[Dennis Radeke]

[Chris Kenny] “Compared with Avid, Adobe is doing a lot better on the GPU/multicore front. Their Mercury engine already has capabilities similar to what Apple seems to be introducing…”

I think this is where you’re going a bit far. You’re making assumptions based on no evidence. Apple showed us nothing at that demo to underscore that it had a sophisticated GPU actually working. They mentioned OpenCL once if memory serves (I was there) and did not mention any hardware acceleration of effects or playback via the GPU. I think it’s your wishful thinking, but the actual product may in fact be exactly what you describe.

[Chris Kenny] “the catch is that Adobe is using CUDA, not OpenCL, so Mercury only works on a handful of NVIDIA GPUs, whereas FCP X should be able to take significant advantage of GPU acceleration on most modern systems.”

Again, until you know what you have with FCP X, it’s is unfortunately just speculation. It is indeed true that Adobe Premiere Pro is based on CUDA technology and not OpenCL. It should be pointed out though that when CS5 was introduced, OpenCL was just ratified to say nothing of actual implementations. It is also fair to say that OpenCL is mostly a subset of what CUDA is as ATI/AMD evidently did not have as mature a language and in working with NVIDIA adopted much of what became OpenCL. Adobe is looking at OpenCL carefully for future versions, but as of now, Premiere Pro utilizes NVIDIA CUDA technology exclusively.

One final point on this. I work primarily in the broadcast markets and NVIDIA dominates this market by a very wide margin. Often it is because of the relative power of the solution. Here is an example I found in about 10 seconds: Tom’s Hardware

[Chris Kenny] “And then of course there’s ProRes, where Apple was already well ahead of the competition. Adobe has no answer to ProRes (surprised they let Cineform get acquired by GoPro; it would have solved all of their problems), and Avid’s DNxHD has neither the range (offline through 4:4:4) nor the third-party device support that ProRes has. You can now shoot, edit, color grade, and in some cases even deliver a feature film (an indie, anyway) without ever leaving the ProRes format.”

This is of course a differentiation between Adobe and many other companies. A DI codec still has uses to be sure, but when you can natively handle all media (including ProRes) the actual need for a DI for 90%+ of users is probably nil. If you can shoot, edit, color grade and in some cases even deliver a feature film (an indie, anyway) without ever leaving the native format, I’d say you’re doing just fine without a DI. In fact, I’ll go one further in saying that you can output a DPX file (for film print) via Adobe Media Encoder without any additional plugins.

Can you poke some holes in the above? Probably, but my point remains. A DI is more useful when you do not have a native workflow. BTW – just because GoPro purchased Cineform, doesn’t mean you can’t purchase Cineform for Premiere Pro if you want a DI workflow. People do it all of the time for specific workflows.

I’m excited about the time we live in and the great choice of products that users have access to and I look forward to more lively discussions about the best tools for the best stories in the future.

…And in case you didn’t know already I am…

Dennis, the Adobe guy

[Dennis Radeke]

[Andy Mees] “Heee … we say this stuff just to annoy you Dennis :-)”

HA! 😉 In all truthfulness, I’m interested to know just like everybody else!

[Dennis Radeke]

[Jerry Hofmann] ” The technology foundation in FCP X is second to nobody’s. It’s stunning what they are doing under the hood IMHO.”

What do you base this on?

[Dennis Radeke]

[Shane Ross] ” I can’t see using Premiere for long form”

For our users, this is where the 64-bit native application with lots of memory has come in spades.

As you said, it’s what you’re comfortable with…

[Dennis Radeke]

Premiere Pro CS5 does handle RED media natively and also has a flexible playback system so you don’t need a massive RAID system to play it back. In case you hadn’t figured it out, yes, I am an Adobe guy…

Here is the RED settings inside of Premiere Pro (or After Effects):

Here is a way to bring down the playback resolution in the program monitor:

As others will say, how you work with RED is a choice and a decision on based on what you need to do and who you will work with. Good luck with whatever you do.

[Dennis Radeke]

Both of the above are right – hard to say without seeing the footage and the CC Simple Wire Removal effect would be my first suggestion.

[Dennis Radeke]

All NLE’s start having problems as you get into really large projects (even Avid with a database to an extent). We all try some of the same things (trash prefs, import sequence to a new project, trim project) and you are right that the number of individual items in a project is a contributing factor since you use a little bit of memory for indexing each item.

For Adobe, when we went to 64-bit, we had another thing we could throw at the problem – RAM. I’ve had a number of customers with problems that have solved their problems by adding more memory. If the next version of FCP involves 64-bit, you’ll be able to address the problem in the same way.

Dennis – Adobe guy

[Dennis Radeke]

You can use AME and create a watch folder so you can batch process all of your 5D files into ProRes. You have to create your own preset to do that and have FCP or the ProRes codecs installed on teh system, but beyond that, it’s a snap.

[Dennis Radeke]

[Ricardo Guerreiro] “Any one knows if this, the 15fps timelaine, can be done in Media Composer or Premiere?”

Yes for at least Premiere Pro.

[Dennis Radeke]

CS5 adds
64-bit (faster)
auto-start feature (i hated having to hit the start button)
more presets