Good codecs for editing in Premiere

Smifis said:
It's expensive crap that will work.

I can never justify the cost of a quadro and on a students budget, like me, not the best way to spend your money.

I have a lowly Nvidia GeForce 9200GT with 2xDVi and HDMI and it works beautifully with Premiere Pro and the whole CS4 suite.
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:)

I just recommend much the same to our friend last night. We were able to find a 1GB GeForce card with 2 DVI and the combined S-Video/HD Component out port for under $140.

I think that's going to absolutely remove any video bottleneck he may be experiencing. And give him access to CUDA accelerated stuff in the future.
 
Well good luck.

I have that card in one of my machines, not sure which though but it is of the Palit variety i believe.

Havn't the prices for things skyrocketed.
 
Hi guys,

Well, after the long hurdle, I'm finally done editing this pesky test footage together. I want to thank all of you on this thread who helped me with this, step by step. Especially Smifis, for his wonderful offline-edit tutorial that he uploaded as a PDF, and PerroneFord, who actually worked with me extensively via instant messenger on this and has become something of a long-distance friend now, throughout all this.

Since there's a lot you don't know about what unfolded since my last post here let me just recap it with a flurry of keywords:

huge video card, PCI-e bracket snapped, hour drive to Fry's Electronics, inferior replacement motherboard, OS Boot Error, potential Windows reinstall, defective firewire port, lemon Seagate drive, 48 min on-hold customer service, Seagate sends wrong replacement drive, regret, doubt, perseverance, graphics card finally installed, HD video still stutters, insanity, Crystal March speed test with Perrone, correct Seagate drive being sent finally, impatience, Neo Scene conversion, success!, offline-edit, Smifis PDF, editing progresses... completion!

With that, I can finally say I have finished cutting together the first test footage I shot with the Canon 7D. Mind you, this was a two hour test shoot we did on the fly at my buddy's house, while I was home for the Holidays with the camera. My friend (who is primarily a photographer) shot it. We had nothing but a $100 tripod, one light, and his wife acting in it. (after we annoyed the shi* out of her till she finally gave in). My friend didn't like how clear the LCD made everything look, so he kept hiking up the f/s, hence increasing the ISO. At first, this seemed like a good idea, as it brought up our darkness levels and shadows. But again, this is when you're looking at a palm-sized LCD viewfinder. We didn't have any sort of live playback. We were rushing to get this done, as my co-director and friend had a party to go to. So it didn't occur to me to just run upstairs and grab my Macbook Pro and jack it in as a live monitor. Therefore, a couple of things happened when I viewed the uncut footage later that week. 1. A lot of it was out of focus. I had to cut around most of this, but a few soft shots still snuck their way in. 2. The footage looked very 'noisy' when played at Full Screen. It looked almost like 16mm film. Sure, this was interesting looking, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted. But hey, that's why they call it 'test footage'.

But something cool happened soon after. Since I knew I'd only be showing this stuff online, there was no need to have it full screen. And of course, when shrunk down to something like Vimeo or YouTube, those blacks became crushed, the contrast went up, and suddenly that noise didn't look so bad. Still, I learned a lot from this 2 hour test, and made a lot of mistakes I won't repeat the next time.

With that being said, I'd love for you to all check out the finished result. It's only 82 seconds long. I'd love any critique or feedback you can give me. Also, if this is the wrong place to post this, I apologize to the moderators and will post it elsewhere.



If you'd like to watch this clip properly, in HD, just go here: http://vimeo.com/8882064
 
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Very cool.

I'm glad my workflow worked for you and wow a lot has happened since your last post. broke the pcie bracket? how'd you manage that!

I think the next thing to do is get a monitor or use your mac, some of the shots we noticble soft but not too bad.

Well done.
 
parallactic-pictures said:
I'd love for you to all check out the finished result. It's only 82 seconds long. I'd love any critique or feedback you can give me. Also, if this is the wrong place to post this, I apologize to the moderators and will post it elsewhere.
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That's excellent! I actually registered just to comment on it (been lurking a while) and share my own workflow.

I'm also a 7D user who has been using PPCS4, and just picked up FCS 3. I too found that editing the native files from the 7D wasn't going to work on my Quad 2.66 MacPro, so I went the proxy-offline route in PP.

