WORKFLOW question - h.264 files, AVCHD and CS5 performance on large project?

[stevedocmaker]

I'm trying to come up with a workflow for a longform project, using PP CS5 on a beefy Mac Pro, source footage will be AVCHD (AF100) and h.264 (5D2).

I know I can drop source files form both cameras directly into the CS5 timeline, and even do a few layers and some medium color grading and still get decent playback. I am concerned that down the road - this is a feature-length project - CS5 might bog down with excessive source material, or the native formats might cause problems.

At this point, I plan on offlining some to most of my clips, to trim the excess footage, and thereby keeping the source file sizes in the final timeline down to a minimum. As far as I can tell, I have two choices for this task. The first is to trim the clips in PP, then export them using the h.264-BlueRay settings (max bit rate). The second is to use Clipwrap (or FCP), convert to ProRes422LT, then trim and save the clips. The Prores route is a bit more laborious and uses more than twice the disk space, but may be "safer" in terms of CS5 performance issues. The PP method is quicker, but the resultant files show lots of compression artifacts (in CS5 playback only, not in the underlying frames), indicating that the processing is challenging for the system. I don't believe there will be much if any difference in the end in terms of image quality, I'm just trying to find the path of least resistance.

Of course, once I start transcoding to ProRes, I might be better off just transcoding everything. But will this lead to more problems with CS5, having to load thousands of gigabytes of source material?

Any of these methods will work fine on short projects, but which method will give me the least trouble down the road, when I have perhaps over a TB of source material to deal with?

 

[Jim Simon]

I am concerned that down the road - this is a feature-length project - CS5 might bog down with excessive source material, or the native formats might cause problems.

I'm curious what causes that concern. Personally, it's not something I'd be worried about.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

I'm trying to come up with a workflow for a longform project, using PP CS5 on a beefy Mac Pro, source footage will be AVCHD (AF100) and h.264 (5D2).

Isn't this the sort of thing that proxies were made for... create low res versions of your original media, work with said media, to the point where you then want to render out with the originals...

The biggest problem for a 'large project' is having enough highspeed disk storage, such that if you were to keep the original resolution, you would not impact the playability of the media.

That of course is what Terabytes of Raid storage was made for...

 

[stevedocmaker]

Disc storage is not so much the problem. This is the first project I'm editing with CS5 (FCP convert). IIn prperation for editing, I've read on this board and a few others about problems in large projects with unworkable load times in PP. This may have been worked out since these posts, or it may be a function of hardware used by these people. In either case, it seems prudent to get the best possible workflow in place before editing, so as to minimize this type of issue.

Other posters mention issues with having multiple file types in the timeline, and playback performance. Once again, I'm just trying to get as much info as possible before I spend weeks transcoding.

Anyone with experience on large projects and PP CS5 please chime in!

 

[aguia]

I'm working right now on a project that is not long form but involves lots and lots of material that must be cut into 20 or more sub 5 minute pieces. I have fairly robust hardware and no issues with any actual editing tasks working in Sony AVCHD native with multiple layers (w/o effects). I find that the biggest time sponge is browsing media. I'm not certain why but sometimes it takes way too long to load a large thumbnail view of a folder with more than 50 clips in it. All of our material is logged but I still want to look at alternates and often go back to my media bins. I think this is probably peculiar to the way AVCHD works and the demands it puts on processor decoding. All the long form broadcast projects I've worked on (after 2004) were done on AVID MC and even though we had a big fat unity server we worked in Avid offline resolutions just to be prudent with space because we were all old enough to remember what a hassle it was to run out of space near the end of a job back before you could buy a terabyte for $50.

I think CS5 has the muscle to handle long form in native, I've not yet run into an issue with using multiple file types in a timeline (HDV, DV, AVCHD, AVID codec) but CS5 is fussy about hardware configuration and its probably a good idea to have a fully loaded box with the proper nvidia gpu.

 

[Demistate]

You should have no problem making an edit for a feature length film with the set up you've described.

Just make sure you have 12+gbs of ram if you plan on Color correcting or denoising footage inside premiere. hanging an effect on every one of your cuts will make you run out of ram pretty quickly.

If you don't have 12gb of ram I would just split your project up into quarters when you go to final color/finishing vfx.

 

[Phil1076]

I'm curious why you think that CS5 "might bog down with excessive source material, or the native formats might cause problems."

Why not worry about it when/if it happens?

Chances are you'll never have to worry about it because the software is "Hollywood-grade".

The only thing that may cause CS5 to "bog down" would be a slow computer, which isn't the fault of the software.

 

[Demistate]

Chances are you'll never have to worry about it because the software is "Hollywood-grade".

The only thing that may cause CS5 to "bog down" would be a slow computer, which isn't the fault of the software.

CPU speed has nothing to do with having hard faults due to lack of RAM. Also the software become very unstable when you start having to wait longer than expected for operations because your caching everything to the hard drive.

In a professional setting, you cant have your hardware causing you problems when you're finishing a film. Time can cost you money/sleep down the road, so it's good to know if your hardware will be up to snuff or if you need to upgrade.

 

[jaycanode]

Make sure you have support for CS5 Mercury playback engine in your MAC. Invidia graphics CUDA card officially supported by CS5 and 8+ gigs of RAM

Would not attempt the project without this as bare minimum.

 

[aguia]

Make sure you have support for CS5 Mercury playback engine in your MAC. Invidia graphics CUDA card officially supported by CS5 and 8+ gigs of RAM

Would not attempt the project without this as bare minimum.

I would never consider CS5 without at least 12gb RAM minimum. I ran it with 8gb for a week while I was testing the workstation build and it felt a little dumpy, everything was pleasurable when I went to 12gb and now with 16gb speed issues rarely cross my mind.