Archive for the ‘Premiere’ Category

RE:Vision’s FieldsKit ReInterlacer

Friday, May 16th, 2014

In Summary:

Purpose of FieldsKit ReInterlacer:

  • Transforms progressive video (e.g. HDp25 frames/sec) into spatio-temporal interlaced video (e.g. SDi50 fields/sec).  It achieves this by estimating the fields that would have been shot (had the original video itself been shot as interlaced) between each frame of the progressive video, via a process of motion estimation.
    •  Most NLEs do not use this “perfectionist” method, instead they at best simply combine (ghost-blur) successive frames, with no compensation for time/motion.
    • On an interlaced display, such as an old analog TV or projector,
      • The “NLE-simple” approach may lead to dynamic (changing e.g. moving) scenes and objects appearing flickery.
      • The “perfectionist” approach will instead typically avoid such flicker.

Configuration of  FieldsKit ReInterlacer:

  • Field Order: [Lower First]
  • Output Type: [= Create motion estimated fields]
    • This is not the default (oddly).  But it is the only proper way to get the expected “perfectionist” reinterlacing to happen!
  • Source Layer: [Video 1]

Supplier’s website:

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Adobe CC: Speech-to-Text: Language Modules

Sunday, February 9th, 2014

Background

Adobe Premiere has a speech-to-text translator, as part of its content-analysis capability.  At best it is 80% or so correct in its interpretations, though in my experience only 20-30% reliable.  But to optimize its chances, one must select the (spoken) language appropriate to the media (content) being analyzed.  But by default, only one language, US-English is available.  So how do you get further options?

Summary:

  • By default, the only language model (sic) installed is that for US-English.
  • Optionally, one can download (free) Installers for other language modules.
  • One can download the installer for International English language models (sic), from http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/premiere/extend.displayTab3.html
    • These English-language models include: Australian, British, Canadian.
  • Run the Installer
    • Although intended for both CCand CS6,  it only installs to [C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\SpeechAnalysisModels\CS6]
  • Manually copy content from [C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\SpeechAnalysisModels\CS6]
    to [C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\SpeechAnalysisModels\4.0]

    • (sic)
  • Likewise, for Mac OS:
    • Copy all content of [/Library/Application Support/Adobe/SpeechAnalysisModels/CS6
    • to [/Library/Application Support/Adobe/SpeechAnalysisModels/4.0]
  • Incidentally, it is possible to inject (eg via C++ code) a text script directly into XMP metadata
    • See Details for a link and example code.

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Shared Storage Options for Windows & Mac Video Editing Collaboration

Friday, October 18th, 2013

In summary:

There’s no magic option, each workstation needs a local storage volume with block-level data access (as opposed to simply file-level access) and formatted to a file system that is native (doesn’t require translation) to that workstation’s operating system.  Migration and collaboration imply file copying/synchronization, which implies read-access to the “foreign” file-system.  Mac OS can read NTFS, Winows can only read HFS+ via third-party add-on utilities.  Furthermore, for speed and responsiveness appropriate to video editing, the local storage should ideally be RAID or SSD.  In either case, it is possible to split the local storage (e.g. via partitioning) into more than one file-system.  At least, that worked on the mutiple occasions I have taken that approach, and have not been aware of any issues.

In greater detail:

Consider the challenge of setting up a shared data storage volume (e.g. RAID array or SSD) for video editing, such that either Windows or Mac computers can connect to it, and a video project started on (and saved to) on one of those operating systems (OS) can be continued on the other (and vice versa).

My current solution is to split the drive into separate volumes, one for each OS.  For example I have done this on RAIDs of various kinds and on an internal drive for Mac systems bootable to either Mac OS or (via Boot Camp) to Windows.  In the case of RAIDs I was advised against this by my system supplier, but got the impression they were just being defensive, not knowing of any definite issues, and to my knowledge I did not experience any issues.

It is is not practical to have just one volume (necessarily in that case, one file-system format), because:

  • Mac OS on its own is able to read NTFS but cannot write to it.
    • This is a show-stopper.  Some of the major video editing applications (e.g. NLEs), slightly disturbingly, may use (or for some functionality, even depend on) read/write access to source-files and the folders containing them.
      • I initially, naively, imagined that video editing systems etc. would only ever read source media files, not write to them, or to the folders containing them.  However that proved very naive indeed…
        • In Apple/Mac’s (erstwhile) Final Cut Pro 7 I regularly used their (moving) image stabilization effect, SmoothCam.  Its analysis phased was typically slow and heavy – not something one would wish to repeat.  The result was a “sidecar” file of similar forename to the analyzed source file, but a different extension, placed in the same folder as the source file.
        • I’m not certain, but got the feeling that maybe the source file (or folder) meta data, such as permissions or somekind of interpretation-change to media files in the quicktime ([.mov] mmedia format.
      • Certainly, Adobe (on Windows and Mac) could adulterate both files (by appending XMP data – being an Adobe media metadata dialect in XML) and the folders they occurred in (depending on uder-configuration) in terms of sidecar-files.
      • Sony Vegas also generates sidecar-files, e.g. for audio peaks.
  • File system translation add-ons can add Windows read/write access to HFS+ (ordinarily it could not even read it) and add Mac OS write access to NTFS (ordinarily it could only read it), but not sufficiently transparent/seamless for big real-time data access as required for demanding video editing endeavours.
    • File system translation add-ons (to operating systems) exist, such as MacDrive, to allow Windows to read/write Mac OS, or Tuxera NTFS, Paragon NTFS or Parallels for Mac to enable it to read/write NTFS, but these (reportedly, and in part of my experience) only really work well for standard “Office” type applications, not so well for heavy (big andd real-time) data applications such as video editing, where they can impede the data throughput.  Doh!
    • Some people have experienced obscure issues of application functionality, beyond data-movement speed issues.
    • {Also, I am concerned over the (unknown/imagined/potential) risk that the “alien” operating system and/or its translation utility might alter the file system in some way that upsets its appearance to the “home” operating system.}
  • FAT is universal but is a riskier option:
    • FAT is un-journaled, hence risks loss not only of individual files but of whole volume (integrity).
      • In video editing, corruption could be disastrous to a project, not only in terms of possible data-loss or time wasting and project delays on data recovery, but also in terms of “weird” effects during editing, such as poor responsiveness to commands, whose cause the user may not appreciate. or even an increased risk of unacceptable flaws in the final product.
    • FAT32 is essentially obsolete, because its maximum file size is (1 bit under) 4GB.
    • exFAT, a kind of “FAT64” is practical, and indeed a big successful corporate Mac-based production company once supplied me with many GB of footage on an exFAT-formatted external disk.
      • The largest file I have so far stored there is 40GB.  No problems.
  • NAS (Network-Attached Storage) sounds at first an easy option, but in my experience they impede big real-time data throughput (as stated earlier for “file system tyranslation” add-ons). Double-Doh!
    • Such devices only permit file-level access.  Consequently, the client systems can e.g. create or retrieve folders and files, but cannot e.g. format the device or address it in terms of lower-level data structures.
    • A likely explanation for the “impedement” of a NAS (to data responsiveness and throughput) is that such devices store in a local format (typically they run linux) that is invisible to the client, then translate to an appropriate protocol for each operating system accessing it.  They normally incorporate a bunch of such protocols.  As always, translation => overhead.
    • Other options, such as SAN and iSCSI, instead of providing file-level access to the client systems, instead offer the lower level of data block access.  Thus they appear to the client system as would any local storage device, and can be formatted as appropriate to the client system.
  • One suggestion I saw was to use a Seagate GoFlex drive, which can be used (read/write) with both Mac and Windows.  But the supplier’s FAQ (about that drive) indicates that it depends upon a translator utility for the Mac:
    •  If you would like to be able to “shuttle” data back and forth between a Mac and a PC, a special driver needs to be installed onto the Mac that allows it to access a Windows-formatted drive (i.e. NTFS). Time Machine will not work in this case, nor will Memeo Premium software for Mac. However, if you want your GoFlex solution to also work with TimeMachine, the drive will need to be reformatted to HFS+ journaled.

So I guess there is no “magic storage” option, my main work setup will have to remain based on separate volumes for each OS.

When transferring an editing project from one OS to another, the following actions will be necessary:

  • Copy any absent or updated files across.
    • e.g. via a file-synch utility such as Syncovery.
  • Allow time etc. for possible file re-linking, re-indexing, re-preview generation, re-“SmoothCam” (or equivalent).
    • This aspect is down to the editing application etc., as opposed to the operating or file systems themselves.
  • Ensure any effects used in the edit are present on both systems.
    • If so then these should presumably still work…

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Rearranging Video Tracks (in various NLEs)

Sunday, July 14th, 2013

The ability to rearrange the order of video and audio (etc.) tracks in an editing-project in a Non-Linear Editing project.

It’s one of those basic things I assumed all NLEs would allow.  But not so.  Some have workarounds involving the creation of new Sequences and pasting in contents from original Sequences, in which case why haven’t they simply automated that workaround?  Bizarre!

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HDV 50i from Sony Vegas to SD 50i Intermediate to Adobe Encore DVD

Sunday, July 14th, 2013

(This is actually an older post, from about a wek or so ago, but it was left languishing in “Draft” status.  But rather than delete it, here it is, out-of-sequence, for posterity)

Nowadays for video editing I mainly use Adobe CS6.  However I have still some old projects edited with Sony Vegas (10) which now have new clients.  One such project was shot as HDV on a Z1, giving 1440×1080 interlaced, at 50 fields/second, which I call 50i (it doesn’t really make sense to think of it as 25 fps).  The required new deliverable from this is a PAL-SD DVD, 720×5786 50i.  In addition, I want to deliver high-quality progressive HD (not V) 1920×1080 progressive.

The PAL-SD frame size of 720×576 has exactly half the width of the HDV source and just over half its height.  My naive initial thought was that the simple/cheap way to convert from the HDV source to the SD deliverable would be to merely allow each of the HDV fields to be downscaled to the equivalent SD field.  This could be performed in Sony Vegas itself, to produce an SD intermediate file as media asset to Encore to produce a DVD.

Some potential complications (or paranoia) that come to mind in this approach are:

  • Levels-changes, through processes associated with the intermediate file.  For example it might accidentally be written as 16-235 range and read at 0-255 range.  In general, uncertainty can arise over the different conventions of different NLEs and also the different settings/options that can be set for some codecs, sometimes independently for write and for read.
  • HD (Rec 709) to SD (Rec 601) conversion: I think Vegas operates only in terms of RGB levels, the 601/709 issue is only relevant to the codec stage, where codec metadata defines how a given data should be encoded/decoded.  The codec I intend to use is GoPro-Cineform, with consistent write/encode and read/decode settings.  Provided Vegas and Encore respect those, there should be no issue.  But there is the worry that either of these applications might impose their own “rules of thumb”, e.g. that small frames (like 720×576) should be interpreted as 601, overriding the codec’s other settings.
  • Interlace field order.  HDV is UFF, whereas SD 50i (PAL) is LFF.  Attention is needed to ensure the field order does not get swapped, as this would give an impression of juddery motion.

So I did some experiments…

  • Vegas (1) Project Settings:
    • Frame Size: 720×576
    • Field Order: LFF
    • PAR: 1.4568
  • Render Settings:
    • Frame Size: (as Project)
    • Field order: LFF (I think the default might have been something else)
    • PAR: 1.4568
    • Video Format: Cineform Codec

What Worked:

  • Sony Vegas (v.10) project for PAL-SD Wide, video levels adjusted to full-range (0-255) via Vegas’s Levels FX, then encoded to GoPro-Cineform.
  • Just as a test, this was initially read into an Adobe Premiere project, set for PAL-SD-Wide.  There, Premiere’s Reference Monitor’s YC Waveform revealed the levels range as 0.3 to 1 volts, which corresponds to NTSC’s 0-100% IRE on the 16-235 scale.  No levels-clipping was observed.
  • So using the 0-255 levels in Vegas was the right thing to do in this instance.
  • The Configure Cineform Codec panel in Sony Vegas (v.10) was quite simple, offering no distinction between encode and decode, allowing only for various Quality levels and for the Encoded Format to be YUV or RGB.  The latter was found to have no effect on the levels seen by Premiere, it only affected the file-size, YUV being half the size of RGB.  Very simple – I like that!
  • In Premiere, stepping forwards by frame manually, the movements looked smooth.

In Adobe Encore (DVD-Maker) CS6:

  • Imported the intermediate file as an Asset and appended it to the existing main timeline.
  • Encore by default assumed it was square-pixels.  Fixed that as follows:
    • [theClip >RtClk> Interpret Footage] to selrct the nearest equivalent to what I wanted: [Conform to SD PAL Widescreen (1.4587)].
      • Why does Encore’s [1.4587] differ from Vegas’s [1.4568] ?  Any consequence on my result?
  • Generated a “Virtual DVD” to a folder.
  • Played that “Virtual DVD” using Corel WinDVD
    • In a previous experiment, involving a badly-produced DVD having swapped field-order, I found this (unlike WMP or VLC) reproduced the juddering effect I had seen on a proper TV-attached DVD player.  So WinDVD is a good test.
  • Made a physical DVD via Encore.
  • The physical DVD played correctly on TV (no judder).

