[Jiri Fiala]

Suggestions for CS4 in no particular order:

-some kind of intermediate codec
-better memory management
-better utilization of GPU, more realtime power (see Edius!)
-HDV preview and split scene
-ability to select clips on timeline with keyboard
-auto clean-up of Bins for god’s sake!
-sorting bins in thumbnail mode (like in Windows Explorer…)
-blending modes for layers (like FCP)
-better workflow for CC (like Avid)

What do you think?

[Jiri Fiala]

Yeah Melissa, I would like to see the result too, please post it if you can.

[Jiri Fiala]

I have finished many, many jobs on my laptop with AE CS3 and Vista, no problem whatsoever…

[Jiri Fiala]

I don’t really see Dynamic Link as any huge timesaver either. The trouble is, Premiere doesn’t cache Dynamic Link comps (DL is just a frame server), each time you play it, AFX must render it again. So you are usually better off just rendering stuff in AFX and normally importing them to Premiere as any other footage.

And one more complaint… this is likely to be a bug, but it happens to me on several machines with latest Adobe updates. Premiere sequences imported into AFX show proper lenghts and clips, but wrong frames! Let’s say a clip in Premiere is edited from source footage between TC 00:00:20:00 and 00:00:30:00. In AFX, the clip lenght (10 secs) is right, but frames are different, for example 00:01:00:00 to 00:01:10:00. This happens when CTRL+C/CTRL+Ving between AFX and PPro also. So the whole Dynamic Link thingy is next to unusable for me.

[Jiri Fiala]

Adobe really makes me mad with these unnecessary keyboard changes. The tab key, which I used to toggle between source and program monitor in PPRo 2, does NOTHING and the toggle function has been entirely removed. Why? I guess we’ll never know.

[Jiri Fiala]

Jon, is Audition able to import AAF from Premiere?

I love mixing audio with Sony Vegas. I export project from Premiere as AAF (without embedding, which causes PPro to crash), then importing this AAF into Vegas, This retains all video tracks, cuts, and gives you most flexibility for sound editing.

[Jiri Fiala]

I have the Shuttle Pro 2 and while I don’t use it all the time, I certainly don’t regret the purchase.

It’s not that expensive and it indeed comes in handy – you can rest your arm (or change its position for a bit, that is) and basically edit using one hand. Its jog/shuttle is especially useful and much faster/more convenient than using JKL and keyboard arrows. Sometimes I use it a lot and sometimes I don’t at all, don’t ask me why :o)

[Jiri Fiala]

Me too please :o) Or if you could post it somewhere on the netm that would be great. Thanks!

[Jiri Fiala]

This kind of result with a desktop software is really incredible, I’ve got a lot to learn :o) Thanks for sharing!

[Jiri Fiala]

Basically, you will have to mask out areas you want to cut out. Select the Pen tool and draw masks around actors and/or areas you want to remain in the shot.

Break the bodies into several parts (leg, head, torso…) so you will have easier jobs animating the mask. Try to keep those masks as simple as possible. Feather them a pixel or two.

And for God’s sake, before animating your masks, make sure you have the stopwatch enabled on “Mask Shape” :o)) I have animated way too many masks only to find I haven’t enabled the stopwatch.

This seems difficult, but can be done. You may find that you’ll be better off using green screen next time :o)