499 $ to edit HD formats with Premiere Pro CS4

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turmap

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499 $ to edit HD formats with Premiere Pro CS4

We know that Premiere Pro CS4 does not support XDCAM and AVCHD formats because, unlike most professional video editing softwares, it doesn’t export them (you have to buy very expansive Mainconcept plug-in to do it).

This problem is increased by another one, which is even worse : unlike for example Edius Pro and Final Cut Pro, which include for free essentials intra-frame editing codecs (Canopus HQ for Edius and ProRes for Final Cut…) to correctly edit HD videos (XDCAM, HDV, AVCHD…), Premiere Pro CS4 does not : in order to edit HD videos with Premiere Pro CS4 (except P2 from Panasonic which is supported by Premiere), no choice but to buy Cineform codec whose price is 499 $ minimum ( http://estore.cineform.com/index.aspx ) !!

It was important to communicate this information which shows Premiere Pro CS4 only supports non-HD formats (+ P2 from Panasonic), because it is not said at all on Premiere Pro CS4 documentation.[FONT=&quot]
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What are you talking about? Premiere CS4 supports XDCAM EX, XDCAM, AVCHD, P2, HDV, even RED RAW! All natively too I might add. The upcoming 4.2 update will support AVC-Intra. Every single flavor of HD outthere is currently supported and it's ridiculous to claim that Premiere "only supports non-HD" format. It's incredible to me that you should cite FCP's ProRes as a feature when FCP users have been clamoring for years for native support so they don't have to waste time transcoding their footage. You can drop your footage straight into the timeline and edit, how much easier does it get?

As to exporting HD, why would you want to export back out to a lossy codec like AVCHD or XD-CAM? For archiving purposes you would go uncompressed or with a slightly-lossy codec which is where Cineform would come in. To claim that Premiere doesn't support HD because of this is highly misleading.
 
Glad I didn't know this while merrily editing both HDV and AVCHD using Premiere Pro CS4 for the past 4 months...could have ruined my day. :)
 
To import without exporting is walking with one leg.

Huy Vu said:
For archiving purposes you would go uncompressed or with a slightly-lossy codec which is where Cineform would come in.
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Yes indeed !

But it is mainly to correctly edit HD videos that you absolutely need Cineform intra-frame codec. Any professionnal video maker would know that.
 
1) No, the minimum for Cineform is $130 (Neo Scene... I think $99 if you buy it from Videoguys or something like that).

2) Avid's native DNxHD codec is free and works with Premeire.

3) Like Kerplunk, I'm glad I knew this while I was editing AVCHD natively. Just because you can't export to it, doesn't mean you can't edit it. And why would you want to export to AVCHD or XDCam anyways? I don't know anyone who wants those as their delivery medium.
 
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It should also be pointed out that XDCam and XDCam EX are varients on HDV/Mpeg2, and AVCHD is the Blu-Ray variant of H.264. Both Mpeg2 and H.264 are options for export. You can also use Dynamic Link to send the AVCHD timeline to Encore, and export a Blu-Ray Folder... which is what AVCHD is, if I'm not mistaken.

But again, I ask... why do you *WANT* to export to AVCHD or XDCam? You're complaining about a problem that doesn't seem to exist.
 
turmap said:
But it is mainly to correctly edit HD videos that you absolutely need Cineform intra-frame codec. Any professionnal video maker would know that.
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Are you even aware that Premiere edits AVCHD just fine? Go do a search on how users, including Barry Green, is able to edit AVCHD swimmingly on a lower end laptop.

It's just a ridiculous assertion to say that you "absolutely" need an intra-frame codec to edit. Premiere can edit AVCHD, you just need the right system requirement. Have you even used Premiere before?

Intra-frame is all nice and good, but they take time to transcode and takes up more space on your computer and might not be cross platform compatible (i.e Apple ProRes doesn't work on PC platform). They're an alternative to make your life easier if your NLE can't handle the source file well. But if it does (like Premiere), an intra-frame intermediate is unnecessary.
 
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Mike Harvey said:
You can also use Dynamic Link to send the AVCHD timeline to Encore, and export a Blu-Ray Folder... which is what AVCHD is, if I'm not mistaken.
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encore uses mpg2 or mpg4(h.264) for blue ray authoring. those are the two of the three formats that blue ray is standardized in that encore can encode to (cant do VC-1). not sure why people would choose mpg2 over mpg4(h.264) but you can.

...either way, to your point. yes AVCHD should be going to h.264 for delivery, and otherwise it should go to some intermediate if its getting shipped off for finishing or stored somewhere. theres really no reason to export to AVCHD or Xdcam ex, unless you need it back in the cam for some rediculous reason.. or you are on drugs.

you do not need cineform to edit HD videos. i recently completed a feature on DVCPRO HD which has a much higher data rate than any of these very compressed aquisition formats. i also have a version of it as a full 1080p edit in the quicktime lossless animation codec. you simply need a machine taht can handle what your trying to handle. cineform is only usefull if your workflow requires intermediates to be made before final render. otherwise adobes dynamic link allows you to composite and edit without generational loss using only one singular final render between AE/ppro/photoshop.

anyway..nuff said about this. ..not really sure where you were trying to go with this turmap, but just to keep the peace i dont think it needs to go any further.
 
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