[Mike Molenda]

Yep. Hacked the opencl_supported_cards.txt, and hardware accelerated MPE is now enabled on my system. I am taking the “trial” part of “trial version” very seriously 🙂

Haven’t put it through any serious tests yet, but it seems to marginally accelerate unrendered playback. Running into the same dropped frame for rendered material issue as people on MacBook Pros, though.

I should also note that I’m using a 5770 on a system that technically doesn’t support it (2006 Mac Pro).

If you give it a shot, I’m eager to hear how it works for you.

[Mike Molenda]

Whoops, should clear up a misconception here. I had heard that SpeedGrade, by default, rendered your entire project out to a single, sequence-long file. Not true. Outputs each graded clip separately, regardless of the metadata you choose to include in the file/path names.

Also, Oliver, there are indeed custom masks and tracking in SpeedGrade. There’s an “add point” button in the Mask tab. You add your points, and then can select and convert to Bezier control points. Not as intuitive as, say, a Pen Tool, but it is there.

We’re straying a little far off topic. When does the SpeedGrade forum open?

[Mike Molenda]

Ha, success! Never would have thought of that. Thank you sir.

[Mike Molenda]

I’d certainly like to hear other opinions on SpeedGrade, particularly from experienced colorists. Right now I feel like the biggest omission is the SORE lack of any sort of batch output.

So if I’m grading a finished sequence, there’s no way to keep the structure of my cut intact after grading. From what I understand it comes out as a single video. Never mind adding handles to the clips.

Or if I’m doing first light technical grades on dailies, I’ve got to wait until the previous one is rendered before I can grade the next?

I feel like I should be mistaken on this, and I hope someone can prove me wrong. If not, it’s a high priority request for when they open the SpeedGrade wish list!

I do like the interface, I feel like I was able to get to a point where I could use it quickly and comfortably after just a few hours of screwing around. I also like that it seems they made several mouse/keyboard/tablet accommodations for graders without access to a control surface. They’re not perfect, but it’s nice to know they’re thinking of such things.

[Mike Molenda]

Give the CS6 demo (released officially today) a shot. The 6750M card in your MacBook is now supported for hardware acceleration, so you should see an uptick in render speeds and fewer clips should need to render at all.

FCP should be running at about its performance ceiling on your system. For Premiere, you’re certainly above the minimum system requirements, but still fairly close to the ground floor. If you’re looking for vastly increased performance, you might consider a hardware upgrade as well.

Sorry you’re running into so many bugs. I had the exact opposite experience switching to Premiere. Towards the end of using FCP full time, I could count on having at least one freeze or crash just about every session or two. Using Premiere for the same kind of work I get lock ups far less frequently, if at all.

I had the blue-tint alpha problem myself on a project I finished earlier this year. I remember that baking the bottom layers into the composition and rendering to ProRes cleared that right up.

[Mike Molenda]

Ha, ha, all the way down to 1/4 res in 5.5. Think it was 1/2 in CS6, since I usually set my working sequences for 1/2 res. Could have been full, this was in like an hour of goofing around last night so I did not think to check. If it was 1/4, though, then they found a way to make 1/4 res look damn good.

CC on every clip. Lots of scaling, stills, and dynamic link title cards and warp stabilizes generated in AE.

[Mike Molenda]

On a 2 GHz quad Mac Pro with 10GB of RAM and a Radeon 5770 GPU.

I had an FX-laden H.264 DSLR sequence that had some serious latency issues when starting playback in CS5.5. Figured it would be a dandy for taking CS6 out for a spin. Instantly (for all intents and purposes) speeds up to real-time playback in CS6. With a noticeably smaller spike in CPU/memory usage, to boot.

[Mike Molenda]

I remember seeing the word “expected” somewhere around the May 7 (I also remember it being May 6) on the pre-order confirmation.

Sounds like they’re still putting some final touches on the product. Even if those were done by now, they’d either have to release the download and physical versions separately, or manufacture those discs pretty darn quick to get it out the door by the 7th.

[Mike Molenda]

[Erik Mickelson] “What is better LS7 or LS16? I am using LS16 and the results are not that impressive. The new stuff is cool and usable but performance on a Macbook Pro is not where marketing leads us to think it should be.”

LS16 looks like it refers to the Master Collection trial. LS7 is just Premiere. The Adobe guys have been pretty vocal on the RedUser forum where this was leaked that there are still ongoing bug fixes, and the versions people are getting their hands on are not officially endorsed or supported.

Sounds like they are still putting finishing touches on external playback support, would not surprise me if the OpenCL support for MacBook Pros hadn’t come out of the oven yet, either.

[Mike Molenda]

I was asked to cut a RED-shot student film that will supposedly be wrapping around the time CS6 is supposedly going to be released. Looking forward to being able to take some R3D for a spin in a low-pressure situation.