[Tim Kolb]

[Creig Bryan] “I didn’t ask, but I’ll assume there are no compatibility issues or gotchas between it and PPro 1.5.1”

He, he…never say “never” I guess, but I’ve not experienced any problems thus far with Imaginate 2 and PPro using AVIs.

Once either app is updated, all bets are off as with any combination of apps of course, but I would suspect that any compatibility pain would be in the plugin for handling Imaginate projects on the timeline (provided there ARE any issues of course…), AVIs are AVIs for the most part.

…once you render the first project (and experience the preview for that matter), I think you’ll be pleased.

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Tim Kolb]

Hi Norman,

I haven’t had a chance to use an Opteron laptop yet. How is it for heat? We have a dual Opteron here and the fans just about make the tower hover.

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Tim Kolb]

Imaginate is definitely faster in the render department which is why I thought of it for Ashley’s long project. The motion is very smooth and more importantly, the upsampling is simply astounding.

As far as the plugin…I’d forego it and simply render AVIs (save yourself some time and render to the correct AVI for your project to avoid re-rendering of course).

With a PPro timeline with several Imaginate “projects” on the timeline (as opposed to rendered clips), the PPro project has to sort of “launch” Imaginate in some form in the background and with several instances, it has to be launched several times as far as I can tell. The extra flexibility is really amazing, but when you have several in one project, the project takes forever to launch, the application slows down noticeably, and the render time for the project takes far longer than simply rendering in Imaginate and bringing in the AVI in my experience.

Advantages to having Imaginate projects on the timeline are that you can use alpha channels in the Imaginate project even when you are editing in DV (which you could also do by rendering Imaginate files out RGBA uncompressed and putting up with a little render time in PPro…) and by changing the length of the Imaginate project “clip” on the timeline, your keyframes are actually scaled in the Imaginate project giving you incredibly smooth motion and lots of flexibility.

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Tim Kolb]

Well, we may be confusing some of the specs here…

Inerlaced HD is what is coming out of the component outputs on the 540, provided of course you have interlaced footage and are using interlaced presets.

The “800 line” monitor is measured horizontally…analog monitors have no spec for vertical as it’s standard for video monitors…HD is HD, SD is SD. Analog monitors really have scan lines instead of pixels so often odd horizontal resolutions end up loking better in analog as there is no odd “1 pixel=1.3 pixel” adaptation as there would be with digital displays.

The one thing to note is that SDI is square pixel only so you’ll need a converter device to get to 1920 from 1440…then display it on an 800 line monitor. I’d urge you to try the analog route and see if you can save the 3000 bucks.

SDI output is good to master to other HD formats of course, but if you don’t need that, analog monitoring would deal with the 1440 horizontal resolution without the conversion…which does add some cost if the only thing you want SDI for is monitoring.

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Tim Kolb]

Well, as someone who wishes they were a little larger-framed in times of hand-held work, I think that making sure your stomach muscles are strong through sit ups is ogical, but I think a lot of people forget that you need to reverse the motion to strengthen the muscles in your lower back.

Also…taking a break is important during a day of shoulder work. No matter how strong you are, shoulder shooting creates pressure unevenly on your lower back.

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Tim Kolb]

Functional power being the primary consideration, the P4…without a doubt. The 533 FSB is even a bigger tradeoff than the low power processor as far as speed is concerned. These low power laptops are absolutely great for general word processing and web surfing and general office stuff but video is just a load no matter what you do with it. The M processor wouldn’t be non-functional of course, but it would be significantly less powerful, not to mention that slower (4200rpm) C drives are usually an integral part of these power-conserving laptops.

The tradeoff of course is that a laptop that is good for video will run relatively hot, will have a severely reduced battery life, and will probably not be the lightest thing around. My GoBOXX is a hog, but the 17″ monitor and 3.2 P4 with 2 Gigs of RAM and 2×60 Gig RAID 0 C: drive rips through PPro and AE work (even HD) really nicely….of course I have to have a small deck with auxillary fans under it to supplement the three fans already in it…

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Tim Kolb]

I find it interesting that a company that charges that much for their stuff would be that imprecise with their propaganda…

If we’re looking at sheer bandwidth, DV is around 3.65 MB/s and uncompressed 8 bit SD is about 21 MB/s or 10 bit is around 24 MB/s. Even if you don’t take the audio portion of the DV file into account, you’re still talking about an 8:1 ratio max with 10 bit uncompressed SD…

I don’t see anything about V210…I know about Sun Servers that have a V210 designation, or wireless content…what do you mean in this context?

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Tim Kolb]

Actually the SDI solutions will be expensive as SDI CRT options are pricey at the moment.

The FX 540 card has an analog breakout box with composite/S video/component outputs…you don’t need the 9 pin. An analog HD monitor with analog component in will be cheaper…maybe even sub 2,000 USD.

It isn’t full 1920 because HDV isn’t full 1920, it’s 1440. One of the reasons why SDI outputs add a level of complication is that SDI only handles square pixels (640×480, 1280×720, 1920×1080…), HDV doesn’t use square pixels in the Sony 1440×1080 version of HDV. Thus a conversion is necesssary and that takes power from someplace.

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Tim Kolb]

With a deadline like that, I’d leave learning AE for another time.

The keyframing in PPro is fine…just be prepared for some rendering.

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Tim Kolb]

I’ve used Camtasia (Snag It’s video cousin) to actually capture my activities while editing video and it didn’t affect playback…and if there’s anything that will be timing dependent, it’s video playback.

I’m guessing that the SVHS out will work, but make sure you have sufficient graphics card strength to drive all those displays. Centrinos and Celerons are all great for low power consumption, but they’re usually under-configured for this type of thing.

TimK
Kolb Syverson Communications
Creative Cow Host
2004, 2005 NAB Post Production Conference Premiere Pro Technical Chair
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net