Capture format and Premiere advice - pulling my hair out!

[accentphotography]

I finally bit the bullet and decided to get rid of my CVX100B's, Nikon DSLR's (200 & 90) and move to the Panasonic GH2's. The verdict is still out on the photography side but I know that this will be the video camera for me but I have a few hiccups. I have been researching hundreds of items, forums etc ... would dare to say thousands since I have had about six restless full days of searching for information as everything with this setup has changed my world.

History: Professional Photographer for 30 years with about 15 years of limited video jobs (dance schools, kindergarten graduations and weddings). I have used many versions of FCP up and until the latest version "X" where I immediately moved over to Adobe Premiere (rental basis by the month... really a good deal) and I love Premiere.

Now FCP X can handle multicameras but I am familiar with the old school FCP timeline work plus Premiere grew on me FAST! Its like what Apple did to Windows with straight to the point simplicity Premiere did the same to FCP. I am not sure if I need to use Apple ProRes and move back to FCP X and give it a try or stay where I am.

Problem:

1. My events are always two hours long and most important ... non-stop (for tape or card changes). My GH2 shoots AVCHD and I do not have the card yet to practice with it but worry about the file size for two hours and if it is even possible. So what to do here which leads to question two.

2. I would like to acquire a Atomos Ninja that records direct HDMI output from the camera and bypasses the camera’s codec to eliminates the time-consuming capture process. But I thought it output in Apple ProRes. Atomos says: "The Ninja’s tight integration with Apple ProRes® means recorded footage is instantly and natively editable in:

• • 
    [*]Final Cut
    [*]Media Composer
    [*]Premiere
    [*]Edius
    [*]Vegas
    [*]Lightworks

And remember – Apple ProRes® is better editing codecs than long-GOP delivery or in-camera codecs like MPEG2, AVCHD etc – easily exceeding broadcast production bitrate requirements. "

I cannot find any mention of Apple ProRes in Premiere 5.5 so how is it natively editable?

So is Apple ProRes that much better than AVCHD? My output will be to a two hour video to standard single layer DVD and I have never been happy with the sharpness from the 480p / FCP Suite.

3. If possible, Should I convert a AVCHD file to Apple ProRes to get the best quality work with Premiere or should I convert a Apple ProRes file to AVCHD to get the best quality work with Premiere?

I think I lost my self just typing this stuff.

I guess I am looking for the simple answer using "SD Memory Card", "Atomos Ninja", "Apple ProRes or AVCHD" in a Mac with the rental Premiere to output top quality two hour DVDs (I heard that AVCHD can go in a Blu-Ray for HD quality if its really any good?)

 

[Phil1076]

Somehow I doubt your claim of searching thousands of forums. These questions have been covered extensively everywhere.

1. A 32GB card will give you just over 3 hours of AVCHD recording time.

2. There is no time-consuming capture process with Premiere 5.5. It handles AVCHD natively. Adobe has a white paper on AVCHD workflow with Premiere; google for it and have a read.

3. See point #2.



Forget about the Ninja. I honestly don't think you'll see a difference and I don't think the HDMI output on the GH2 is clean (not sure about this though).

What you SHOULD be concerned with is the fact that your GH2 will only record about an hour of video before the battery dies, so you'll need to stagger your battery replacement so that one camera is recording while the other is having its battery changed.

As a side note, Premiere will read Prores just fine.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

2. I would like to acquire a Atomos Ninja that records direct HDMI output from the camera and bypasses the camera’s codec to eliminates the time-consuming capture process. But I thought it output in Apple ProRes. Atomos says: "The Ninja’s tight integration with Apple ProRes® means recorded footage is instantly and natively editable in:

• • 
    [*]Final Cut
    [*]Media Composer
    [*]Premiere
    [*]Edius
    [*]Vegas
    [*]Lightworks

And remember – Apple ProRes® is better editing codecs than long-GOP delivery or in-camera codecs like MPEG2, AVCHD etc – easily exceeding broadcast production bitrate requirements. "

I cannot find any mention of Apple ProRes in Premiere 5.5 so how is it natively editable?

Apple Pro Res really is 'bundled' with Final Cut. So, it wouldn't be mentioned much in Premiere. It is available to Premiere via Quicktime, and I use to use it before I completely transitioned from Final Cut Express to Premiere.

There is no need to convert AVCHD initially to any other codec, as Premiere decodes AVCHD, as of CS5 well enough. (Previously CS4 could decode, but it was somewhat botched...).

If you are going to move from Premiere to say After Effects, Adobe has provisions for moving between the two, and there for again, no need for a 'intermediate' codec.

All of this of course presupposes you have computer that can 'easily' handled AVCHD. My current computer laptop is ancient by modern standards, and I do need an upgrade, but that would be required pretty much for any codec.

If you need to generate output for something other than AE, then probably going with ProRes would be fine, since you have it. There's also the free DNxHD codec from Avid that can be used as well, since it is designed to be an intermediate codec.