An alternative would be to deinterlace the original 50i to produce an intermediate file at 50p, ideally using best-quality motion/pixel based methods to estimate the “missing” lines in each of the original fields.  But would the difference from this more sophisticated approach be noticeable?

There also exists an AviSynth script for HD to SD conversion (and maybe HDV to SD also?).

  • It is called HD2SD, and I report my use of it elsewhere in this blog.  I found it not to be useful, producing a blurry result in comparison to that of Sony Vegas ‘s scaling (bicubic).

 

Best Workflow for High-resolution Master (e.g. HD or HDV) to Multi-Format Including SD-DVD

Saturday, July 13th, 2013

What is the best workflow for going from a high-resolution footage, potentially either progressive or interlaced,  possibly through an intermediate Master (definitely in progressive format) to a variety of target/deliverable/product formats, from the maximum down to lower resolution and/or interlaced formats such as SD-DVD ?

Here’s one big fundamental: Naively one might have hoped that long-established professional NLEs such as Premiere might provide high-quality optical processing based downscaling from HD to SD, but my less optimistic intuition, about the un-likelihood of that, proved correct.  In my post http://blog.davidesp.com/archives/815 I note the BBC Technical standards for SD Programmes state: <<Most non linear editing packages do not produce acceptable down conversion and should not be used without the broadcaster’s permission>>.

Having only ever used Adobe (CS5.5 & CS6) for web-based video production, early experiences in attempting to produce a number of target/deliverable (product) formats proved more difficult and uncertain than I had imagined…  For a current project, given historical footage shot in HDV (1440×1080, fat pixels), I wanted to generate various products from various flavors of HD (e.g. 1920x1080i50,  1280x720p50) down to SD-DVD (720×576).  So I embarked on a combination of web-research and experimentation.

Ultimately, this is the workflow that worked (and satisfied my demands):

  • Master: Produce a 50 fps (if PAL) progressive Master at the highest resolution consistent with original footage/material.
    • Resolution: The original footage/material could e.g. be HD or HDV resolution.  What resolution should the Master be?
      • One argument, possibly the best one if only making a single format deliverable or if time is no object, might be to retain the original resolution, to avoid any loss of information through scaling.
      • However I took the view that HDV’s non-standard pixel shape (aspect ratio) was “tempting fate” when it came to reliability and possibly even quality in subsequent (downstream in the workflow) stages of scaling (down) to the various required formats (mostly square-pixel, apart from SD-Wide so-called “16:9” pixels, of 1.4568 aspect ratio (or other, depending where you read it).
      • So the Master resolution would be [1920×1080].
    • Progressive: The original footage/material could e.g. be interlaced or progressive, but the Master (derived from this) must be progressive.
      • If original footage was interlaced then the master should be derived so as to have one full progressive frame for each interlaced field (hence double the original frame-rate).
        • The concept of “doubling” the framerate is a moot point, since interlaced footage doesn’t really have a frame rate, only a field rate, because the fields are each shot at different moments in time.  However among the various film/video industry/application conventions, some people refer to 50 fields/second interlaced as 50i (or i50) wile others refer to it as 25i (or i25).  Context is all-important!
    • Quality-Deinterlacing: The best way to convert from interlaced fields-to-frames is via motion/pixel/optical -based tools/techniques:
      • I have observed the quality advantage in practice on numerous projects in the distant past, e.g. when going from HDV or SD (both 50i) to a variety of (lower) corporate web-resolutions.
      • This kind of computation is extremely slow and heavy, hence (for my current machines at least) more an overnight job than a real-time effect… In fact for processing continuously recorded live events of one or two hours, I have found 8 cores (fully utilised) to take a couple of 24-hour days or so – for [AviSynth-MultiThread + TDeint plugin] running on a [Mac Pro > Boot Camp > Windows 7].
      • But (as stated) this general technique observably results in the best quality, through least loss of information.
      • There are a number of easily-available software tools with features for achieving this, Adobe and otherwise:
        • e.g. AviSynth+TDeint, (free) After-Effects, Boris.
        • e.g. FieldsKit is a nice convenient deinterlacing plugin for Adobe (Premiere & After Effects), and is very friendly and useful should you want to convert to a standard progressive video (e.g. 25fps), but (at this time) it can only convert from field-pairs to frames, not from fields to frames.
          • I submitted a Feature Request to FieldsKit’s developers.
    • Intermediate-File Format: A good format for an Intermediate file or a Master file is the “visually lossless” wavelet-based 10-bit 422 (or more) codec GoPro-Cineform (CFHD) Neo
      • Visually lossless (such as CFHD) codecs save considerable amounts of space as compared to uncompressed or mathematically lossless codecs like HuffYUV and Lagarith.
      • I like Cineform in particular because:
        • It is application-agnostic.
        • It is available in both VFW [.avi] and QuickTime [.mov] varieties (which is good because I have found that it can be “tempting fate” to give [.mov] files to certain Windows apps, and indeed not to give it to others).  The Windows version of CFHD comes with a [.avi] <-> [.mov] rewrapper (called HDLink).
        • Another advantage is that CFHD can encode/decode not only the standard broadcast formats (and not only HD) but also specialized “off-piste” formats.  I have found that great for corporate work. It’s as if it always had “GoPro spirit”!
        • CHFD Encoder Settings from within Sony Vegas 10:
          • These settings worked for me in the context of this “Sony-Vegas-10-Initially-then-Adobe-CS6-centric” workflow:
    • Technical Production History of a Master for an Actual Project:
      • This is merely for my own reference purposes, to document some “project forensics” (while I still remember them and/or where they’re documented):
      • This was a “Shake-Down” experience, not exactly straightforward, due to an unexpected “hiccup” between Sony Vegas 10 and AviSynth-WAVSource.  Hiccups are definitely worth documenting too…
      • The stages:
        • Sony Vegas Project: An initial HDV 50i (to match the footage) Intermediate file, containing the finished edit, was produced by Sony Vegas 10 Project:
          • [Master 021a (Proj HDV for Render HDV)  (veg10).veg] date:[Created:[2013-07-01 15:30], Modified:[2013-07-03 20:07]]
          • Movie duration was about 12 minutes.
        • Audio & Video Settings:
          • Project Settings:
            • HDV 1440×1080 50i UFF 44.1KHz
              • The audio was 44.1KHz, both for Project and Render, since most of the audio (music purchased from Vimeo shop) was of that nature.
          • Render Settings:
            • I believe I will have used the following Sony Vegas Render preset: [CFHD ProjectSize 50i 44KHz CFHD (by esp)] .
              • Though I think there may have been a bug in Vegas 10, whereby the Preset did not properly set the audio sampling frequency, so it had to be checked & done manually)
            • The CFHD Codec settings panel only offered two parameters, which I set as follows: Encoded format:[YUV 4:2:2], Encoding quality:[High]
          • The result of Rendering from this Project was the file:
            • [Master 021a (Proj HDV for Render HDV)  (veg10).avi] date:[Created:[2013-07-01 15:30], Modified:[2013-07-01 18:58]]
              • Modified date minus creation date is about 3.5 hours, which I guess accounts for the render-time (on a 2-core MacBook Pro of 2009 vintage winning Windows 7 under Boot Camp).
        • The next stage of processing was to be by AviSynth.
          • However AviSynth had problems reading the audio out of this file (it sounded like crazy buzzes).
          • To expedite the project, and guessing that Vegas 10 had produced a slightly malformed result (maybe related to the audio setting bug?), and hoping that it was just a container-level “audio framing” issue, I “Mended” it by passing it through VirtualDub, in [Direct Stream Copy] mode, so that it was merely rewrapping the data as opposed to decompressing and recompressing it.  The resulting file was:
            • [Master 021a HDV Mended (VDub).avi], date:[Created:[2013-07-08 18:22], Modified:[2013-07-08 18:30]]
          • Since that time, I have discovered the existence of the Cineform tool CFRepair, from forum post at DVInfo: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/cineform-software-showcase/507364-problem-cfrepair.html which itself provided a download link as http://miscdata.com/cineform/CFRepair.zip.
            • Worth trying it out sometime, on this same “broken” file…
        • This was processed into full HD progressive (one frame per field, “double-framerate”) by an AViSynth script as follows, its results being drawn through VirtualDub into a further AVI-CFHD file, constituting the required Master.
          • AviSynth Script:[HDV to HD 1920×1080.avs] date:[Created:[2013-07-04 18:13], Modified:[2013-07-08 22:05]]
            • I used AvsP to develop the script.  It provides helpful help of various kinds and can immediately show the result in its preview-pane.
            • Multi-threaded:
              • To make best use of the multiple cores in my machine, I used the AviSynth-MT variant of AviSynth.  It’s a (much larger) version of the [avisynth.dll] file.  For a system where AviSynth (ordinaire) is already installed, you simply replace the [avisynth.dll] file in the system folder with this one.  Of course its sensible to keep the old one as a backup (e.g. rename it as [avisynth.dll.original]).
            • Audio Issue:
              • This particular script, using function [AVISource] to get the video and and [WavSource] to get the audio, only gave audio for about the first half of the movie, with silence thereafter.
              • Initially, as a workaround, I went back to VirtualDub and rendered-out the audio as a separate WAV file, then changed the script to read its [WAVSource] from this.
              • That worked fine, “good enough for the job” (that I wanted to expedite)
              • However afterwards I found a cleaner solution: Instead of functions [AVISource] and [WAVSource], use the single function [DirectShowSource].  No audio issues.  So use that in future.  And maybe avoid Vegas 10?
          • The script was processed by “pulling” its output video stream through VirtualDub which saved it as a video file, again AVI-CFHD.  Since no filters (video processing) was to be performed in VirtualDub, I used it in [Fast Recompress] mode.  In this mode, it leaves the video data in YUV (doesn’t convert it into RGB), making it both fast and information-preserving.  Possibly (not tested) I could have simply have rendered straight from AvsP:[Tools > Save to AVI].  When I first tried that, I got audio issues, as reported above, hence I switched to rendering via VirtualDub, but in retrospect (having identified a source, perhaps the only source,  of those audio issues) that (switch) might have been unnecessary.
      • The resulting Master file was [Master 021a HDV 50i to HD 50p 1920×1080 (Avs-VDub).avi] date:[Created:[2013-07-08 21:55], Modified:[2013-07-08 22:47]]
        • “Modified minus created” implies a render-time of just under an hour.  This was on a [MacBook Pro (2009) > Boot Camp > Windows 7] having two cores, fully uitilised.
  • Quality inspection of Master:
    • Check image quality, e.g. deinterlacing, via VirtualDub.
      • VirtualDub is great in a close-inspection role because its Preview can zoom well beyond 100% and, vitally, it displays the video as-is, with no deinterlacing etc. of its own.
        • e.g. zoom to 200% to make any interlacing comb-teeth easily visible.  There should not be any, since this Master is meant to be progressive.
  • Premiere Project: Make a Premiere project consistent with the Master, and add chapter markers here.
    • Make Premiere Project consistent with the Master, not the Target.
      • …especially when there is more than one target…
    • Don’t directly encode the master (by Adobe Media Encoder), but instead go via Premiere.
      • I have read expert postings on Adobe forums stating that as of Adobe CS6, this is the best route.
      • This appears to be the main kind of workflow the software designers had in mind, hence a CS6 user is well-advised to follow it.
        • It represents a “well-trodden path” (of attention in CS6’s overall development and testing).
        • Consequently, (it is only in this mode that) high-quality (and demanding, hence CUDA-based) algorithms get used for any required scaling.
        • Not knowing the application in detail, hence having to adopt the speculative approach to decision-making, it feels likely that this workflow would have a greater chance of reliability and quality than other, relatively off-piste ones.
    • Premiere is the best stage at which to add Chapter Markers etc.
      • Chapter markers etc. get stored as ??XMP?? and are thereby visible to Encore (Adobe’s DVD-Builder)
      • Better to place such markers in Premiere rather than in Encore, since:
        • In Encore, Chapter markers act as if they are properties of Assets, not Timelines.
          • If you delete an asset from a timeline, the chapter markers disappear also.
        • Encore (CS6) Replace Asset has some foibles.
          • In Encore, if you were to put an [.avi] file asset on a timeline, then add markers then try to replace that asset with a [.mpg] file, you would be in for a disappointment; if the file extension differs then the markers disappear. If required, then the markers would have to be re-created from scratch. Same again if you subsequently replaced back to a new [.avi] file.
          • The Foibles of Encore (CS6)’s Replace Asset function, in more detail:
            • Good news: If the new asset has the same file extension then any existing markers are retained.
              • This possibly suggests that they are transferred from the old asset to the new one.
            • Bad news: If the new asset file extension differs from the old one, then:
              • You get an error (popup): ???
                • e.g. it refused my attempt to replace an [.avi] file by a [.m2v] file).
              • Partial-workaround:
                • You can instead delete the existing asset from the timeline, prior to dragging another asset there..
                • ..BUT as a side-effect that deletes any of the old asset’s markers also…
                • …and furthermore Encore has no way to copy a set of markers from one asset to another
                  • …which would otherwise have been a nice work-around for the above side-effect.
  • Premiere Export: Export / Render to Target Format.
    • You may wish to render to a number of formats, e.g. SD-Wide DVD, Blu-Ray Disk (BD), YouTube upload format, mobile phone or tablet.
      • The most efficient strategy is to Queue a number of jobs from Premiere onto Adobe Media Encoder (AME.
        • AME can run some things in parallel (I think).
        • AME has a [Pause] button, very useful for overnight silence or prior to travel (Windows Sleep/Hibernate).
    • Menu:[File > Export > Media]
    • Export Settings:
      • For targets of differing aspect ratio (e.g. SD-Wide derived from HD master):
        • Source Scaling:
          • e.g. for HD -> SD, use [Scale to Fill] since this avoids “pillarboxing” i.e. black bars either side.
      • For DVD Target, use inbuilt preset MPEG2-DVD
        • Ensure [Pixel Aspect Ratio] and interlace sense etc. are as required.
        • The [MPEG2-DVD] preset generates two files:
          • [.m2v] for the video
          • [Dolby Digital] or [MPEG] or [PCM]
            • [PCM] option results in a [.wav] file of 16 bits, 48 KHz (there is no 44.1 KHz option).
      • Maximum Render Quality
        • Use this if scaling, e.g. down from HD Master to SD Target.
      • File Path & Name.
        • Where you want the export/encode result to go.
    • Click the [Queue] button, to send the job to the Adobe Media Encoder (AME)
  • Quality Inspection of Result (intermediate or target file):
    • Check the quality of the encodes via VirtualDub, e.g. for DVD-compatible video media, the correctness of interlacing and for progressive media the quality of deinterlacing.
      • For interlaced downscaled material derived from higher resolution interlaced, the combs should be fine-toothed (one pixel in height).  A poor quality result (as expected for straight downscaling by any typical NLE such as Premiere, from HD interlaced to SD interlaced) would instead exhibit combing with thick blurry teeth.
      • VirtualDub is great tool for a a close-inspection role because its Preview can zoom well beyond 100% and, vitally, it displays the video as-is, with no deinterlacing etc. of its own.
        • In the past I have searched for and experimented with a number of candidate tools to be effective and convenient in this role.  VirtualDub was the best I could find.
        • e.g. zoom to 200% to make the teeth easily visible.
      • Plain VirtualDub is unable to read MPEG2 video, but a plugin is available to add that ability:
        • The [mpeg2.vdplugin] plugin by FCCHandler, from http://sourceforge.net/projects/fcchandler/files/Virtualdub%20Mpeg2%20plugin/.
          • It reads straight MPEG2 files, including [.m2v], but not Transport Stream files such as [.m2t] from the Sony Z1.
          • For [.m2v] files, VirtualDub may throw up an audio-related error, since such files contain no audio.  Fix: In VirtualDub, disable audio.
        • Its ReadMe file contains installation instructions.  Don’t just put it in VirtualDub’s existing [plugins] folder.
  • DVD Construction via Adobe Encore.
    • Name the Project according to the disk-label (data) you would like to see for the final product.
      • If you use Encore to actually burn the disk, this is what gets used for that label.
      • Alternative options exist for just burning the disk, e.g. the popular ImgBurn, and this allows you to define your own disk-label (data).
    • Import the following as Assets:
      • Video file, e.g. [.m2v]
      • If Video File was an [.m2v] then also import its associated Audio file – it does not get automatically loaded along with the [.m2v] file.
    • Create required DVD structure
      • This is too big a topic to cover here.
    • Quality Inspection: [Play From Here]
      • Menu:[File > Check Project]
        • Click [Start] button
        • Typical errors are actions [Not Set] on [Remote] or [End Action]
          • I plan to write a separate blog entry on how to fix these.
        • When everything is ok (within the scope of this check), it says (in status bar, not as a message): “No items found”.
          • A worrying choice of phrase, but all it means is “no error-items found”.
    • Menu:[File > Build > Folder]
      • Don’t select [Disk], since:
        • May want to find and fix any remaining problems prior to burning to disk.
        • May want to use an alternative disk burning application, such as ImgBurn.
          • From forums, I see that many Adobe users opt for ImgBurn.
      • Set the destination (path and filename) for the folder in which the DVD structure will be created.
        • At that location it creates a project-named folder and within that the VIDEO_TS folder (but no dummy/empty AUDIO_TS folder).
          • I once came across an ancient DVD player that insisted on both AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folder being present and also they had to be named in upper-case, not lower.
      • Under [Disk Info] there is a colored bar, representing the disk capacity
        • Although the Output is to a folder, the Format is DVD, single-sided, which Encore realizes can hold up to 4.7 GB.
      • The [DVD ROM] option allows you to include non-DVD files, e.g. straight computer-playable files e.g. ([.mp4])
        • These go to the root of the drive, alongside the VIDEO_TS folder.
      • Finally, click the [Build] button.
        • On one occasion, it failed at this stage, with a “Encode Failed” or “Transcode Failed” (depending where I looked) error.  Solution: Shorten the file name.
          • Ok it was long-ish but I didn’t realize Encore would be so intolerant to that.  The suggestion of it only struck me later (the appearance of this guess was thanks to years of experience with computing etc.).
  • Quality Inspection of the DVD
    • I have found Corel WInDVD to show results representative of a standard TV with a DVD Player.
    • I have found popular media player such as VLC and Windows Media Player (WMP) to behave differently to this, hence not useful for quality-checking.   Problems I found included:
      • False Alarm: Playing went straight to the main video, didn’t stop at the Main Menu (as had been intended).  However it worked fine on a standard physical DVD player.
      • Hidden Problem: In one case I deinterlaced improperly, resulting in “judder” on movements when played on TV (via physical DVD player).  However it appeared fine on both VLC and WMP.
  • Metadata
    • In the case of WMV files, just use Windows Explorer:[aFile >RtClk> Properties > Details] and edit the main items of metadata directly.
    • For DVD generated by Adobe Encore, the Disk label (data) is the same as the Project name.
      • ImgBurn, a popular alternative to Encore as regards actually burning a disk, provides a way of changing this disk-label.

Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 Warp Stabilizer Slow: No GPU/CUDA, Maybe no MultiThread?

Sunday, March 10th, 2013

My current project, a live rock performance (at an offshore radio party on a ship) involved significant quantities of handheld footage.  I’m editing this one in Adobe Premiere,  A lot of the handheld footage benefited from stabilization.  The easiest stabilization to hand is the Warp Stabilizer effect within Premiere.

It is really handy, and worked for me maybe 75% of the time, other situations gave unrealistic or unusable results.  So there is still a role for keeping back-up options such as Gunnar Thalin’s excellent Deshaker (and rendering to intermediates e.g. in GoPro-Cineform).

It is SLOW, a real time-loser, the main delay being its Motion Analysis stage.

  • This stage is computationally intensive in principle, a fundamental issue for any such device.
  • Some systems employ parallel execution here, to good effect: vastly reduced analysis (waiting) time.
  • However it seems that Premiere CS6 does not employ GPU here, and from Windows’ Task Manager, I infer that it is not even using multithreading (though I don’t know that for a fact).

Other than that, it does apparently use GPU/CUDA for its subsequent stabilize/deshake stage, and indeed that stage is very quick indeed, facilitating experimentation with settings (e.g. Subspace Warp or Position mode) to obtain the desired effect.

Incidentally, I found the default Subspace Warp mode to be “fragile”, so I use Position instead:

  • It often makes things in the background flap or wobble in unrealistic manner.
  • I therefore use Position mode, the simplest mode, as my default, then only advance to “Rotation” (etc.) if there is camera rotation.
  • It didn’t work well with very noisy footage, e.g.  Sony Z1 in Hyper-Gain mode, even if when denoising was applied earlier in the effects-chain.

Lastly, it’s a shame there’s no way/settings for:

  • Defining a mask, rectangular or otherwise, for region(s) to focus on or to avoid.  For example to prevent it locking onto a singer’s head instead of the stage.
  • Telling it to definitely not try to compensate for rolling-shutter.  When I know the camera is CCD, I ought to be able to tell the software not to consider rolling-shutter.  I never fully trust “Auto”, not in any application or context…

(more…)

After Effects (etc.) CS6: Workflows for XDCAM-EX Footage

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

As remarked in an earlier blog entry, I was concerned about how best to import/use XDCAM-EX footage in an After Effects CS, especially when that footage could be spanned across more than one [.mp4] file, especially given that their contents can overlap.  In Premiere this is not an issue, because its (new) Media Browser feature provides instead a higher-level view, of clips rather than lower-level [.mp4] essence-files.

Sadly, as yet, AE CS6 has no equivalent of the Media Browser.

Best workaround:

  • In Premiere, use Media Browser to import an XDCAM-EX clip, then copy it and paste that “virtual” clip into AE.

Workflows involving Adobe Prelude:

  • The web-search record (below) not only provides the foundation for the above statements, it also contains an explanation of the different workflows (e.g. whether or not to sort/trim/rename clips in Prelude).  Some workflows are best for short-form (typically involving tens of footage-clips) while other workflows may be more appropriate for long-form (hundreds or thousands of clips).

(more…)

Adobe Premiere CS6: Nested Sequences: Slow Response to Play-Button (Re-buffering? Re-parsing?)

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

Context:

  • I had a Sequence  containing two video tracks, each having a pair of (associated) audio tracks.
    • Sequence Properties: 1080p, square pixels, 25 fps.
    • One track contained a single continuous clip of duration just over one hour[01:02:46:10].
      • Properties: 1080p, square pixels, 25 fps.
      • Format: Sony XDCAM-EX: MPEG2 @ 35 Mbps VBR: MPEG2HD35_1920_1080_MP@HL
    • The other track contained a number of discrete clips, intermittently spaced over that time.
      • Properties: 1080i, fat pixels (PAR=4/3), 25 fps (50 fields/sec), UFF.
      • Format: Sony Z1 HDV: MPEG2 @ 25Mbps CBR
  • This sequence, as it stood, played fine.
  • Then I nested that sequence (seqA)  inside another sequence (seqB).
    • Still played fine

Problem:

  • Then I did some multicam “music video” edits, mostly near the end of the sequence
    • Now, when I hit the spacebar to play seqB, there is a delay of several seconds before playing actually begins.
  • If I try re-creating from scratch, by nesting seqA inside new seqC then seqC plays fine.
  • If I try copying the multicam-edited elements of seqB (the multicam edit-sequence) into new seqD (a new multicam edit-sequence) then the sluggish response to [Play] still occurs.
    • Doh!  I had hoped that would be a simple workaround..

Partial Workaround:

  • Following web-advice regarding a broadly-similar issue with multicamera sequences comprising spanned clips (e.g. AVCHD or Canon’s H264) , I tried transcoding the footage to GoPro-Cineform
    • Based on Adobe’s workaround-advice regarding broadly similar problems with long hence spanned AVCHD footage.  My footage is not AVCHD, but the main clip is Sony XDCAM-EX, which has some features (like spanning) in common with AVCHD.  Worth a shot!
      • On a 4-Core i7 PC with GPU, it encoded at about real-time, which in my case was about an hour.  CPU was only 25% i.e. equivalent to a single core
    • Replaced the relevant clip in seqA.
      • To my delight, the clip-markers (in that clip in seqA) were retained/applied in that replacement footage.
  • However, the sluggish [Play]-start remained, though possibly shortened, from about 6 seconds to 4 seconds.

Further Workaround:

  • Duplicate seqA
  • Nest it in a separate multicam sequence (seqE)
  • Do multicam edits on further segments of the event in that (seqE)
    • Intend later to nest/sequence usable bits of each multicam edit-sequence in a Master sequence.
  • Where there’s a will, there’s a workaround…
    • Still, I expect better of Adobe…
    • I lost about 3 hours to this (including web-searching, waiting transcoding and general experimentation).

