[Dennis Radeke]

Michael,

Adobe has had this as the real deal for some time. It’s not smoke and mirrors and it’s not just ‘adobe’ codecs.

Adobe has a resolution independent playback engine that allows a seemless, transparent user experience. It’s not just mixing codecs, but also aspect ratios, frame rates and anything else.

Clearly, your experience may vary depending on what you throw at it. However, with the CS5 product and it’s performance, there is no better NLE for a mix’n’match type project.

In the CS4 time frame I did a video tutorial on this aspect of Premiere Pro that you may find useful – https://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-beginner-classes-with-dennis-radeke/episode-15-the-incredible-playback-demo/

The trial is also available, but of course, you don’t have the benefit of many of the included codecs, but here’s the link nonetheless – https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=production_premium

Hope this helps,
Dennis

[Dennis Radeke]

Yeah, but FCP touts the same thing and you see how (not) well that works. Also, what happens when it comes time to conform? Does PPro just ‘handle’ it? Does it add/remove proper pulldown? Mixing resolutions is one thing, mixing frame rates is a whole different ball o’ wax.

Hey Jeremy, I guess that’s where you’d have to give it a go to see what the real experience is, but we’ve had a ‘resolution independent’ timeline for some time and it continues to surprise a lot of users. Unfortunately, I think Adobe sometimes take this for granted and we shouldn’t. In short, it REALLY does work – marketing gobbly-gook aside.

As for conform, you output what your final file type will be and you’re done. Of course, mileage may vary depending on what you want to do. With CS5, we added DPX export, so going from a file-based source format ultimately to a film print is possible.

I did a video a while ago that showed mixing and matching different codecs and such on the same timeline. It’s in the CS4 timeframe, but still valid for what we’re talking about.
https://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-beginner-classes-with-dennis-radeke/episode-15-the-incredible-playback-demo/

on a completely unrelated note – how do you do the whole quote/format thing in your posts? I can’t seem to get it! 😉

I hope you find the above helpful.

[Dennis Radeke]

The Mercury Playback Engine does look sweet, but I can’t remember the last time I had 12 layers of video with a color correction applied to it while they were all flipping over themselves. Not in FCP anyway. 😉

Jeremy, I totally agree. However, the Mercury Engine isn’t only about playing 12 or 20 layers of video simultaneously, it’s about the ability to edit without restrictions. Whether it’s playing big RED files or Canon 5D files, MPE should allow users to edit it just like DV, P2 or other formats. Mix ‘n match codecs, frame rates and aspect ratios completely transparently to the user and not worry about when you need to add a color correction filter, levels, blur, etc.

Adobe is worried that people think of MPE as about a crazy number of videos simultaneously and it’s more about the above than that. Of course, if you do want the brady bunch in real-time….well there you go… 😉

[Dennis Radeke]

Clipster DVS on Windows can now encode ProRes. AVID, Premiere, Vegas and other can now all edit ProRes

Premiere Pro has been able to edit it, but does not encode it. As long as Quicktime is on the system and contains the ProRes codecs it shouldn’t be a problem. Adobe hasn’t licensed ProRes though, so you would need to have FCP on the same system I think for that to happen.

dennis

[Dennis Radeke]

Adobe has a desktop mode that allows basically any codec on your system to play. It’s not always painless, but it works well on many codecs. Mileage may vary. I think that CS5 and the Mercury Engine may help facilitate these workflows more.

[Dennis Radeke]

As with anything there are trade offs.

Premiere Pro offers native editing with the idea that touching your pixels is always a bad thing. It’s also faster since you can edit your media immediately as opposed to waiting for a transcode. For codecs such as Panasonic’s P2, there are no downsides. Since AVCHD is a temporally based codec, as Tom pointed out, editing on a less than amazing system may show a sluggishness in scrubbing and editing that you really don’t want now.

Transcoding or rewrapping is generally good for something like AVCHD, H.264, or other temporally based codecs. Pixel loss is negligible if at all and the resulting editing experience is more in line with what you expect. The only downside is that it takes time to accomplish this. With non-temporal codecs, this is a waste of time but necessary if your NLE doesn’t understand the codec.

Bottom line – it’s always your choice and both approaches have merit.

For the future, Premiere Pro will have some enhancements that will make editing temporal codecs as easy as any other. The link below will point you to it.

Enjoy,
Dennis

https://blogs.adobe.com/genesisproject/2009/11/technology_sneek_peek_adobe_me.html

[Dennis Radeke]

Make sure you’re using Adobe Media Encoder version 4.2. I have no problems with it.

[Dennis Radeke]

Robert,

Let me give you the steps and see if this helps. If not, I’ll either record a tutorial or search until I find the one I’m looking for… 😉

There are a couple of approaches including creating a watch folder, but I’ll give you instructions on how to convert a batch of files here.

1) launch AME (Adobe Media Encoder)
2) click Add
3) navigate to the files you wish to convert (shift select)
4) click okay when done
5) click Edit
6) choose your destination preset (I choose P2 Movie – Panasonic format that’s easy to edit but you may want something else if you’re using FCP)
7) Click okay to close
8) Click start Queue

AME will work in the background, so you can be using other applications or tasks while it’s converting. Once done, import into Premiere Pro or FCP.

I hope this helps,
Dennis

ps – check out my tutorials at https://tv.adobe.com/show/adobe-beginner-classes-with-dennis-radeke/

[Dennis Radeke]

There is no need for a plugin.

Premiere Pro CS4 can do it natively. If you need to convert the files, there are tutorials for how to batch process your original 5D footage into another codec using Adobe’s Media Encoder.

With the Mercury Playback Engine and native 64 bit in the future, the need for any kind of conversion will be unnecessary.

Hope this helps,
Dennis

[Dennis Radeke]

“Adobe needs to fix bugs, fix bugs”

THis is always the case for any software company. In the CS4 timeframe, Adobe issued a couple of dot releases that squarely addressed this.

“deeply integrate their applications”

Gotta be honest here – I think Adobe has the best and deepest integration in the space. We continue to see what else we can do as well.”

“Oh, and make flash suck less.”

Flash 10.1 is a big step forward and addresses GPU. Clearly there is a difference between Mac and PC performance. That being said, I think a lot of people are just blindly buying what Mr. Jobs is saying. This is an article I saw yesterday.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/12/flash_v_html5/