[Tim Kolb]

Your question is confusing…you’ll need t clarify a few things.

First, I hope you mean “Premiere Pro CS4 v4.2.1” because Premiere 4.2 is about a 13 year old program.

Second, as far as I know, AVC Intra is square pixel, period… 1920×1080. The 50 Mbit drops to 4:2:0 from the 4:2:2 in the 100 Mbit variety, but it’s always full raster.

Third, DvCProHD runs non-square raster of 1440×1080 at 25fps (the 1480 framesize you quote doesn’t fit with any format I’ve ever heard of…), but for 24/29.97, it’s framesize is 1280×1080.

Last, you description of this footage and it’s path needs clarification… what P2 camera? Captured into what version of PPro? Imported into FCP as what? Exported from FCP as what? (Specifics on all these settings are necessary as what you have in your original post isn’t technically helpful…or, I suspect, completely accurate.)

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Tim Kolb]

If you want the actual output file to be 2.35/1, then you’d need to make a custom sequence setting.

You should start with the DVCProHD setting, as the non-square pixel framesize is 960×720. Then make a custom sequence and unlock the aspect ration and I’d change the frame height to 544 (the number crowds 545, but 544 is divisible by 8, which is a good practice for distribution codecs to handle properly).

Then, when you put your clips on the timeline, you should be cutting off the top and bottom…though you may get a red line as the footage isn’t actually “native” any more…

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Tim Kolb]

I’m not sure I completely understand what you’re asking for with the multicamera view…

How does FCP do it differently in your experience?

Yes, the new 4000 is a new architecture and it is significantly faster than my already out of date QFX 4800 -sigh-

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Tim Kolb]

You can import the PSD directly and just use the motion controls in the Effect Controls palette…

You can import graphics into the titler, but I’ve never tried to roll a large graphic…only small logos, etc.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Tim Kolb]

Unless ProRes not playing back well is a Mac thing…I’ve not seen it. I have a video on Adobe TV where I edited ProRes on a WXP laptop in CS4…

I suspect the playback difficulty is in the conversion. If you need a CUDA card to play back ProRes on a Mac…that seems odd to me.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Tim Kolb]

The QFX 4800 was a CS5 CUDA compatible card the day CS5 was delivered and was the only option on the Mac…

I’d be curious what the system is reporting as the installed graphics card…you don’t have more than one, do you?

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Tim Kolb]

Have you tried a direct export instead of going through the Media Encoder Queue?

I can’t even render a picture when i launch Looks on a clip if I send it out to the Queue…but the direct export seemed to work…

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Tim Kolb]

Have you tried viewing the finished clips in Windows Media Player at all?…or just QT Player?

“Open with…Windows Media Player” will launch it there.

This may be one or two issues…

First QT player gamma levels just aren’t aware that they are on a PC…it’s an old old problem and it’s borderline comical that they haven’t fixed it yet.

Second, I have noticed that Media Encoder going to H264 through QT just doesn’t always work properly. QuickTime is a pretty aged media structure in any version prior to QTX, and Media Encoder CS5 is a 64 bit application…all of which may contribute to these issues.

Instead of going through QT…you might want to simply choose H264 from the options at the same level you’d choose “QuickTime” and give that a go.

Now…all that being said…I’m afraid I STILL have to use QT Pro 7.x.x (standalone application) to encode to H264 on material such as screen captures as the H264 that Media Encoder writes directly just doesn’t seem to play nice with QT Player…which is what most Mac users will play it back on.

It’s an adventure…

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Tim Kolb]

Are you compressing directly to H264, or choosing QuickTime, then choosing the H264 codec inside those settings?

(…and are you on a Mac or Windows?)

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Tim Kolb]

Hmmm… This is a tough one for me to answer. I use four monitors.

The Adobe applications have many panels and I find that with a 24″ flanked by two 17s, I can get pretty much all the panels I need to see “top layer” in AE, Encore, and Audition (and of course, Premiere Pro, where having the scopes open all the time on one 17 really helps me).

A 30″ is a great work surface… Perhaps 2-23″ (or 24″…whatever) might be easier for you to envision using if they were over/under instead of side by side? Nothing says you have to take two widescreen monitors and stretch them out horizontally…

My 30″ is my overlay monitor and it sits on top of everything else…and it’s also my main Photoshop monitor. (I think you can see the basic system in back of my bio pic.)

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,