Editing on Windows (Adobe Premiere)

M

mattsnowboard

Member
I have Adobe Premiere CS4 on my Windows machine for editing my AF100 footage. I know that I can import the footage directly into Premiere, but I thought that it might be more efficient to transcode to a format more suitable for editing. I've noticed some slow downs when editing the footage and also I see a lot of artifacts/noise when previewing in Premiere (I think the decoding is trying to work faster/less accurately).

I've heard that ProRes is a good editing format but it only works on Mac with FCP (or maybe it's also in QT Pro). I've tried to see what I could do with StreamClip, but it just said that it wasn't supported when I tried to bring in my footage.

So does anyone else use Premiere/Windows with AF100 footage, and what is your workflow?
 
I use Cineform mostly. I don't trust using Prores or DNxHD when editing on a PC. The reason I don't trust those formats is that on a PC, those codecs run under Quicktime. Now, Quicktime is awesome when running on a Mac, but on a PC, it's a whole different story. I run CS6 and unless its a very small project with a tight deadline, I'll take the time to transcode my footage. Here's why: File management. You can't rename the MTS files from the AF100 without breaking a ton of stuff including: spanned clips, timecode and any other metadata associated with the clips. Once it's transcoded though, I can rename things with my normal file management system (project, A or B cam, Card #, and Date.)

Cineform does cost money, but if you're serious about what you do, it's really not that expensive.
 
ericksonpost said:
Now, Quicktime is awesome when running on a Mac, but on a PC, it's a whole different story.
Click to expand...

I guess you're talking about the player? The system itself is still rough under a Mac, being 32-bit and all. That's why AV Foundation exists now.

For Premiere, do not use any video file that ends in a .MOV extension. Your best bet, if you must transcode, is use Adobe Media Encoder (either by itself or in conjunction with Premiere for your spanned clips and whatnot), to transcode to AVC-Intra or DVCPRO HD in the P2 file format structure.
 
I need to try this out on a Mac. I keep transcoding to ProRes because I'm used to editing with it from so many years of FCP. AVC-Intra 50 or 100? I would think 50 is lateral to AVCHD.
 
Alright, I'll try those out.
How do the three (AVCHD, AVC-Intra 100, DVCPRO HD) compare in terms of file size and CPU power needed to play/edit?

I'll probably just do some tests myself between the formats if you don't know off hand, but I figured I'd ask and save myself some time (this is just a side project and I won't get back to it for at least a week probably).
 
OP1a MXF is the best for play ability and editability.

And how about quicktime for windows, I bought quicktime 7 about 9 years ago for 40 bucks and they still has not made a new version. its awesome!
 
If you want to go with something that has built in support with Premiere you can use Adobe Prelude to import. I haven't used it much yet, but you can import and even rough cut with it before sending your project over to Premiere.
 
I haven't had a problem editing AVCHD files on my Win7 machine. Smooth and artefactfree. I do have a healthy amount of RAM and crunching power but even my small Dell at work works fine with AVCHD.
 
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