Further gripes:

  •  God it’s clunky!
    • Every time I stop multicam-preview to tweak the multicam cut timings, then return to multicam editing, I have to remember to activate the multicam monitor, not the timeline (where the tweaks are done).  Unfortunately my reflex is simply to hit the spacebar.  It is a nuisance to have to fight that reflex…
    • Every time I stop multicam-preview, it leaves a cut at the final position of the playhead.  Not useful and simply clutters the timeline, distracting from real cuts.
    • Zoom [+] only affects the Timeline, not the multicam monitor.  As a result, I tend to set the playhead position using the timeline.  Doh! must remember to click (activate) back to the multicam monitor once more…
    • Ranged (duration not zero) markers are great but adjusting their right-hand end can be tricky, since this can change the playhead and/or timeline-display.  Things snatch and interact that shouldn’t (I feel).
    • Sony Vegas is far better in these respects, though not in some others, so I’m sticking with Adobe…
  • Unexpected Preview-Rendering is happening…!?  How come?
    • In principle, that shouldn’t be happening?   I have a state-of -the-art (4-core i7 & GPU) laptop specifically for CS6, no effects applied, just cutting between two cameras, some plain dissolves (between segments of the multicam sequence) – but surely the Mercury Engine should take them in its stride?  (or can’t it cope yet with multicam?).

    (more…)

    SonicFire Pro (DVD Writer): SmartSound Music

    Saturday, February 16th, 2013

    Just now I opened SonicFire Pro on and a popup appeared with the following announcement:

    This version of SonicFire Pro can interact with the following applications:

    • Adobe Premiere CS5 and up
    • Adobe After Effects CS5 and up
    • Avid Pinnacle 15 / Studio and up

    If you use any of the programs listed above, you can access an advanced set of features that make it even easier to add customized SmartSound music to your productions.

    Something to maybe look into, when I get time.  But right now I’m focusing on burning some DVDs.  So I click the [Later…] button.

    Adobe Premiere CS6: Nested Sequence Silence (& Fix)

    Tuesday, February 12th, 2013

    A Sequence played with good audio, but when I nested it (inside another sequence), all went silent.  This turned out to be the latest incarnation of a crazy historical feature of Adobe Premiere.  It wasted a good part of an hour of my time experimenting and finally Googling to find the (simple, once you know) way out.

    The problem:

    • A simple straightforward sequence consisting of video recordings from two cameras, each arranged in their own tracks, some audio tracks enabled, others disabled.
      • Audio plays ok
    • Embed (nest) that sequence in another sequence
      • No audio visible or heard.

    Workaround:

    • Ensure all audio tracks are enabled in the nested sequence.
    • Don’t disable tracks, disable(audio elements of) clips.
      • Use Alt-Click to select just the required audio element(s).

    (more…)

    MBR Color Corrector: Update to Version 2

    Wednesday, December 26th, 2012

    MBR Color Corrector, by Matt Roberts, is a plugin Effect for Adobe Premiere and After Effects, to automatically color correct movie clips / footage featuring a Gretag MacBeth / X-Rite ColorChecker chart or card in-shot, e.g. at the beginning or end of a scene or take.

    This provides an alternative to manual (hence subjective and probably iterative) color adjustments in conventional Effects in the editing application (Premiere or After Effects).

    When applied appropriately, the workflow-result can be improved productivity and quality, with reduced (as opposed to avoided) dependency/demand on Colorist expertise and accurate color monitors etc.  It not only handles typical color temperature issues but also, to a useful degree, non-linear luminance and color “twisting” inherent in certain cameras and lighting conditions.

    In addition to color correction, MBR Color Corrector can also be used for color matching, e.g. to match a mood, as previously established in an example prepared by a Colorist, provided that example likewise contains some frames featuring a Gretag Macbeth / X-Rite color chart or card.

    The new version (v.2) features:

    • Mac support.
    • An improved, more intuitive, user interface.
    • Keyframes on everything that effects the output.

    The free (gratuit) functionality is almost complete (no watermarks etc.) and in my experience has certainly been useful on real projects.  The paid version has greater efficiency and functionality, and encourages the developer to keep developing.  See the product web-page for more details.

    See images in corresponding entry in my main blog.

    Fix for Premiere CS6’s Too-Huge Tool Icons

    Thursday, November 22nd, 2012

    http://philipbloom.net/2012/07/07/premiereicons/

    (discovered at http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/ssimmons/story/adobe_has_lots_of_blogs_but_kevins_is_the_best_one/ )

    Adobe CS6: Encoding Presets Migration and Exploration

    Tuesday, November 20th, 2012

    Having created my own additional presets for encoding formats on one system, I want to copy them to another.   As it happens, these “systems” are the Boot Camp Windows and the Mac OS sides of the same MacBook.

    So how do I copy them?

    As it happens, Adobe Media Encoder has menu options:

    • Preset > Export
    • Preset > Import

    Nevertheless, looking behind the scenes…

    Each Preset is stored as an [.epr] file.  So where are the [.epr] files kept?

    Web-search:

    • Google:[adobe premiere presets location]
    • Explore my own system:
      • Mac OS: (just a few examples)
        • /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Premiere Pro CS6/MediaIO/presets
        • /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Media Encoder CS6/MediaIO/systempresets/
        • /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe After Effects CS5.5/Support Files/(MediaIO)/systempresets/
      • Windows:
        • /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe After Effects CS6/Support Files/(MediaIO)/systempresets/
        • /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Premiere Pro CS6/MediaIO/systempresets/
        • /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5/MediaIO/systempresets/
        • /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Premiere Pro CS5/Settings/EncoderPresets/
        • /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Media Encoder CS6/MediaIO/systempresets/3F3F3F3F_44505820

    Adobe Files Recovered in Trash – Unwanted

    Saturday, November 17th, 2012

    Whenever I boot up Mac OS, there are recovered Adobe files in the Trash.  Even if I did not use Adobe in the previous session!  Of course I can [Empty Trash] but why do they keep cropping up there in the first place?  Is this symptomatic of some error or malware in my Mac OS system?  Last time it happened, these were the files concerned:

    • The file [com.adobe.dynamiclinkmanagerCS6]
    • A [.prmdc] file, with prefix as per one of my project names.
      • Maybe [pr] indicates association with Premiere?
    • A bunch of files named as [I-Frame Only MPEG~xxxx.epr], where [xxxx] represents a pseudorandom hex value (of more than 4 characters).
      • I guess these are preview-accelerating renders.  But I thought such renders were retained, not temporary.
      • From http://help.adobe.com/en_US/mediaencoder/cs/using/adobemediaencoder_cs5_help.pdf it seems that [.epr] generally means “exported preset”.  So maybe that’s what it means here also. In which case these are I guess temporary exported presets when sending to (encoder) Queue from Premiere?

    The best advice I could find on the web was that this kind of thing, while not generally expected, is of no importance, so “just keep emptying the trash”.  Concerning and irritating though…

    Presumably Adobe is not cleaning-up when I close it, but in that case why and what else is it not doing?  Could this be associated with the Kaspersky issue I recorded in my previous blog-post?  Like had the Kaspersky-augmented kernel shutdown been methodically waiting for some Adobe clean-up process that never terminated, whereas un-augmented kernel shutdown simply (and silently) forced-killed that process?   Just guessing with my overactive imagination, no supporting knowledge/information/evidence.

    The fact (I have observed) that recovered Adobe files can appear in Trash even when Adobe has not been used in the current or the previous Mac session (between machine boot-ups) tends to suggest that some independent Adobe clean-up process is always happening in the background, as a result of normal system start-up, regardless of whether Adobe has explicitly been run by the user.  Gives me some “gut feeling” that my “imagination” might be on-track…

    (more…)

    Adobe Templates for Diwali

    Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

    I’m producing a video of a corporate event celebrating Diwali – the Indian Festival of Lights.

    I wondered whether anyone had made an Adobe Premiere or After Effects template for Diwali.

    I tried searching on [Diwali] in Adobe Exchange, but nothing was found.

    Web-search:

    Adobe Missing Title and Encore Templates: Download

    Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

     I had Adobe Production Premium CS6 installed, but when in Adobe Premiere I tried to make a Title, there were no Title Templates present.

    A Google search on [adobe premiere cs6 title templates download] produced the answer, as follows, in the form of a downloadable installer.  In addition to Premiere Title templates, the add-on also includes Encore templates.

    Some people had problems downloading and installing, discussed here:

    Adobe Premiere – Source Media Adulteration

    Saturday, November 10th, 2012

    Sometimes Adobe Premiere may write to a source media file or proprietary folder-structure.  This may be considered a non-problem in most situations, but it is nevertheless worth being aware of.

    This is nothing hidden, surreptitious or unheard-of, it’s explained in Adobe’s Help text and documentation.  However the potential consequences may not be obvious to a new user.  It may arise at various points of what we may regard as the greater process (workflow/manual) of ingesting media, consisting not only of Premiere’s Import of media but also subsequent manual updating of metadata or indeed automatic analysis such as speech recognition.  As of CS6 it can also occur as a result of adding Markers in Adobe Prelude.

    Premiere likes to add and manage metadata for each media file.

    • The good side of this is that it value-enhances these files, making them easier to locate, navigate and use, potentially increasing workflow productivity and asset usage.
    • But there’s also a dark side – not necessarily Adobe’s fault (e.g. their approaches may well adhere to official media specifications) – but it may be that so-adulterated media files may cause difficulties to other applications (e.g. that may not fully take on board such standards).
      • In my experience, in the past, some (possibly poorly-written, but nevertheless useful) applications have refused to work with metadata-augmented files, again holding up productivity, in this case while the user figures out the issue and works out how to strip this data out, in order to progress.
      • Technically a non-problem, but potentially consequential to a workflow, backup software will (rightly, from its point of view) see the metadata-change as a file-change (e.g. as a consequent file-size change) and consider that the files have been updated.   Left to itself, the backup process (depending how it works/configured) will overwrite any previous copy of the files (e.g. the original files).   Even if the backup process prompts the user to confirm this, the naive user may be uncertain what to do,

    Also, the user has the option at their discretion for Premiere to automatically store additional files (such as cache files and metadata sidecar files) alongside source media files.

    • In the case of media represented as a straightforward single file (like a .jpg or .mpg file) this does not affect that media.
    • However some media (e.g. TV-playable DVDs or XDCAM-EX video media) are stored as proprietary folder structures with defined contents, part of these contents being essence files (e.g. .vob files or .mp4 files) while other files alongside them etc. in that structure (e.g. DVD’s .IFO files or XDVCAM-EX’s .SMI files) contain metadata or index into them etc.  In this case, the consequence of adding further files into the structure will (in my experience) be acceptable to some applications and media players but not to others, which regard it as “pollution”, and may then reject such structures.  Certainly in the past I have seen this happen in some software applications and also even some (mostly old) TV DVD players.

    This is a case for “situational awareness”: if one is aware of the nature and potential consequences of the adulteration (be it regarded as pollution or enhancement, depending on the workflow situation), one is then in a better position to be able to avoid or fix any asociated issues. (more…)

    My GPU is Definitely Too Old for Adobe Mercury Engine

    Sunday, September 16th, 2012

    http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PremiereCS5.htm

    • This hives “hacks” for “unlocking” the use of a non-approved GPU card by Adobe’s Mercury Engine – though obviously at one’s own risk…
    • However the current GPU in my desktop, Geforce 8800 GT,  is not recommended for such action, as it has insufficient RAM, namely 0.5GB.
      • This is implied from the fact that the Geforce 9600 GT is specifically “Not recommended” on precisely that basis.

    Chromakeying in After Effects (e.g. linked to Premiere)

    Monday, September 3rd, 2012

    http://tv.adobe.com/watch/peachpit-tv-for-video/chromakeying-in-after-effect/

    • Put the two layers in Premiere tracks
    • Send it to AE
      • [Replace with AE Composition]
    • In AE use Keylight (offers more control than Premiere’s Ultra vector-keyer)
    • Simply switch back to Premiere, it’s already in the timeline
    • {BUT … does that constitute “Dynamic Linking”, which I have heard is inefficient on cpu/speed?}

    Adobe Premiere CS5.5: Issues With VST

    Saturday, September 1st, 2012

    Just as I’m starting to get used to Adobe Premiere CS5.5, I notice that its audio effects listing (in menus etc.) does not my system’s VST collection.  Most annoyingly, because of that, my iZotope Ozone effects are excluded from Premiere.  Seems unreasonable, given my long track record of employing such plugins in Sony Vegas.

    I spent a good hour or two trying to understand and solve this, including much googling.  At the end of that, I’m not sure what the problem is exactly, but it does look to me like Premiere is slightly lacking with regard to its ability to interface to VST effects.  For a start, one of its assumed registry entries appears inappropriate to Windows 7 64-bit.  Having hacked that into shape, Premiere at least noticed the existence of Ozone (and other VST effects on my system) then found itself unable to load it.

    The best solution I found was really a work-around.   Prom Premiere timeline, [aClip >RtClk> Edit in Adobe Audition].   That application has no trouble recognising iZotope plugins.  However before getting too blinkered, try the native Audition effects first, including Noise Reduction, because they are pretty-good.