My methodology was a bit different; instead of using two projects, I set up a single project, configuring it to match the original 1080p footage. I placed the original files in one folder (named "Originals") on disk, and grouped them in a single "Video" group in the project. I then batch-transcoded additional 640x360 copies, trying various codecs before settling on AIC (this was prior to owning FCS and ProRes). I placed the proxy files (which each had the same name as the originals) in a folder named "Proxies" on my disk.

Then, in the project, I selected the Video group and made everything in it offline. I then re-connected the group, and selected the proxy files as the replacements... still within a 1080p timeline. When doing that, I had to scale the 640x360 clips up after adding them, but once that was done, they played as smooth as glass at full size, and I was able to edit without a hitch.

When I was ready to print the final cut, I then took the proxies offline and re-connected to the original files. At that point, it AME rendered the originals beautifully.

Not sure which proxy methodology works best, as each seems to have down sides (either you need to work with 2 projects or you need to keep resizing the proxy files as you bring them in). I'll have to try your method some time to see if it's more efficient.
 
Well i think when it comes down to it, you do it however it works best,

Mines a good instruction to an offline/online workflow. It's an easy to follow way and while yours are more sophisticated, it's probably confusing to a new user.

For the edits i do, I find it a bit much when a simple copy and paste can do an offline/online edit, but I dont really work on large project. I might have 6 rushes at the most as i mainly do event videoography, your workflow would work an awful lot better for those with lots of assets/rushes such as someone making a documentary.
 
PerroneFord said:
I wish you had come back in here and asked. Yes, you can select which DNxHD bit rate to use. But there is a little glitch with the display window. When you click to customize the DNxHD codec, there is just a little sliver of a window at the bottom. It's hard to see the first time. But if you click that pulldown menu. you'll get the WORLD of choices.

So go back and just do one file, and Select DNxHD 36. See how it looks and how it plays in Premiere.
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I am trying to use streamclip to convert using the DNx36 codecs, but I can't seem to find that sliver of a window. Screenshot please?
 
Update - I found it. And it really is ghetto looking.

For those who are still looking... Once you select the AVID DHxHD Codec, click on the Options button to the right of the compression drop down menu. An Avid DNxHD Codec Configurations box will pop open. At the bottom of that box it looks like something else was supposed to be there, but the box was too small. And a scroll doesn't exist to see the rest of the window. Click on the white sliver at the bottom, and it will open up the other options. Btw... This thread was very very helpful.
 
Hey guys, thanks for the good info in this thread. I have followed your suggestions and downloaded mpeg streamclip and the DNxHD codec. I am having some trouble with the next step. I can't seem to get the settings right to export the DNxHD files so that they won't require a heavy render to edit in CS3.

What settings are you gentlemen using for 1) exporting DHxHD from mpeg streamclip and 2) project settings in Premiere CS3?


I am editing on a Mac, but may be transitioning to PC at some point. This is why your recommendation of DNxHD as a god cross platform codec for editing 7d footage piqued my interest.

Thanks in advance.
 
I Wish there was just one brilliant cross platform solution that worked with everything and as supported by anything that was easy to edit with manageable file sizes. :(
 
Smifis said:
I Wish there was just one brilliant cross platform solution that worked with everything and as supported by anything that was easy to edit with manageable file sizes. :(
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We all do.

However, there are VERY good reasons why it hasn't happened. Some, like Avid were pushing the envelope and creating something that didn't exist. Some, like Apple were using other's technology to build their own, and then making it impossible for others to do the same. Some like Vegas and Premiere decided to support as much as possible without making people transcode. This was fine for SD, but it's killing them in HD.

I have hopes that they will all settle on a Jpeg2000 or derivative in the next 3-5 years though I know that's probably a pipe dream. It has the ability to offer files smaller than h.264/AVC, it can be lossy or lossless, and it can be decoded quite quickly so it can play in real time. Implementing it is free or nearly so. Cineform jumped on this years ago and has done well with it. But there is further yet to do. RED has jumped on the bandwagon with REDCode, and is offering 4K files in the same file sizes we've been seeing from the 7D or the DVCProHD.

The technology is there, but the barriers are huge.
 
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