GH2 Sedna B AQ1 HBR PAL project: Premiere Pro workflow?

K

katig

Member
Next weekend I am shooting music video, GH2 with SEDNA B AQ1 HBR PAL. Can you please suggest the best possible workflow in Premiere Pro CS5.5 - AVC-I 50 1080p 25, AVC-I 100 1080p 25 or AVCHD 1080 25p (grading will be done with Colorista)? What is the best final export format (for broadcast) to preserve the exceptional quality of the original SEDNA intra footage? Thnx
 
katig, once you've imported your footage, drag and drop one of the .MTS files onto the "New Item" icon (next to the trash icon) and Premiere will create the sequence with the proper settings for you. The best export for broadcast depends on the broadcaster, and they each should have a Content Delivery Spec that you can refer to.
 
thank you for advice, but i already know that. what bothers me (coming from the 'canon wonderland', this is my first project with panasonic and intra footage) is that premiere will 'make' avchd sequence if i do this procedure you described, and is it maybe better to manually make intra sequence or it doesn't matter. also, is there 'the best' format for final export of intra footage because my broadcasters can play anything i give them (pal only).
 
I took an all I-frame .MTS file from my hacked GH2 and dropped it into the following 3 sequences:

AVC-I 100 1080p24
AVC-I 50 1080p24
AVCHD 1080p24

Then exported to the HD Broadcast Specs we use. Result: All 3 transport streams were exactly the same filesize to the byte. So I would tend to think it doesn't matter. The all I-frame files from hacked GH2s don't seem to be AVC-Intra 50/100 compliant anyways just looking at the specs (someone please feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken).

Regarding the best settings, I'm not sure what to tell you because your situation is different. The broadcaster I work with is extremely particular about receiving compliant files. They sent us Premiere export preset files to ensure that. MPEG2 CBR bitrates in the 50s with AC-3 audio.
 
The sequence settings makes absolutely no difference to how Premiere deals with the footage, it would be pretty crap if it did tbh if you think about it. You can mix many types of footage in a sequence, MTS source files, DPX sequences etc, etc, so if sequence settings actually made a difference it would be a showstopping limitation on Premiere as a serious NLE. What the sequence settings do affect is the defaults/format it chooses to export your timeline if you select 'match sequence settings' on export. What you do need to do however is make sure in your sequence settings that you've selected maximum bit depth and maximum render quality, and make sure that when you export that maximum render quality is selected too. These settings effect how Premiere internally processes your footage, they are the only settings you need to worry about with regard to how premiere interprets your footage. Exporting to Intra is fine, as is exporting it to H.264 again at whatever bitrate you like although Premieres H264 export isn't that great (in terms of the control you have over it, check out the Mainconcept plugin for a good H264 export codec for premiere), there is no 'best' export format. I would however say don't try DNxHD in a quicktime file, that doesnt work with Premiere CS5.5 it creates terrible artifacts, its not the codec at fault (I use it perfectly happily with other applications), its Premieres Quicktime bridge I think.

Edit : Oh, er.. obviously you do need to get the resolution and fps of your files right in your sequence settings, as in 25 1080p or your previews will be wacky.
 
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