    (more…)

    Adobe Production CS6 – Cache & Render Files and their Locations

    Saturday, September 1st, 2012

    When I start-up any application, I like to understand at least the main side-effects it’s having on my system.  In the case of Adobe’s primary video-editing apps, Premiere and After Effects, my experience (on Windows 7) is that they save intermediate preview-renders to the system volume.  This causes me the following concerns:

    • System Volume may serve poorly as a media drive.
      • Larry Jordan, at least in the recent past, advises against using the system drive for media read/write.  On the upside, such drives may have high-bandwidth to the system, but on the downside, the system can interrupt their use with highest priority, whuch may (I guess) pose a risk to smooth playback (though I am aware that buffering may possibly reduce this risk, I haven’t done or seen any such calculations).  Cache files are indeed media files that are written and read.
      • On the other hand, an informed representative of a well-known UK supplier of video editing laptops advised me that in his experience, most users of laptops with only a single internal drive (as system drive) do use that drive in this way (for portability).
    • System drive can become “clogged up”
      • System drive can become clogged-up by many or large video files of which that the user is only partially aware, their creation having happened implicitly during their use of the NLE etc.  Like temporary files only worse!
      • Ultimately the system drive can even become full, making the operating system itself sluggish or even less stable (and video playback less smooth.
      • Backup of a system drive that includes media files will typically require significantly greater archive space and will take significantly greater time (than a clean system).
    • Migrate-ability is reduced
      • I like the idea of a video project being a free-floating data-object.  That is, it should not be tied to any particular instance of a data storage volume, let alone a particular computer (system).  It should be possible for all files relevant to a project to be stored on any volume, migrated to any other volume, plugged into any computer having appropriate installed applications, and everything to work the same way as when the project was on its original volume being edited on the original system.  That includes not only the source media files etc. but also the intermediate rendered files.

    So what do the Adobe editing applications provide to enable my preferred working arrangement?

    • Premiere:
      • [Edit > Preferences > Media]
        •  This defines the location of the folder [Media Cache Files], which contains pseudorandomly-named files.  Example Files:
          • [929_4372_01-125eeda9-ba0d-a8ea-4418-3480000001f0.ims]
          • [Rendered – 68721ea9-25e9-4f56-8430-4ca10101ace7-04602910-cd54-1a45-a5d7-557b000001f2.ims]
        • Default location: [c:\Users\…\AppData\roaming\Adobe\Common]
        • [Yes] Save Media Cache files next to originals when possible
          • e.g. for my XDCAM-EX files, inside a CLIPR folder (which contains the EX’s “essence” (.mp4) files, in this case [929_4491_01.MP4]), appeared the following files:
            • 929_4491_01.MP4 48000.cfa (9.2 MB)
              • Unknown, but the “48000” and the “a” on the end of “cfa” are suggestive of audio.
            • 929_4491_01.MP4 48000.pek (37KB)
              • Simply the peaks (waveform graphics data) file for the audio component of the essence-file.
          • Experience:
            • I clicked the [Browse] button and selected an area on my external media drive (a GRaid Mini) as: [H:\_App_Specific\Adobe].
            • Consequently, at my specified location the following folder appeared: [Media Cache Files]
      • Media Cache Database
        • Note:
          • When Premiere Pro imports video and audio in some formats, it processes and caches versions of these items that it can readily access when generating previews. Imported audio files are each conformed to a new .cfa file, and MPEG files are indexed to a new .mpgindex file. The media cache greatly improves performance for previews, because the video and audio items do not need to be reprocessed for each preview.
          • When you first import a file, you may experience a delay while the media is being processed and cached.
            A database retains links to each of the cached media files. This media cache database is shared with Adobe Media Encoder, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Encore, and Soundbooth, so each of these applications can each read from and write to the same set of cached media files.
        • Location: [c:\Users\…\AppData\roaming\Adobe\Common]
          • [Browse]
            • If you change the location of the database from within any of these applications, the location is updated for the other applications, too.
            • Each application can use its own cache folder, but the same database keeps track of them.
            • Example Experience:
              • I clicked the [Browse] button and selected an area on my external media drive (a GRaid Mini) as: [H:\_App_Specific\Adobe].
              • In response, a prompt came up saying “Move the existing media cache database to the new location, or delete it (Buttons: [Move] [Delete] [Cancel] ).
              • I clicked [Move]
              • Consequently, at my specified location the following folder appeared: [Media Cache]
        • Purging
          • [Clean]
            • This removes “orphan” cache files.
            • To remove conformed and indexed files from the cache and to remove their entries from the database, click [Clean]. This command only removes files associated with footage items for which the source file is no longer available.
              • Important: Before clicking the [Clean] button, make sure that any storage devices that contain your currently used source media are connected to your computer.
        • [Yes] Write XMP ID To Files On Import
          • Check this box to write ID information into XMP metadata fields.
          • e.g. hence [929_4491_01M01.XMP] sidecar-file (containing XMP metadata) got written into the CLIPR folder containing its associated media  file, here an XDCAM-EX essence file, [929_4491_01.MP4].
        • [Yes] Enable Clip And XMP Metadata Linking Check this box to link clip metadata to XMP metadata, so that changing one changes the other.
      • Intermediate-Preview Render Files
        • None of the above measures affect where intermediate/preview files get rendered to…
          • I proved this (in Windows 7) by deliberately causing a render then searching on “Huge” (>16MB) files created “Today”
          • Rendered files location was:[C:\Users\…\Documents\Adobe\Premiere Pro\5.5\Adobe Premiere Pro Preview Files\Untitled3.PRV]
        • A brief Google revealed several articles where the (sadly now obsolete) solution was a setting under [Edit > Preferences > Scratch Disks]
        • Eventually discovered that in CS5.5 these settings now resided in: [Project > Project Settings > Scratch Disks]
          • Here, all settings (affecting Capture and  Preview) were set to [Same as Project]
          • As it happened, my project location was [C:\Users\David\Documents\Adobe\Premiere Pro\5.5].
        • Experiment with a different project location:
          • Save As: [H:\_Media\_Projects\MyProject\030 Projects\Adobe\Experiments]
            • The file [Expt A v001.prproj] appeared in it, but that was all.
          • Save a Copy: [H:\_Media\_Projects\MyProject\030 Projects\Adobe\Experiments]
            • The file [Expt A v001 Copy.prproj] appeared there, but that was all.
          • (The file open within Premiere remained as the original, not the copy)
          • After a while, the project file was joined by: [Adobe Premiere Pro Auto-Save]
        • Experiment to migrate the Preview-Render files:
          • In Windows Explorer, I created a folder named [Adobe Premiere Pro Preview Files]
          • Into that folder, from the similarly-named folder on the system volume, I dragged the existing folder [Untitled3.PRV]
        • Experiment: Premiere “knows” when render-files have gone, and prompts for their possible new location.
          • I deleted the project-specific render-files folder on the (external) project-drive.
          • I re-rendered, resulting in a fresh such folder, re-populated.
          • In Premiere, I Closed the project
          • Then in Windows I renamed the project-specific render-files folder, then back in Premiere I re-opened the project.
            • Premiere prompted with Browser titled: “Where is the File ‘Rendered – 5ac…..228.mpeg’?”
            • I selected the stated file in its newly-renamed folder, Premiere then found all the others there.
          • Result: the timeline render-region went green (i.e. “probably playable”).
        • Experiment: Once render-files are regarded as “gone”, they cannot be restored.
          • I closed the project, ensuring I did not save changes (such as the new location of the render files), then re-opened it.
            • As in the previous experiment (since I did not save changes), the render files folder could not be found.
            • Premiere thus prompted with Browser titled: “Where is the File ‘Rendered – 5ac…..228.mpeg’?”
            • This time however I simply used the [Skip All] option.
          • Closed the project.
          • Renamed the rendered-files folder back to its original name.
          • In Premiere, re-opened the project.
            • The timeline region remained red, indication no render-files were associated.
        • Experiment: Tidy migration of a project to a new location.
          • Warnig: in the case of doing a Copy (which is Windows’ default drag operation between different volumes), take care to ensure the Project (file) is not simply referencing the original preview files at the old location…
          • Drag both Project and its folders (including render-file folder) to a new location (e.g. on a new disk).
          • If name and relative location of folder are unchanged (as they ought to be, in good practice) then the files will be automatically detected and used, not even a user-prompt.
            • Just be sure though that the project isn’t simply referencing the render-files in their original location, if they are still present there.  Premiere is “lazy” in this respect.
        • Experiment: The relative location of the Rendered Files folder does matter (relative to the project file).
          • Tried putting the render files in a non-standard location.
            • The “Locate/Browse” prompt appeared
            • I located the file
            • All at first appeared well, and the corresponding section of the timeline went green
            • However, the “Composer” window simply displayed “Media Pending”.  That never went away.
        • Experiment:
          • When migrating, also need to move (or copy):
            • The Media Cache directories
              • Actually I’m not so sure about this. I tried exiting Premiere, renaming these directories and opening Premiere.  It created and repopulated the same directories in their original location, which in my case was an external drive.
            • The Source Media files
      • http://forums.adobe.com/thread/784220?tstart=0
        • I suggest marking each external with the drive letter that the user assigns to it, say Z:\. Then, whenever Z:\ is plugged in, it will always be seen as Z:\. This way, the NLE can keep up with where the Assets are located, starting with the drive letter.
        • If one is migrating Projects between computers, they will repeat this exact process in the OS of each computer.
        • Note: when doing the migration, ALL Assets, Scratch Disks, and the Project file, MUST be included on that external

    Work Procedure for Migrate-ability:

    • By associating cache and XMP files with the media (or its essence), Adobe projects are migratable.  However adding such files into the BPAV/CLIPR folder structure is considered by some applications to be an adulteration of that structure, requiring their deletion.   However, such deletion on an as-needed basis is not too onerous – given it is easy to do and in any case this situaion should rarely arise in practice.
    • When using different disks, remember to re-define (in Preferences) the location of cache files etc.
      • One work-around would be to -re-set the cache location before opening any individual project.
        • Might be hard to remember to do when opening a project from within the NLE, easier to remember when double-clicking a project file in Windows Explorer.still
      • I’m not 100% sure what to do about these…
    • As noted earlier:
      • When doing the migration, ALL Assets (Sources), Scratch Disks (Renders), and the Project file, MUST be included on that external.
        • I note that this says nothing about Cache Files etc. …

    Adobe CS6 Upgrade Alongside Existing CS5

    Saturday, September 1st, 2012

    Q: Can I install CS6 alongside CS5.5

    A: Yes (it seems so, though I’ve yet to confirm it)

    (more…)

    Chroma Upsampling (Chroma Interpolation)

    Friday, August 31st, 2012

    Shooting green-screen onto a 4:2:0 chroma-subsampled format, intending of course to use it for chroma-keying.  Obvious disadvantage is green-ness of green-screen only gets sampled at quarter-resolution.  Not a show-stopper, given my target deliverable is standard definition, but anyhow, towards perfectionism, is there any way to up-sample to 4:4:4 i.e. full definition colour?

    It does occur to me that something more sophisticated than chroma blur ought to be possible, broadly along the lines of edge-following methods employed in resizing. What’s out there?

    • Simplest method, that most people seem to use, is chroma-blur.  That’s only the chroma, not the luma.
    • Searching around, Graham Nattress has analysed the problem and seems to have produced a more mathematical approach.  But it’s only available (at time of writing) for Final Cut (which of course is Mac-only at present).

    Some tools that “promise” upsampling, but I wonder by what methods:

    • GoPro-CineForm intermediate.  The codec settings include an option to up-sample to 4:4:4
    • Adobe Premiere, but only if a Color Corrector effect employed.
      • But the crucial thing here, regarding the usefulness of this, is whether it uses any better method than chroma blur.

    Some questions:

    •  Does Adobe have anything built-in to do something Nattress-like nowadays?
    • DaVinci Resolve?
    • Boris?

    (more…)

    Video with 10-Bit Channels

    Thursday, July 5th, 2012

    If I had a 10-bit video recording such as from the PIX 240, would I know what to do with it, in order to make full use of the 10-bit information?  This question is important, because it cannot be assumed that this is simply a case of inputting it into any arbitrary nonlinear editing system (NLE) – not all NLEs preserve the extra information – and even for those that do, the workflow and configuration must be set up appropriately.  And even having got that right, how can we verify all is working as expected?  Can the NLE’s own effects and waveform monitors etc. be trusted to preserve the extra bits?

    Having discovered some sample 10-bit footage at http://www.sounddevices.com/products/pix240/sample_files/ (as reported at http://blog.davidesp.com/archives/570), I was prompted to do some experiments in a few NLEs.   I based the experiments on the following two DNxHD files, as recorded by a PIX 240, both 1920x1080p29.97 and around half a minute in duration.

