Chris Knight
Forum Replies Created
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You are correct – Premiere works in this higher-than-8 bit color space called 32bpc, but only if the footage and effects are compatible with it. An h.264 sequence won’t default to showing you a true 10-bit colorspace in the timeline, however. To override this, go to the sequence menu, and select sequence settings. At the very bottom, check the Maximum Bit Depth checkbox. You can also choose the preview codec here as well (for true 10-bit, pick a V210-compliant codec (I have an AJA Kona, so I can pick one of theirs, for instance. To save HD space, this is where Cineform comes in handy). You can increase preview render quality as well (bear in mind, this is always on if Mercury Engine is being hardware-accelerated). Regardless of what you do in the timeline, you can change any of these settings when you’re ready to output.
Increasing bit-depth significantly increases RAM usage. You’ll be hurting if you have less than 12GB.
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1. No, although the basic Curves in Premiere is decent, if you’re familiar with it in Photoshop. I use a plugin called Colorista.
2. Premiere comes with Media Encoder, and it – frankly – makes Compressor look like the piece of junk that it is. This is one of Adobe’s best software applications.
3. Premiere edits everything in its native codec. There is no need for transcoding. Unlearn that mentality. To archive, pick any codec (except ProRes, which is locked to OSX/FCP.
4. Audio tracks are mono, stereo, or part of a 5.1 chain. You can’t drag a mono clip into a stereo track, or vice versa, which is what was happening. You can clean up unused tracks, by right-clicking the name of the track, selecting options, then deleting any empty tracks (which will shift everything up).
5. I assume you mean scroll vertically. I don’t think so. The wheel behaves differently in most windows, but in the timeline, it’s a left-right scroll.
6. Output to what?
7. It does 5.1, and it’s relatively easy. I don’t understand what you mean by marks.
8. My sole reason for using Premiere as my every day editor, is the integration with Photoshop/After Effects/Encore/Media Encoder (and now Audition…Soundbooth was awful).
9. Encore is an excellent DVD/BD authoring environment, and I find it runs circles around DVD Studio. Static menus are integrated with Photoshop, and motion menus are integrated with After Effects. You can import Premiere project files, so you don’t have to render anything until you’re ready to burn the disc/image.
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Yes, it truly edits natively, and will mix and match (I’m sure doing a cross-dissolve between 5D footage and Intra-AVC will blow your mind).
As I said, in the few instances where rendering previews to a specific codec is required (previews being what Premiere creates to allow real-time playback of the timeline), you can pick and choose your codec.
When it comes time to output using Media Encoder, or Encore, I just give the client/facility whatever they ask for. If they ask for ProRes, I tell them to pick something else.
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Editing natively with H.264 in Premiere is fine. One could argue that transcoding footage to ProRes reduces quality (since it’s a lossy codec). If you need to edit in 10-bit (or higher), Premiere can do this, simply by changing the edit mode to suit your needs.
Premiere edits ProRes just fine, it simply cannot encode to it (at least, not in Windows). Apple never made it a true QuickTime codec, so blame them.
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[Aindreas Gallagher] “think of five things you proper dislike in premiere”
There are dozens of things I yell at Premiere for every day.At this very moment, my biggest peeve is that Premiere will de-select a clip in the Media Browser (not the project window) when I save a project. And it doesn’t always do it, just when I’m not looking – so when I look back at the Media Browser, I’ve lost my place (and it doesn’t help that a selected clip in the media browser is only a few shades gray off an unselected one). It sounds silly, but this tiny thing slows me down every day.
Would love to be able to import titles into After Effects.
There’s far more I can find wrong, but then you’ll go running back to FCP. 🙂
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Premiere has a Project Manager, that will copy any used media (or media imported into bins, but not necessarily in a sequence) and move them to a new location with a copy of the project file. I perform this operation every time I’m finished with a project (or feel it needs to be backed up at any point). Depending on the source material, you can choose to have Premiere trim the material as well (this does not work with P2-sourced footage), with heads and tails. I generally don’t do this, but the option is there.
There’s a file-size calculator as well, which tells you how much space you’ll be eating up, based on the selections you’ve made (for instance, you can choose to only include media from one specific sequence in a project, and tell it to dump all other sequences and related media). -
Instead of writing notes, you can enter the information into Premiere, as you are watching the tape. In most cases, this will be faster than crash capturing (using the ESC key to stop). The process requires a bit of practise, so I would suggest you try it out with 10 minutes of tape, and see how it feels. If you prefer capturing on the fly (and hitting ESC every so often), then continue using that method instead.
Premiere also has a function to capture a whole tape, and then divide up the giant clip into sections, based on whenever you hit pause in the camera. My experience is that using this method leaves you with a cluttered project file, full of 1-2 second clips that you would never use. Again, if you want to experiment, try it out with a tape, and see it works with your workflow.
I would suggest you check out the Help file in Premiere, in regard to these capture methods. It’s explained in step-by-step detail.
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I use Premiere on a daily basis (I started using it 1995), in multiple configurations, ranging from a laptop P2 editing setup, a software-only desktop, and an AJA Kona desktop for outputting TV spots/shows. All in Windows 7. On average, I’ll get an application crash once a month*. The performance can get sluggish, when I’m dealing with large bins (400+ clips), but it’s not as crippling as working in FCP, where I am forever staring at a beach ball in a project that size. Granted, when I use Premiere on a Mac, I see the same beach ball (I teach After Effects, Premiere, and FCP in a lab full of iMacs). To me, there is a very noticeable difference in performance, when comparing Premiere in Windows and OS X. YMMV. I stopped using FCP on a daily basis in 2007, and don’t miss it.
FYI, because Premiere is 64-bit, it is a RAM hog. Especially, if you use Dynamic Link. 6GB is fine for 8-bit short form stuff. If you’re editing features/docs, 18-24GB is what you should be aiming for.
*The AJA system acts weird on occasion, but a reboot fixes any issues I encounter. The KONA drivers have been forever buggy in Windows.
You must unlearn transcoding. it’s not necessary. If you’re outputting to tape, you’ll be rendering to whatever codec the hardware uses. Otherwise, an appropriate nVidia card will have everything playing in real-time. You also have the option of rendering all previews (thus transcoding) to various codecs (ranging from i-frame MPEG to DVCPROHD to uncompressed 210YUV.). In other words, you get to choose.
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I could be wrong, but I don’t believe you can do this. Premiere Pro limits you to the pre/post effects in the mixer for track-level effects editing.
There’s three work-arounds:1. Nest the clips in track, and now you can apply anything to the entire track.
2. Install a VST plugin that lets you stack effects within itself (and save custom setups). There are dozens of these.
3. Import your project into Auditon (which replicates your audio timeline), or export an OMF for finishing audio in an external application. -
[Taron Ghazaryan] “wonder if this was edited on FCP7”
It says in the description that it was edited in Premiere Pro 5.5.