Jeff Pulera
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Greg,
To roll your titles, use the Adobe Motion effect, and just keyframe the Y-motion so the title (or any video/graphic/still) begins below the bottom and ends off the top of the screen.
I don’t believe you can Import .psd files into the CS5 titler to create a roll, but I could be wrong.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Not a good idea to install both versions in same partition, they may share some files/libraries and that is where you will run into problems. I realize you may want both versions during a transitional period, but not recommended
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
When in the CS5 Sequence Settings screen (where you choose the project settings), go to the General tab and you can then start changing the frame size, frame rate, etc. to customize the sequence setting, then at the lower left, there is a “Save Preset” button. Editing mode should be “Desktop” when you start to modify settings.
If “Scale to Frame Size” is NOT enabled for your clips (right click to check), then the 1920×1080 clip should show up centered on the screen, actual size in the smaller project, and you can use Adobe Motion effect controls to change the X and Y positioning as needed to frame subject.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Right-click in the CS5 Program Monitor and look at Playback Resolution – it is set to HALF by default, but most users get better results at FULL setting for playback. Goes contrary to thinking, it would seem easier to play half quality, but I guess not!
Do you have hardware Mercury Playback enabled using an nVidia display card? This is a must for decent performance with AVCHD footage in CS5.
Also, be sure to use a dedicated video drive, not the C: drive for capture/playback.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
What is the purpose of the aspect ratio change, and what is final delivery format? Perhaps you are looking for a more cinematic widescreen look, but if for instance you will want to create a Blu-ray disc at some point, then it would need to be the standard 1920×1080 (and you could simply add letterboxing). Even for the web, you may want to just continue editing full HD, but simply crop at the time of export.
Please let us understand your goals and then recommendations can be made
Thanks
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi Ammon,
Sound advice from Andrew, but one more thing you may find helpful – in Preferences, there is a checkbox for “Scale to Frame Size” – if you enable this prior to importing the clips, they will automatically scale to fit, for instance using the 1080 clips in the 720p sequence. Saves a lot of work changing clips one at a time (with right-click option).
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Hi,
The RT.X2 info is partially correct, but out of date in some areas. The RT.X2 card is a bit finicky about the motherboard and graphics card used, true. Maybe less so now that GPU effects are gone. Also, in the past, the Matrox codec was locked to the hardware.
With CS5, there are many changes for RT.X2. First, all the Matrox realtime GPU effects are no more, as Adobe has taken over using the GPU for the Mercury Playback Engine.
Earlier this year, Matrox released their Video For Windows codecs to the public, so captured files can be edited on other PCs, with VFW codecs installed. That said, if using any Matrox effects in the project, the effects would be unavailable when opening the CS5 project on a non-Matrox system.
With the loss of the Matrox GPU effects, and the new native power of CS5, the RT.X2 hardware has been “crippled” down to being little more than an I/O device, and a dated one at that since it does not have HDMI ports. Also, being older hardware, I wouldn’t expect much more going forward where drivers are concerned.
I would recommend the Matrox MXO2 Mini hardware, which has analog and HDMI connectivity, for capture and playback (monitoring). Even if you don’t need capture capability, it sure is nice to connect to an HD display while working. Also offers hardware-based up-down-cross conversion on capture and playback. A new feature is direct to .m2v capture for archiving older tapes to DVD. You still get Matrox Color Correction and Keying effect plug-ins with the hardware also.
Being external, the MXO2 device can also be moved from computer to computer easily, with just an inexpensive interface card required.
My experience has been that the MXO2 will provide smoother preview than CS5 alone can. For instance, when working with a couple layers of 1920×1080 AVCHD, and previewing on an LCD connected to second DVI out of GPU, playback stutters. The same material plays back perfectly through the MXO2 output via HDMI.
Whether you get Matrox hardware or not, you will definitely want an nVidia GPU to use the Mercury Playback benefits of CS5.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
You should consider what frame rate the final delivery will be to help make the decision. If working with 24p and 60p footage, and final delivery will be 24p, then 24p would make more sense.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor -
You can create your own Preset to match the specs of your footage – when starting a New Project (New Sequence), go the tab on top for Settings (it may vary between PPro versions) and there you can hit the Edit Mode drop down and choose “Desktop”, then set all the parameters (frame size, frame rate, audio, etc.) to your needs. At the bottom, choose SAVE PRESET.
This will allow you to edit your footage natively
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
As mentioned, you can’t fill the disc with only 30 minutes of material – at the high limit of 8000, the disc will hold 60 minutes of video.
That said, the general consensus I have seen over the years on the forums is to not use the full 8000 encode setting, as some players might choke during playback (remember, the audio stream is also added on top of the 8000, and we’re talking home-burned media as well). The end viewer will never see the difference between 7000 quality and 8000 quality. Most of my event videos are two hours, encoded at 4500, and after making literally thousands of duplicates over the years, I’ve never had a single complaint about image quality.
My opinion is not to exceed 7000 on the video encode, and for shorter programs, I don’t see the value of VBR and recommend CBR encoding. Much faster anyway.
The benefit of Two-Pass Variable Bit Rate encoding is that for long programs, rather than encoding ALL the material at the same, low data rate (quality) setting, the encoder will first analyze all the video (first pass) to determine the complexity of each scene. Using this information, the bitrate is then “allocated” to each scene (second pass), set higher for complex scenes (lots of detail/motion), and lower then for scenes like a static title for instance, in such a way as to create an average (target) bitrate that allows all the material to fit the disc.
In this way, quality is maximized, applying higher bitrates where needed, and lower bitrates for simple scenes that will look fine at a lower bitrate.
That said, I don’t see the advantage of using VBR for anything less than 60 minutes, since I can simply use the maximum quality all the way through – why lower the bitrate (quality), if I have space to encode all of it at a high quality? I don’t need to budget the bits at all. In fact, I have seen VBR cause issues, for instance when there is a sudden change in the video, like a photo flash, I might see some mosaic (compression artifacting). Maybe this only affects certain players, but the idea is that the data rate might be low for a bit, then it suddenly spikes at the flash. Why not simply use a consistent high quality?
For videos over an hour, I found a formula at Adobe.com that works well to determine the bitrate for encoding – it is simply 560/minutes, and maybe round down just a bit to be safe.
560/90=6.2, call it 6. 560/120=4.66, call it 4.5, never fails. Make sure to use Dolby Digital AC-3 audio when authoring – if you use PCM audio, it takes up huge amounts of space on the disc, then the video won’t fit! Hollywood movies all use AC-3, quality is great.
These are just my opinions, based on my experiences, and there are plenty out there 😉
Jeff Pulera