 720×480 comp on CS4, and it took forever to render the “preview”. But once it was done, it wouldn’t play back any part of the timeline, just freeze frame and the audio continues. CS3, no problem. Previewed without render, rendered a preview quickly, played back without issue.
I think a number of people assumed I’m coming from CS3; I’m not. This was my first round with the full Adobe Production suite. Also, I really didn’t start this as an Adobe lynching thread… I just wondered what I needed to get CS4 working properly. However, last night despite my other woes with CS4 I output a couple of renders anyways and got the same problem Tam is talking about.. its all pixelated and this is on highest quality. Its clear to me that CS4 has some real issues.
We’re sending the software back. My wife’s work spent $30,000 dollars last time round with CS3 licensing and after talking to her (she found issues with CS4 Photohop) they are not going to go near CS4.
Alex, I don’t believe the CS series has been offered in anything but “dot zero” editions, has it? Maybe I’m wrong. In any case, I totally agree with Tam and Mike. If you’re going to pay $1700 for software, you need it to work. No excuses. I’ve defended Adobe Premiere many times. I’ve taught basic editing classes at our public access TV station with Final Cut, and everyone loves to beat up on Premiere. I tell them that editing software all tends to do the same thing, and not to get too caught up on one program or another. I’m not trying to bash Adobe, I’m just really dissapointed.
Thanks again for everyone’s input. If CS4 is rocking for you without issue, please, by all means spill your guts and tell us poor slobs exactly what system you have to make it work like CS3 did!
Cal
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Ok, thanks… those responses are a little more enlightening. First, I didn’t mention my computer hardware because I’m not a computer tech. There’s not a lot of point in my posting all the specs of my systems when I already know they don’t work. What I was looking for was potentially someone to say “we have system “X” and it works just fine.
Just to clarify, a couple of times people have posted “you still have to render a preview”. Guys, thanks, I do understand that, and if you read my first post I stated that.
My whole issue is this: You can use dynamic link to bypass the intermediate render and take your clips directly from AE to PP. Sounds great. But at SD 720 x 480 resolution, the computer we had that was well within the specs recommended by Adobe couldn’t play back the dynamic link AE composition in Premiere even WITH a rendered preview. It just stuttered through, and actually screwed up the whole timeline.
We were able to render at 360 x 240, but my whole point is that it took soooooo long that it was way faster to render it out from AE, and then just bring it in. It took about 12 minutes to render a 5 second clip that was brought into Premiere via dynamic link.
The whole reason I didn’t want to get into workflow debates is because we all have different needs and preferences for how we work. Some people obviously find that having to set all the render & output settings in AE is difficult and time consuming, and therefore view Dynamic Link as a “time saver”. I myself setup preset render settings that I just recall with a couple of mouse clicks when I need them, so its not a big deal for me. However, I do at times have the client sit with me and watch the video, and ask for changes. Certainly all of the videos we do are previewed by the client for approval, and often, if not always, changes are asked for.
In this way, with Dynamic Link takiing so long to preview, its just not worth it to us as we use After Effects heavily for most of our projects, and having to wait all that extra time isn’t really an option. On one recent project I sat down at my station at 10am, and left at 11am the next morning in order to meet a deadline.
The bottom line is that if you can’t actually do even a low resolution preview without a very long wait for it to preview, then there’s not much point, at least not to me. I have to be able to see how the compositions sit in the edit, and how it all flows together, and possibly make changes. What it sounds like is the main usefulness of Adobe Link is that once the project is “locked”, you could delete all your rendered comps and just replace them with dynamic link, eliminating large files adding up on your hard drive. However, because we have to stay fluid right to up to the end, this has limited usefulness for me.
I’d also like to mention that we went from PP 2.0 to CS4, so we haven’t used CS3 as I think someone assumed.
I think I’ve got my answer, thanks for the replies. It sounds like everyone is saying, Dynamic Link will work, but yes, the time required to generate a preview in Premiere Pro will be much longer than if you just rendered it from AE and imported into the project.
Thanks again.
Cal
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Aaron, I’ve had the same thing happen… I’m racking my brain trying to think of what caused it. The program isn’t generating a PEK file while you’re trying to play it back is it?
Cal