    • dnxhd220mb_8_29.97.mov = 8-bit
    • dnxhd220mb_10_29.97.mov = 10-bit

    The comparison was based on an area of sky at the top-left of frame (in each case), with its (limited) levels-range mapped to full video range, so as to make 8-bit quantization-banding appear.

    Conclusions (as far as I can tell from experiments):

    • Adobe Premiere:
      • Propagates the 10-bit footage’s information, achieving better image quality than for the 8-bit footage.
        • However this only happens when correctly configured and then only for certain effects.
      • The Fast Color Corrector levels-mapping appears to introduce some kind of dithering.
        • Hence while the expected banding is visible for 8-bit footage, it is slightly “blurred” on the Waveform Monitor and the resulting image looks more ragged than banded.
        • Nevertheless, the 10-bit footage through this same process has no such banding at all, and resulting the image looks obviously better.
        • None of the cases at http://blogs.adobe.com/VideoRoad/2010/06/understanding_color_processing.html apply here since no blur effect was used.
      • The result of Fast Color Corrector levels-mapping on 10-bit footage result also looks slightly brighter than that on 8-bit footage – presumably a mapping-inconsistency in Premiere?
      • Some other non-obvious pitfalls exist when making such comparisons:
    • Sony Vegas 10
      • Ignores the extra information in the 10-bit footage, evem for Project Settings of 32-bit.
    • Avid Symphony 6
      • AMA appears to truncate to 8-bit, at least it seems so based on what appears in Avid’s Waveform monitor.
      • Import of the given DNxHD-220 to Avid-Import-DNxHD-220 appears to give same result.
      • I assume I am missing something here, some knowledge and/or step and/or monitoring method…

    The configurations I used within each application:

    • Sony Vegas 10:
      • Project Properties
        • 1920x1080p29.97. Not automatically readable by Vegas from the DNxHD format.
        • Pixel Format: 32-bit floating point (video levels)
      • Waveform Monitor via: Video Scopes > Waveform
      • Sky-range mapped to full range via: Sony Levels FX
    • Adobe Premiere CS 5.5:
      • Computer had a non Mercury Engine compatible GPU hence software-only graphics / effects processing.
      • Waveform Monitor via: Reference Monitor > YC Waveform
      • Sky-range mapped to full range via: Fast Color Corrector > Input Levels
        • (Prior to that tried various “Levels” effects but they did not work properly in this context)
      • Sequence Setting: Maximum Bit Depth (else levels-resolution was truncated to 8-bit)
    • Avid Symphony (hence presumably also Media Composer) 6

    Adobe Premiere / DaVinci Resolve: Timeline-Exchange

    Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012

    Is it possible to edit a timeline on Premiere, send it to Resolve, as a project/timeline structure rather than as a rendered intermediate file, color-correct in resolve then return (again at project/timeline level) to Premiere (say)?   From a brief web-search, it looks like the answer is “yes”.

    http://forums.adobe.com/thread/869356

    Adobe CS6 – “What’s New” Videos

    Saturday, April 14th, 2012

    Matt Roberts (MBR’s) Automatic Color (Chart) Corrector

    Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

    How about an After Effects plugin for automatically grading any footage featuring a Gretag Macbeth color chart in-shot (e.g. at the beginning and/or end of shot)?  Matt Roberts’ new plugin, still “steaming off the press”, works in Premiere as well as After Effects, and has been tested in CS5 and CS5.5.  You simply pause on a frame featuring a color chart in-shot, place corner locators to identify that chart, and ‘Go”.  It not only fixes white balance but also adjusts for saturation and compensates for certain kinds of “color twisting” defects such as can occur in cameras.    Subsequent “expert tweaks” can then be made if preferred, e.g. 20% saturation reduction for “film look”.  The free version works in 8 bits, the paid (£50) one (in the process of being made available on ShareIt.com) works in 32 bits, multithreaded etc.  To find out more and to download it: http://www.mattroberts.org/MBR_Color_Corrector/.

    Example: Canon 7D Video Footage:

    Canon 7D before correctionCanon 7D after correction

    So what’s the point of this plugin?  Greater quality, reliability and productivity, as compared to traditional color correctors, as explained below.

    Those with an eye for accurate color reproduction from video footage will be familiar with traditional tools such as 3-way color correctors and meters such as waveform monitors and vectorscopes.   All proper Non Linear Editing systems (NLE’s) have these.  Generally-speaking such tools work well, but sometimes in practice the situation can become confused when for example a subject’s “white”(assumed) shirt is in fact off-white, or when tinted light mirror-reflects off skin or results from camera filters.  Easy to understand in retrospect, but initially can cause “running round in circles” of interative adjustment and re-checking.  Furthermore, some cameras have peaks, pits, twists and ambiguities (e.g. infra-red) in their colour response that many such correctors cannot correct in a straightforward manner.   Not only can time be wasted but it is quite possible to end up with an image that “looks” right to most people but which in fact has done something inexcusable such as altering the very precise color of a corporate logo.

    One way to reduce the potential fo such confusion is to incorporate a color chart in shot.  Various types exist, including Gretag Macbeth (GM) and Chroma Du Monde (CDM).  The GM card, while primarily targeted at photography, is also in widespread use for video.   That chart consists of a matrix of colored squares, one row of which represents (steps on) a grey-scale.  It also includes some near-primary colours and some approximate skin colours of a few types.  The simplest use of such a chart would be to use the grey-scale row for white balancing and the other colours for “by eye” grading/tweaking.  The more experienced will probably make use of vectorscopes etc. but that can still be a nuisanceful if not cumbersome process.

    Enter Matt Roberts’ Automatic Color Corrector.  We tried it out on some footage from his own Canon 7D and from my Sony EX3, the latter fitted with a slightly green-tinted infra-red filter, on a snowy day.  We even tried it on an image (featuring such a chart, as well as a model with lots of fleshtones) on Canon’s website ?URL? for their C300 camcorder.  In all cases, the correction was achieved in seconds.  We were particularly confused as to why Canon’s web-image image was so off-colour, but it certainly was, and the Corrector fixed it.

    Once again, the link: http://www.mattroberts.org/MBR_Color_Corrector/

    Adobe Production Premium CS5.5 – Orientation

    Saturday, January 28th, 2012

    Questions:

    • What should and does it consist of?
      • Including anything non-obvious e.g. “tucked away”, “additional Downloads”, “obscure” etc.
    • ???

    Answers (as far as I can tell…):

    •  _Support & Communities
      • Looks at first sight like any application’s Help dialog, but on deeper inspection is also connected web-wise and answers to questions are not restricted to Adobe products.
    • After Effects
      • In contrast to Premiere, which is for conventional light-touch editing, this is for heavier effects and compositing etc.
      • http://shisko.blogspot.com/2007/09/creating-trees-in-after-effects.html
        • …AE is a “2.5d” application. The worldspace is 3d, but any imagery you have (discounting 3rd party applications such as Invigorator and such) is “flat”.
          • (As opposed to 3D Modelling apps such as 3dsMax, Blender)
    • After Effects Render Engine
      • Render farm: Network rendering with watch folders and render engines.
      • Previously, it was possible to install render engines on as many machines as wished, but not so under CS5.5, where a separate serial number must be obtained for each machine.  For small guys like me that makes it pretty useless.   It seems likely that a more flexible option will exist in future versions.
    • Audition
      • Audio editor, derived (many years ago) from CoolEdit.
    • Bridge
      • A combination of media file manager, media manager, metadata editor, also does some kinds of media processing.
      • Can be run standalone or from within apps e.g. Premiere: [File > Browse in Bridge…]
    • Color Finesse
      • A multi-host (including Premiere & AE) plugin that goes above and beyond typical NLE color correction.
      • On my system it only appears to be available under AE.
    • Device Central
      • Simulates media appearance etc. on a range of devices such as cellphones.
    • DigiEffects FreeForm
      • Manipulate a flat object into almost any shape using displacement maps and meshes in 3D space.
      • Examples: flowing cloth, animated loose filmstrips, rippling fluids, terrain flyovers, welded metal, morphs, reveals.
    • Encore
      • DVD authoring.  Menus can be created in Photoshop (using special layering techniques).
    • Extension Manager
      • Manage extensions (broadly like plugins) associated with various Adobe programs.
    • ExtendScript Toolkit:
      • Adobe workflow command-script editor
      • An IDE (along the lines of Visual Studio) for scripts in Adobe Bridge, itself serving to automate workflows involving multiple Adobe applications.
    • Flash Professional
      • A multimedia authoring program to create content for Flash-enabled platforms/devices.
    • Flash Catalyst
      • A designers’ tool for creating the user interface for Rich Internet Applications.  Primary function of being a GUI composer for Adobe Flex components.
      • Can import Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, or Flash XML Graphics (FXG) files.
    • Help
      • A help resource not only with local help-documentation but also capable of searching beyond, even beyond Adobe, to find solutions.
    • Illustrator
      • Vector graphics editor e.g. useful for typesetting and logo graphics design. It is the companion product of Photoshop.
    • KeyLight
      • An advanced chroma-keyer, tackling reflections, semi-transparent areas and hair.
    • Media Encoder
      • Encodes audio and video media content.
    • Mocha
      • <<Stand-alone tracking and roto tool to help solve problematic shots challenging the built in tools of After Effects and Final Cut by bringing advanced planar tracking and matte creation tools>>
        • Planar tracking
          • Track a plane(-ish) surface in 3D space e.g. as it translates, rotates, perspective changes.
            • Typically more robust and capable than points-tracking.
            • Great for moving subject or tracking camera.
            • Overkill when the only (relative) motion is due to camera pan/tilt.
          • http://blog.davidesp.com/archives/230
      • e.g. select an area then it uses any detail there including texture to get a fix, and follows changes in translation, rotation, perspective etc.
    • OnLocation
      • Direct to disk recorder / logger also acting as monitor with waveform monitor and vectorscope.  And no doubt much else.
    • PhotoShop
      • Such a big noun that it became a verb…
    • Premiere Pro
      • Primary editing app, with emphasis on productive cutting and smooth playback etc., minimising the need to render, leaving heavy effects and compositing etc. to AE.
    • Story
      • A collaborative script development tool/service. There is an application for working alone on an offline version and a web-based service where you can sync up with an online version.
    • Ultra
      • Vector-keyer (simple-to-use effective chroma-keying) that was once a standalone app by Serious Magic, now available as a plugin within Premiere (but not AE).  I get the impression it is regarded (or at least branded) as simple to use but ultimately less sophisticated/capable than KeyLight (???).
      • Serious Magic used to highlight its capabilities regarding reflections, semi-transparent areas and hair…
    • Utilities
      • ExtendScript
        • An integrated development environment (IDE) for the creation and debugging of JavaScript code for Adobe Bridge, to facilitate workflow-enhancing automation of tasks between elements of Creative Suite.
      • PixelBlender
        • A simplifying basis for implementing image processing algorithms (filters or effects) in a hardware-independent manner, taking advantage of parallel processing / GPU etc.
        • Downside to commercial developers is that code using it may be more visible / understandable.

    Nokia N95 Variable Frame-Rate

    Thursday, January 19th, 2012

    I came across some old videos I shot on a Nokia N95 and pulled these into Adobe Premiere.  However the individual video clips were each listed with a different framerate, hovering vaguely around 29 fps (27.08 up to 29.45).   Questions:

    • What does that even mean?
      • From web-search, it sounds like it’s an average, and N95 framerates within a given recording can vary wildly
        • e.g. between 6 and 38 fps.
    • How do various apps etc. handle such material?
      • YouTube:
        • In 2009 at least, it sounds like YouTube went for the minimum fps in any such clip.
      • Adobe Premiere
        • Seems to go for the average
          • I dragged a N95 clip on the “New Sequence” button and the resulting sequence had the clip’s average framerate.
        • Presumably just duplicates/drops frames as required to maintain the Sequence’s framerate.
      • GSpot (video analyzer):
        • For a clip reported by Adobe Premiere to be 28.81 fps, GSpot reported it to be 29.412 fps.
          • Misleading info from one or other or both…

    (more…)

    Adobe Premiere: Building & Editing a Sequence

    Saturday, January 14th, 2012

    I’ve begun by re-creating from-scratch a project which I already have in Sony Vegas.

    • Media Browser:
      • aMedia > DoubleClick
        • Goes to Source Monitor
    • Source Monitor:
      • Adjust In/Out points e.g. as per [View Details] window in Sony Vegas
    • Drag from Source Monitor to Timeline
    • Use timecode from elements in Sony Vegas project as a starting-point.  Drag Dissolve transitions (Effects) from bottom-left hand pane in between clips.  Trim transition to preference, either by drag or numbers.  Pretty easy.
    • Timeline:
      • [Clip > RtClk > Scale to Frame Size]
        • Then drag scale/pan/crop rectangle to required size/zoom level.
    • [File > Export > Media]  = Ctrl-M
      • This created [C:\Users\David\Documents\Adobe\Premiere Pro\5.5\Sequence 01.avi]
    • Renamed the Sequence as [Intro]
      • Now it saves to [Intro.avi] or the following time to [Intro_1.avi]

    Pretty intuitive really.  Next I’d like to find the levels and color correction features, then (following the inevitablegrain created by that process) some means of running the Neat Video temporal denoiser.

