[Jimmy Brunger]

Hi Todd/All,

Just bought and installed a Quadro 4000 for Mac, for use in CS5.5 and also for Freeform Pro….

I installed all latest drivers and 10.6.8 update, etc BEFORE installing card. However Now I’m up and running with it installed PPro isn’t seeing it (Mercury Playback option is greyed out) Any ideas?

Something it *could* be is that I also still have installed my ATI Radeon 2600T, due to the fact that I need 1 x DL DVI output and also a DVI>VGA output for my plasma. Quadro card only has single link DVI for 2nd port and their supplied DVI>VGA adapter doesn’t fit! So currently got both monitors being driven by ATI card and was just going to use Quadro for GPU accel for now. Should this work do you know?

Another thing I noticed when I initially plugging my 30″ ACD into the Quadro the OS/dashboard/Expose, etc was REALLY sluggish.

Is there any way to test my Quadro is installed correctly?

UPDATE: PPro is now not seeing my Decklink 3D Extreme card for playback either. I have options to capture via BMD, but no external monitor/export option…?

Thanks,
Jim.

[Jimmy Brunger]

So do you think it’s worth me installing CS5.5 to eliminate these problems? Is 5.5 much better at handling XDCAM and ProRes source files (I’m mainly talking about Premiere tbh, as it’s shocking with both formats in CS4!)

[Jimmy Brunger]

Hi Alex,

Managed to get one of the older auto-saves working thank god, but the last 5 iterations and the main project are screwed it seems. Going to try create trimmed project tonight and see what AE will make of it in the morning!

Fingers crossed…

Oh – Mac, no mercury (still on CS4) and no new media added. It just stopped opening all of a sudden. Very odd.

[Jimmy Brunger]

…..Now my PPro project won’t even open, nor will the auto-saves.

Todd – if you’re about and can help….please do!!

Thanks,
Jim

[Jimmy Brunger]

Hi Alex,

OK, this is my current workflow….

• several 5-10 min supplied source footage QTs.
• each one of those long master clips I am going through and logging/chopping smaller clips out and making dozens of subclips
• I then have hundreds of subclips which are just what I need in my timeline to edit with
• the several long master clips remain in my project for now
• When I am done with the offline I am importing my PPro project into AE to do grading/fx
• When doing this (or dynamic linking the sequence flattened) some of my subclips are slipping in AE and so my edit is pretty much useless.
• So I went to convert my subclips to master clips, so that presumably these subs then become totally independent of their masters (you would think PPro would then render these and create new smaller QT files on your disk)
• However instead of this it seems to be simply converting my subclip – which is say a particular 5seconds of my master – into a different ‘type’ of virtual reference file (still dependent on my long master clip) and it also trashes the in/outs I created which give that subclip a reason for existing!
• So now I basically just have a 10min master clip and ALSO a 10min subclip of the exact same thing…which I then have to search through again to find my in/out points!?!

Sorry if I am being a bit slow with this, but I really struggling to see the point in this ‘convert to master clip’ function!

Essentially to do what I’m trying to do (I don’t really want to do a destructive edit like this, but no choice if pulling in to AE) can only be achieved by manually setting my work area bar over each clip I want to ‘pre-render’, take all the effects off it so they are still live in AE, then render out, pull back in and put in place of my subclip, then apply all the effects to that clip again? Seems bonkers!

[Jimmy Brunger]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the input.

Dave – I know the issues with long gop stuff in AE, but have used XDCAM and h264 footage in AE for years. That said – we are about to upgrade from CS4 to CS5.5 production premium….I don’t like to upgrade in the middle of a project, but on this occasion is it worth me installing now to make my life happier!?

Walter – Didn’t realise that about PPro – I know it operates in YUV colorspace as opposed to AE’s RGB standard, but not had issues like this before. The weird thing is – some of the clips in my ‘master’ animation QT PPro export match perfectly with their imported source clips in AE, but others are way off.

To compound that – my export from PPro has messed up the gamma HUGELY in some of the shots to the point where they’re unusable – otherwise I would have just graded on top of that flattened render for an easy life. My second option was to put the render ontop of layer stack in AE and chop in and out of that/the layers to get to the good stuff…But essentially between the botched imported PPro project and the QT export there are several shots that I don’t have at all!

Anymore ideas guys?

[Jimmy Brunger]

Hi Alex,

Thanks again for your message. I guess my only option is to pre-render and replace all the offending clips. Bit of a pain with extra files on my drive and I really wanted the ability to manipulate/tweak and render the timewarps directly within AE.

Whilst we’re at it – do you know what the point is of the ‘convert subclip to master clip’ function? Searched around the web for an answer and it seems like a fairly pointless process, as it simply converts my shortened subclip into the original 5-10 min length master clip, so I have to then go in and find my in and outs and set them up again. Kind of defeats the object doesn’t it?

Also – when ‘collecting’ my project at the end of the project, is there an elegant way of PPro and AE working together to collect all my files, or do I need to do a collect in AE, then a collect in PPro….therefore doubling my archived project files?

[Jimmy Brunger]

Oh – CS4.2.1 and It’s a mix of XDCAM HD422/50mbps and ProResHQ, with the odd h264 and AVC clip in there. The problem timewarped subclips are derived from the XDCAM sources….HOWEVER, the other subclip XDCAM stuff is ok!?!

[Jimmy Brunger]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your reply. I think the problem is that the offending clips are actually subclips within premiere. There are loads of subclips in the project (original source files are all several mins long), but it only seems to be the ones that also have timewarp applied that can’t seem to remember where their in/outs should be.

I tried converting to master clips in Premiere, but for some reason this just converts the – for instance – 5 second subclip into a 10 min master clip (basically the original source and it trashes the in/outs)

Not sure how to get around this – please advise if you are a subclip editing guru!?

Thanks,
James.

[Jimmy Brunger]

Thanks for your reply Dave,

Gulp. Is this a known problem then? TBH – premiere’s timewarp is awful – for some reason produces alot sloppier results than AE’s. I think I’ll just have to recreate all the warps and edits again in AE with twixtor.

….Long painful drawn out affair it seems! It’s only a 2min edit, but ALOT of cuts and alot of work done in PPro. Sigh.

Unless anyone else has some wild ideas?