[Richard Herd]

Yep, you got it.

So what are you going to do?

[Richard Herd]

As long as (a) the Media Browser points to the camera archive (and not just the .mts for example), then PP does very well with AVCHD, and (b) the scratch disk is fast, then it does fine.

[Richard Herd]

If you open the MPEG clip in QT or whatever, does it play there? Can you open the file in Audacity and hear it?

[Richard Herd]

[dan jones] “Is that all I have to do?”

Nope. Now you have to edit and tell a good story 😉

[dan jones] “Are the files automatically brought in at the highest resolution?”

Yes. However, you have to drag the folder into the Project Pane, and I find it wise to right click a clip in the project pane and then choose “New Sequence From Clip” (or drag a clip into the new sequence icon), and that way all of the settings in the sequence exactly match up with your footage — you should see no red lines in the sequence. If they are yellow lines then, PP is saying “That’s an intense amount of processing, so you may want to change the Program settings to a lower resolution.”

Premiere Pro also has a fancy thing called Smart Rendering (worth googling for), but basically it means once footage is in the timeline, Render it, and then PP is smart to keep track of that render file so that when you make a cut or what not, you only have to render the missing info — not the entire friggin’ timeline. It also means that when you export the sequence, it has already done most of the processing and you gain efficiency.

[dan jones] “No other steps?”

Not really. But there is an export workflow worth investigating. For example, for every finished commercial I make I actually need 3 videos. I used Adobe Media Encoder to create a Watch Folder, and then I set three different video presets into the Watch Folder. And wow isn’t that cool. When the export finishes, AME auto-magically creates the other three videos.

[Richard Herd]

[Audrey Chandler] “but understand the kind of data I’m moving”

Here’s a bunch of fancy terms to investigate:

— Chroma Subsampling
— Long Group of Pictures
— File size of 444 RGB video
— SMPTE Rec. 709

The kind of video that you want to work with is massively expensive and only a few places actually do that, and they’re in Hollywood (for example) in digital intermediate facilities. Here’s basically what happens. They shoot the movie on film and transfer the film to HDCAM SR. Then the HDCAM SR is transferred to an editing codec like APR422 or Avid’s DNxHD. It’s at this point where the film editor edits the movie, for several weeks or so. When she is done, then she sends an XML file or an EDL to the color correction artist who then uses the HDCAM SR tapes to color correct the movie and export a final version for the cinema (check out digital cinema initiative). That workflow is called “online/offline.” You, it appears, want to create an “online” facility. That’s awesome!

Footage in APR422 or AVCHD are fine codecs. The long gop problems you linked-to are largely irrelevant. Here is a screen capture from the Media Browser in Premiere Pro CS6.

screenshot2014-01-20at10.14.35am.png

You can see that PP has no problems looking at and processing the Long GOP formats and the other specialized codecs. The Creative Cloud also includes a nice program called Adobe Media Encoder which does exactly that–encodes media from one format to another. Here’s a picture of that.

screenshot2014-01-20at10.30.14am.png

(Quick footnote: In order for PPcs6 to manipulate the Long GOP formats, the entire camera archive must be present. Many people are mistakenly just copying the .mts files to their hard drives and wondering why they cannot edit the files very well. It’s because the camera archive contains metadata and hidden files that PP will see and therefore interpret the footage correctly.)

[Richard Herd]

Why did you convert the footage?

[Richard Herd]

CS6 (I’m not sure if the previous versions have it) has a nifty feature that I use a lot.

On the far right is a camera icon. Click that. Save it as a TIFF.

[Richard Herd]

[Audrey Chandler] “Does PP have trouble keeping a smooth editing flow as file sizes increase? One example I was given is that anything over about 50GB will make PP stutter/lag on playback, and a 3TB source file would be almost uneditable

Does PP have trouble keeping a smooth editing flow as source length increase? For example, if you ingest 5 hours of total footage, would it become very hard to scrub/playback while you trim it down?

If I hypothetically have the choice of editing in PP with any codec I want, are there any ‘darling’ codecs that behave better / edit smoother in general? Or, conversely, any codecs you should emphaticaly not edit with?

If I’m trying to maintain maximum fidelity, will PP behave better with Uncompressed sources (massive size, but low CPU burden) or Lossless codecs (much smaller size, but compressed/encoded)?”

Let’s try this a different way:

Are you starting a business where people pay you to edit video?
Are you trying to make equipment purchases that seek a maximum return on investment?

Source files don’t get bigger. They are what they are. If you have 10 minutes of footage, and that file is 10GB, then when you edit, Premiere Pro only points to the media file (the video) and says “Audrey only wants to use frame 01 to 29.” Then when you save the Premiere Pro project file it retains that information, of your edit. That source file of the video footage will not get bigger, but the project file will get bigger as you import more footage and start to edit it. But they don’t get very big. You can add more files to your project and premiere pro does fine. It’s very smooth…

and that brings me to the next issue. The reason the playback is smooth is because the computer’s graphic cards can process the video quickly. So if you are going to spend money, don’t skimp on a graphics card. Basically, the more expensive the graphics card, the more codecs you can throw at Premiere Pro. Professional grade graphics cards are very expensive. And the reason the graphic card can process the video smoothly is because the scratch disk can get the video to the graphics card quickly.

The issue is not whether PP has a “darling codec,” but rather, what footage will you be getting to edit? Is someone going to hand you HDCAM SR tapes? Will they mail you a drive containing Arri Log files? Are you getting Apple Pro Res 422 HQ?

You really need to know what footage you will definitely be getting. The only way to find this out is to ask the shooter, and you can also tell the shooter, “I want Apple Pro Res 422.” Or “I want the camera archive.”

Maximum fidelity is a slippery question because maximum fidelity is relative to whatever camera the shooter used. There’s a difference between H.264 and Canon Log Gamma footage. It’s hard to say how exactly to maintain “maximum fidelity” without knowing what footage you’ve got. Each of those workflow pipes has a different problem. It would be unwise to invest in a workflow for Canon Log Gamma footage if you’re getting h.264.

A few years ago, the workflow pipeline meant transcoding video into an editable codec. Mostly those days are over. Premeire Pro can handle many codecs natively. The money issue is throughput. Sure PP can handle Canon Log Gamma but can your drives send the data fast enough? Can your GPU handle the dataset quickly?

If you’re looking at maximum of maximum of everything, you’d need to investigate HPZ820 with AMD radeons, a storage SAN, with fiber optics — can easily run into $100,000 BEFORE you buy the above mentioned HDCAM SR deck; that’d be another $100k. A gargantuan waste of money if you are getting h.264 footage.

Anyway, the sweet spot for “the basics” (as is this forum’s name) is about $10,000. Can you do it cheaper? Not really, because pro work includes storage, backup, audio mixing, audio i/o — there’s really a lot of details. You might want to post on the gigs forum for a quote from someone around the CreativeCow who sets up video suites/edit bays for a living. They are very knowledgeable.

I hope that helps some.

[Richard Herd]

Hey-ya Mark, who knew editing was a fashion industry?! And what label is on their jeans 😉

[Richard Herd]

[tony west] “But it occurred to me, it didn’t really matter what kind of camera he used.

He told the story well. Whatever he was using”

Yes.