    XDCAM-EX in Adobe Production Premium CS5.5

    Saturday, January 14th, 2012

    I have a project shot on a Sony EX3.  SO I have XDCAM-EX footage.

    Opened an Adobe Premiere project, set its Sequence settings to XDCAM EX HQ 1080i50

    • Wondered immediately what that implied.  Like OK the source is XDCAM-EX which is Mpeg2 encoding inside a MP4 container, but why does the Sequence care how the source is stored?  Surely it only needs to know things like the format is 1080i50 then it can store any intermediate files in DNxHD or Cineform or whatever Adobe prefers.  I am very confused by this kind of thing, just as I was in FCP.  Maybe it’s obvious or maybe “I think to much”.
    • Adobe has a thing called Import and it can (I discovered) accept MP4 files from XDCAM-EX’s BPAV folder-structures (deep down within the CLIPR subfolder).  But I know that is a stupid way to go. The MP4 files are but the “essence” that is “stitched together” (mixed metaphors or what?) by the likes of SMIL and XML files.  It’s only at the latter level that smooth continuum happens.
    • Enter Adobe Premiere’s Media Browser. I “knew” there had to be something like that.  I discovered it via http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/premiere/pdfs/cs5-premiere-pro-sonyxdcam-wfg.pdf which itself I discovered via Bing search on [sony xdcam-ex adobe premiere cs5.5 workflow].  OK to get XDCAM-EX footage into an Adobe Premiere project you do [WIndow >Media Browser] or else Shift-8, then don’t expect some window popping-up or anything, just instect the [Media Browser] tab at the lower-left of the GUI screen.  Drill-down to the required recording and double-click.  The media appears in a Source Preview window (I wonder but don’t mightily care what Adobe calls it).
      • OK I do care a bit really, and according to an Adobe video tutorial, it’s called a Source Monitor.
      • Initially it was too zoomed-in, presumably displayig at 1:1 (pixel).  “Zoom to Fit” was but a right-click away…
    • You can drag from Source Monitor to the Timeline or to other places.
    • I tried that with some EX3 footage where I pan across the front of the famous Wembley Stadium, UK.  In Sony Vegas (my erstwhile “comfortable old shoe”) it snatches and drags.  In Adobe Premiere, as in Sony Clip Browser, it pans smoothly.  Guess where I’m heading…

    Mobile Video Editing Hardware: Thoughts, Ideas & Dreams (continued)

    Friday, January 13th, 2012

    Following-on from my earlier post, Mobile Video Editing Hardware: Thoughts, Ideas & Dreams, where I considered an eventual migration from my laptop to a luggable PC, my thoughts veered (possibly having spotted cash-icebergs among them) towards an alternative solution:

    • Use the laptop for lightweight editing & compositing.
    • Use the desktop as a number-crunching RADI-attached server.

    The two could be linked by:

    • Remote access / remote sessions (some of which via smartphone)
    • DropBox, e.g. have an active folder where I can drop Adobe Premiere XML and have it processed remotely by Adobe apps installed there.

    Some links:

    • http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/11/virtualisation_at_home_part_2/
      • (There’s no equivalent “_part_1” page.  I guess it’s just “Part 2” of that guy’s story).
      • DIY virtual machines: Rigging up at home, by Trevor Pott, 11th January 2012 14:33 GMT
      • Personal Virtual Machine (PVM) (in use) for about seven years with retail boxed version of Windows XP.
      • VM has been moved from virtualization platform to virtualization platform over the years … the most recent incarnation … inside Hyper-V.
      • …nothing beats Windows Server 2008 R2. It comes with a top-notch virtualisation platform (Hyper-V), and added RemoteFX support with Service Pack 1. You can still use the desktop operating system for all your HTPC needs, and a single Server 2008 R2 Standard license allows you to run both a host copy and a single virtual instance of Server 2008 R2.
      • In my case, the host instance does little more than play movies on the projector via VLC. The virtual instance of Server runs my Plex media server, and aggregates my many storage devices into a single share using DFS.
    • Shuttle Inc (Taiwan)

    Mobile Video Editing Hardware: Thoughts, Ideas & Dreams

    Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

    Want a mobile “suitcase” editing system, something more (and more expandable) than a laptop but not too expensive.  Primarily to be used for Adobe CS5.5 for media enhancement / editing / compositing etc.

    Nearest I found was NextDimension’s range around $7000 I think (but just guesswork – could be way off – would need to get a quote).   That would (if true) be around £4500 at current rates.  Plus import…  NextDimension call such machines “flextops” (Maybe they coined the term? Google searches on it mostly come up with them.)

    Apart from the (mil/broadcast-lite but me-heavy) price, it might possibly be undesirably heavy to lug around much.   If so (just guessing, not assuming), it would make more sense to go for a modular quick-setup system.  So, starting to “think different” in this direction:

    • Standard tower, capable of taking new CUDA etc. graphics cards etc. as they emerge, but no need for more than say a couple of disks, maybe if SSD could even get away with just a single disk? (For system and media – inadvisable for traditional disks of course, what about for SSD’s?  I have much to learn about SSD’s though).
    • “Laptop-Lite” to talk to it.  With robust shuttered-stereoscopic HD monitor.
    • Gigabit network to NAS fast storage (SSD and/or RAID ?).

    Maybe in that case it would be far more logical/affordable to use an existing laptop as a client working together with a luggable tower server, sufficiently light and robust for frequent dis/re -connection and travel.  And remote access of course (no heavy data to be exchanged, assume that’s already sync’d).  And some means to easily swap/sync applications and projects (data) between laptop and tower, giving the option to use just the (old) laptop on its own if needed.  All such options are handy for the travelling dude (working on train, social visits etc.) who also occasionally has to do heavy processing.  Then would just need a protective suitcase for the tower, plus another one for a decent monitor for grading etc.

    I certainly won’t be spending anything just yet, but it’s good to have at least some kind of “radar”.

    (more…)

    Apple Mac & FCP -> Windows & Adobe

    Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

    Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium: Adobe Premiere: Help in Getting Started

    Monday, January 2nd, 2012

    VST Plugins with Adobe Premiere

    Monday, January 2nd, 2012
    • http://premierepro.wikia.com/wiki/Virtual_Studio_Technology
      • <<<
      • If you want to actively prevent Premiere Pro from using one or more VST plug-ins, create a text file called Blacklist.txt listing the filename of each plug-in one per line. Put the text file in the same folder as the plug-in files, one blacklist file per folder. The blacklist file is read only when Premiere Pro starts up.
        • You must restart your computer for the Blacklist.txt to work.
      • ….there is a limit to the number of VST effects that can appear in the list in the mixer panel, however all supported VST effects should appear in the list in the effects panel.
      • If some VST effects are not available in Premiere Pro when you expect them to be, search your hard drive for a file called Plugin Loading.log after configuring your search to find hidden files. The log may tell you why a plug-in is not being loaded.
      • >>>

    iZotope Ozone 5 in Adobe Premiere?

    Sunday, January 1st, 2012

    I am a novice user of Adobe Premiere.  Having installed iZotope Ozone 5 I expected it to just appear as one of the audio filters.  However I saw no sign of it.

    Web-research:

    • http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PremierePro/4.0/WS1c9bc5c2e465a58a91cf0b1038518aef7-7f0fa.html
      • <<<
      • Premiere Pro supports the Steinberg VST (Virtual Studio Technology) audio plug-in format so that you can add VST audio effects from third-party vendors. Premiere Pro includes VST plug-in effects that are available in both the Audio Mixer and the Effect Controls panel. Track-based VST plug-ins may provide additional controls. Apply VST effects the same way you apply other audio effects to tracks or clips.
      • In the Effects And Sends panels of the Audio Mixer, VST effects appear in the Effect Selection menus. In the Effects panel, they appear in the Audio Effects bin so you can apply them to individual clips. In most cases, VST effects appear in the Audio Effects bin and track type that corresponds to the number of channels the effect supports. For example, stereo VST effects appear in the Audio Mixer track effect menus for stereo tracks only, and in the Stereo bin in the Audio Effects bin in the Effects panel. After you apply any VST effect, you can open a window with all of its controls. You can leave multiple VST editor windows open as long as you want, such as when automating effects, but Premiere Pro closes all VST editor windows when you close the project.
      • If you previously installed a VST-compatible application other tha Premiere Pro, Premiere Pro finds VST effects in the VST folder that already exists. Inside the Plug-ins folder of the Premiere Pro application folder, there is also a VSTPlugins folder with plug-ins that are used only by Premiere Pro.
      • Note: When you use a VST effect not provided by Adobe, the specific control layout and results of the plug-in are the responsibility of the plug-in manufacturer. Adobe Premiere Pro only displays the controls and processes the results.
      • >>>
    • http://forums.adobe.com/thread/682375?start=0&tstart=0
      • <<<
      • I use a set of VST plugins by Voxengo with 32-bit CS4. I recently upgraded to 64-bit CS5. So, I went and snagged the 64-bit versions of these Voxengo plugins. I put them in the C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CS5\Plug-ins\en_US\VSTPlugins\.
      •  Here’s the info in the Plugin Loading.log file:
        •  Loading C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CS5\Plug-ins\en_US\VSTPlugins\Elephant.dll
          Loading from the registry…
          The plugin was successfully loaded from the registry.
      •  Yet, the plugins do not show up in the mixer or in the effects list.
      •  I do not get any error messages. Also, I’m using Vista.  Any ideas?
      •  If you’d like to try the plugins yourself, there are free trials here:
      •  Thanks! – Jamez
      • >>>
      • <<<
      • I tried the 8 free Voxengo plugins in Premiere CS5, all of them 64bit and they did not show up.  Curiously enough, these 8 plugins are listed at ehe Adobe websiste  here: http://www.adobe.com/products/plugins/premiere/.
      • I tried the 32bit versions with Soundbooth CS5 (which is a a 32bit app) and they did not show up there either.
      • >>>
    • http://premierepro.wikia.com/wiki/Virtual_Studio_Technology
      • <<<
      • If you want to actively prevent Premiere Pro from using one or more VST plug-ins, create a text file called Blacklist.txt listing the filename of each plug-in one per line. Put the text file in the same folder as the plug-in files, one blacklist file per folder. The blacklist file is read only when Premiere Pro starts up.
        • You must restart your computer for the Blacklist.txt to work
      • If some VST effects are not available in Premiere Pro when you expect them to be, search your hard drive for a file called Plugin Loading.log after configuring your search to find hidden files. The log may tell you why a plug-in is not being loaded.
      • >>>
    • http://forums.adobe.com/thread/679366?start=0&tstart=0
    • http://forum.recordingreview.com/f44/plz-help-me-abt-izotope-ozone-plugin-18721/
    • http://forums.adobe.com/message/2970290#2970290

      Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium: Adobe Premiere: New Project & Orientation

      Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

      Started a new project

      • Decided to make it a real project – [2011-12-12 (NG) Carol Singing]
      • Prompted for a project path and file name:
        • Path:
          • (scratch area etc. are then, by default, set relative to (within?) this – much nicer than FCP7 )
          • Chose: [I:\_Media\_Projects\2011-12-12 (NG) Carol Singing\030 Projects\Adobe\Premiere]
        • FileName: [Carols 001]
          • This created project-file [Carols 001.prproj]
      • Dialog [New Sequence] then prompted for sequence settings:
        • Choose Sequence preset – to match the recorded footage, namely 720p25
          • Chose XDCAM-EX > 720p > XDCAM EX 720p25
          • Change the [Sequence Name] from default ([Sequence 01]) to [010 Assemblage 001]
      • The main Premiere timeline etc. GUI appeared.
      • At its lower-left was [Media Browser]
        • In this I browsed to the source files, being MXF versions of my EX3 footage, selected those files and [Import]
          • The files then immediately appeared at the upper-left pane.
          • However for 5-10 minutes afterwards, the hard drive light flashed, indicating data-transfer.
            • How come?  What was it doing?  Surely it’s already in the right format?
        • In the upper-left pane, I double-clicked one of the source files.
          • It appeared in the Source preview-window (akin to FCP and Avid)
      • In Source pane:
        • Played intuitively.
          • SpaceBar for Play/Pause
          • Arrow keys for frame-at-a-time
          • Shift-Arrow for a few frames at a time
          • Control-Arrow for Beginning and End.
          • Easy-to-see*grab&slide timeline cursor (blue blob)
      • Tried dragging source (pane) media to Timeline
        • Not as I expected
          • I expected the video and audio to “want” to go in the existing video and audio tracks.  Instead, while I could drag the video component anywhere (including the existing video tracks), the audio component only went to new tracks (that it automatically created).
          • Four audio tracks were created, not the two that I was expecting (given it was only a stereo recording).
          • No audio waveforms displayed (I expect there is a setting somewhere)
      • Found an [Info] tab in the pane at the lower-left of the app.
        • It showed that file [929_3798_01.mxf] contained 3 video channels, of which only vchannel 1 was populated, and 7 audio channels, of which the last four (4-7) achannels were populated.
      • Found [Preferences] under [Edit > Preferences]
        • Discovered cache location was at [C:\Users\David\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common]
        • There was also an option <<Save Media Cache files next to originals when possible
          • Possibly inappropriate when using straight XDCAM-EX source-files?
            • Don’t want to corrupt the BPAV file structure with “foreign” additions.
          • Should be OK though when using MXF format though I guess.
          • Can [Clean] the cache, under same [Preferences] window.
      • Audio Waveform display
        • In each audio track-header, Twirl the Disclosure-Triangle.  Independently for each audio track.
        • Having done so, it was apparent that two of the audio elements (hence two of the four audio tracks) contained no audio – their waveform displays were simply flat-lines.
      • Effects
        • Extremely intuitive.
          • [Effects] tab in lower-left pane of app GUI
        • Tried e.g. [Effects > Video Effects > Auto Color]
          • Dragged it to item on timeline
          • Saw its effect in the main Timeline preview pane
            • Provided the cursor was somewhere on that item in the timeline.
          • In [Source] preview-pane, selected [Effect Controls] tab
            • [Video Effects] included [Auto Color]
            • Clicking the [fx] button toggles the effect on/off
      • Cuts & Transitions
        • Snapping on/off Toggle-button (looks a bit like [C], meant to be a horseshoe-magnet), left of timeline top-ruler
        • Transitions
          • Basics
            • Ensure handles are present and that the clips are abutted (e.g. have snap enabled)
            • In Effects palette (tab in lower-left pane, [Video Transitions > Dissolve > Cross Dissolve]
          • Iris Transition
            • I fairly frequently use this in another NLE, but with feathered edges.  The settings for this transition in Premiere do not appear to include feathering.  Nothing obvious came up in Google or Help searches.
            • One suggestion, from July 2009, was to instead use Gradient Wipe, which has a Softness control, together with a suitable image for the required shape (e.g. circle).
              • DOH !
      • Text

      Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium: Adobe Premiere: Initial Run

      Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

       Having got the suite installed and ready to use, I ran Adobe Premiere:

      • From Launcher, ran Adobe Premiere
        • A “First Use” dialog came up
          • Requested my Adobe ID
            • I entered it, consisting of an email address and password.
            • Response screen said: <<By providing an Adobe ID, you have set up access to Adobe CS Live Services during your trial period.
            • It also indicated it had sent email verification.
        • I received two emails.
          • First email
            • <<<
            • Thank you for providing your Adobe ID and downloading your Adobe Creative Suite® software trial. During your software trial, you will have access to CS Live services that further extend the capabilities of your Adobe Creative Suite software. Accessed from within your software, CS Live services enable you to accelerate creative reviews, streamline cross-browser testing, and easily host online meetings.
            • For quick and easy access to CS Live services, here is some important information you will want to save:
            • Your complimentary CS Live services subscription will expire with your product trial.
            • >>>
          • Second email:
            • Verify email address
              • Strange that this was sent after the email containing Personal Meeting Room address etc.
        • Thank You dialog gave link to tutorials:
        • I clicked the [Done] button
      • Adobe Premiere started up
        • Popup stated: <<Adobe Premiere Pro requires updated video card drivers for CUDA accelerated rendering.  Please download and install current drivers for your video card.>>
          • That’s what I was afraid of.  It’s making the same demands as DaVinci Resolve.  I cannot satisfy those demands, all updates are under Apple’s control – it is normal that laptops (as my MacBook Pro is) have customized versions of graphics card drivers…
          • I closed the popup.
        • Premiere prompted for [New Project] etc.
          • I clicked on [Help]
            • The Help panel, once populated (after a minute or so), included a [Getting Started and Tutorials] link.

      Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium: Premiere: Run in Boot Camp Windows 7

      Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

       Having got the suite installed and ready to use, I ran Adobe Premiere.  It created an account for me on [CS Live Services].  It complained that my video card drivers were insufficient for CUDA accelerated rendering.  Sadly I cannot update these – I must only accept those that Apple provide (via Boot Camp updates).  So no CUDA acceleration then I guess…

      Nevertheless, how well does it work in other respects, and how usable is it overall?  The

      (more…)

      Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium: Launch in Boot Camp Windows 7

      Tuesday, December 27th, 2011
      • Installer for CS5.5 Production Premium
        • For viewing the license conditions, it offers language choices including [English (North America)] and [English (International)].
          • It’s not clear what the difference is.  I wish it showed some examples in each.
          • I’m not the only confused one, e.g:
            • http://forums.adobe.com/message/1227810
              • Peter Spier
                • 3. Jan 14, 2009 10:21 AM (in response to rpollack-2)
                • Re: CS4 English International vs English US
                • To add to the confusion, I think the difference is in the default dictionaries and the spellings in the interface, i.e. it presumes you want British-style spelling (as you have), and has nothing to do with licensing.
                • I have no clue how to change that election other than to re-install. If you can live with the funny spelling in the menus, you can set the default dictionary to US English in InDesign, and probably other apps.
                • With nothing open, click the text tool and set the control panel to character mode options. Change the language in the dictionary dropdown near the right end. This is also available from the character panel (which which is where you’d change it in Photoshop, it’s in the prefs under Hyphenation in Illustrator — and you may be able to reset the interface language in the Photoshop prefs, too)
          • I chose [English (International)]
        • Next it asked for:
          • Serial Number or else check the Trial button.
            • I did the latter
          • Also it asked for Language
            • I assume this to be the operating language for the app
            • Again I chose [English (International)]
        • Next, [Install Options]
          • Apps:
            • Flash Pro CS5.5
            • AIR for Apple iOS Support
            • After Effects CS5.5
            • Audition CS5.5
            • Encore CS5.1
            • Flash Catalyst CS5.5
            • Illustrator CS5.1
            • OnLocation CS5.1
            • PhotoShop CS5.1 (64..)
            • PhotoShop CS5.1
            • Premiere Pro CS5.5
          • Location:
            • [C:\Program Files\Adobe]
        • Next it began calculating the total time for install and began installing.  After a few minutes it returned its time estimate as around half an hour.  This (initial conservative estimate?) rapidly dropped to around 20 minutes.
        • Next it asked for web browsers to be closed
        • Finally it displayed what looks like a Launcher window for the Production Premium suite, withbuttons labelled akin to Periodic Table elements, except that one of them [Ps] (PhotoShop) appeared twice, identically labelled.
          • On mouse-hover it emerged (from tooltip text) that the second [Ps] was 64-bit, the first then presumably being 32-bit, though its tooltip text did not confirm this
      • Possibly unrelated, Kapersky AntiVirus reported
        • <<Detected a potentially dangerous modification of the application BMDSTREAMINGSERVER.EXE without a digital signature>>
          • That application was installed yesterday, as part of DaVinci Resolve Lite for Windows.
          • (I got distracted by domestic events)
          • The Kapersky prompt appeared to time-out, I don’t know whatit assumed/did…
      • The Launcher highlighted the followingTutorials link:
      • From Launcher, ran Adobe Premiere
        • A “First Use” dialog came up
          • Requested mu Adobe ID
            • Ientered it.
            • Response screen said: <<By providing an Adobe ID, you have set up access to Adobe CS Live Services during your trial period.
            • It also indicated it had sent email verification.
        • I received two emails.
          • First email
            • <<<
            • Thank you for providing your Adobe ID and downloading your Adobe Creative Suite® software trial. During your software trial, you will have access to CS Live services that further extend the capabilities of your Adobe Creative Suite software. Accessed from within your software, CS Live services enable you to accelerate creative reviews, streamline cross-browser testing, and easily host online meetings.
            • For quick and easy access to CS Live services, here is some important information you will want to save:
            • Your complimentary CS Live services subscription will expire with your product trial.
            • >>>
          • Second email:
            • Verify email address
              • Strange that this was sent after the email containing Personal Meeting Room address etc.
        • Thank You dialog gave link to tutorials:
        • I clicked the [Done] button
      • Adobe Premiere started up
        • Popup stated: <<Adobe Premiere Pro requires updated video card drivers for CUDA accelerated rendering.  Please download and install current drivers for your video card.>>
          • That’s what I was afraid of.  It’s making the same demands as DaVinci Resolve.  I cannot satisfy those demands, all updates are under Apple’s control – it is normal that laptops (as my MacBook Pro is) have customized versions of graphics card drivers…
          • I closed the popup.
        • Premiere prompted for [New Project] etc.
          • I clicked on [Help]
            • The Help panel, once populated (after a minute or so), included a [Getting Started and Tutorials] link.

      Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium: Download for Windows

      Monday, December 26th, 2011

      Given my poor experiences on my [MacBook Pro (2009) > Boot Camp > Windows 7] with Boris Blue and with DaVinci Resolve, it is by no means certain that [Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium] will fare any better.  But it’s worth a try.

      So I downloaded a trial.  As part of that I had to first allow [Adobe Download Assistant] to be nstalled and executed.  It prompted for my level of expertise.  I answered: <<Novice: I could use all the help I can get>>.  In response it gave the following link:

      The download is apparently 7.116 GB, estimated download time between 5 and 8 hours. Overnight in other words.

      Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium on Windows and Mac OS (Possibly)

      Friday, November 11th, 2011

      I bought a discount copy of Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium, because (after much discussion with others) its feature-set seems to match my typical and forseeable production requirements more than those of other NLEs, including my current mainstay, Sony Vegas 9 (which I am still trying to wean myself off, but when any proper job comes along, I tend to fall back on the familiar and trusted, for low risk including avoidance of learning-delay).

      Being (so far) a one-man-band who is traditional Windows user, I purchased the Windows version.  But, confirming what I had heard, it does seem that most media people I have met use Macs.  So should I have purchased the Mac version?  Are the versions exactly the same or have they different functionalities?  Is there an option for the license to cover installing the same product on both Windows and Mac OS provided only one of them is run at a time? (e.g. when on the same physical machine).  Ideally at zero or negligible cost of course.  For example Avid Media Composer does have this flexibility.  While the uncertainty remains, I will not open the box (in case it turns out that I need to exchange it).

      Here is what I have learnt so far (mainly from web-searching, unverified information):

      Differences between the OS-Specific variants:

      • It appears that for CS5.5 Production Premium (at least), the Windows variant has slightly greater functionality.
      • However it remains to be seen what will be the case for CS6, when it becomes available.

      Some options are:

      • Volume licensing.
        • Intended not only for businesses but also for individuals.  If the “volume”is for two licenses, they can be for each of the OS’s.
      • Crossgrade.
        • But as far as I can tell it’s intended only for one-off (or infrequent) crossgrades, requiring “destruction of the software” on the old machine each time.  Shame it isn’t simply happy with repeatable deactivation/reactivation on each machine / OS.

      (more…)

      Adobe Premiere: Introductory Tutorials & Articles

      Sunday, September 4th, 2011

      AviSynth: Frameserve Virtual AVI: VFAPI & Alternatives on Windows 7

      Saturday, September 3rd, 2011

      Context & Problem:

      • I want a way to serve an AviSynth media stream into NLEs etc., e.g. Sony Vegas.  I have done this for years under Windows XP-SP3 (32-bit).
        • Partly just for the flexibility of having this option.
        • Partly (as explained at http://blog.davidesp.com/archives/388), as a workaround to another problem with old software under Windows 7.
      • However an attempt at installation in Windows 7 failed – because (I now know) the installer is obsolete (and hence incompatible) with respect to Windows 7.
        • VFAPI requires to be installed, via .bat/.inf files, so that for example it appears in the Registry.
        • But the installer fails under Windows 7.  It is compatible with XP but not Windows 7 (or Vista).
        • It is possible to manually “hack-install” VFAPI into Windows 7, but that causes me anxiety…

      Possible Solutions:

      (more…)

      AviSynth usage in Adobe Premiere

      Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

      http://videoeditorskit.sourceforge.net/

      •  We provide and maintain PremiereAVSPlugin – a plugin for Adobe Premiere that allows Avisynth scripts to be imported as normal video files

      Avid MC5 vs Adobe CS5 vs Apple FCP 7 (FCS 3)

      Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

      http://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/will-cs5-and-mc5-toast-fcp

      • Great article comparing their pragmatics for various kinds of business and workflow situation.
      • Also speculating on their likely future developments.