Archive for November, 2012

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 on Mac OS: Encoding to Windows Media

Tuesday, November 20th, 2012

It’s not directly possible to render from Adobe CS6 to Windows Media (doh!).

The best we can do on Mac OS is to render to an intermediate file, such as ProRes or DNxHD or Cineform.  These formats are not bundled with Adobe, they are third-party, to be obtained and installed independently of Adobe.

Having rendered to an intermediate file, it is then possible to render from this on to Windows Media via the following:

  • Copy the file to Windows and use Adobe (say) from there.
  • Staying on Mac OS, use a different application:

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 Media Encoder: Additional Formats

Tuesday, November 20th, 2012

I was using Adobe Premiere, this time on Mac OS, and wished to render something like ProRes or something suitable for an iPad.  Aware of Larry Jordan’s post on this (from my earlier post), I nevertheless searched afresh, finding the following Adobe blog post.  Very helpful.

In each case (folder of presets), just drill down to the lowest level, select all the [.epr] files and import.  Each [.epr] file “knows” its appropriate folder internal to Adobe Media Encoder.  And yes, I did first check the presets were not already there.  Weird really, that I had to discover these by accident – surely should have been part of an Update?

http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2012/06/new-prores-kindle-fire-nook-ipad-android-and-mxf-presets-for-adobe-media-encoder-cs6.html

  •  new ProRes, Kindle Fire, Nook, iPad, Android, and MXF presets for Adobe Media Encoder CS6
  • IMPORTANT: We do not distribute the ProRes encoders or decoders (codecs). You must get those from Apple. The ProRes encoders are included with various Apple video software, such as Final Cut Pro and Motion.

    To install the encoding presets in Adobe Media Encoder CS6, do the following:

    1. Download the encoding preset packages:
    2. Extract (unzip) the package.
    3. Start Adobe Media Encoder CS6.
    4. In Adobe Media Encoder CS6, choose Preset > Import and navigate to the encoding preset(s) to import. You can choose multiple encoding presets at a time; it is most convenient to select all of the presets in a folder at once.

    This video demonstrates the use of the Preset Browser to apply and manage encoding presets.

    If you have any trouble, bring questions and issues to the Adobe Media Encoder forum, and we can help you there.

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…)

Mac Shutdown Hang: Kaspersky 2011 (for Mac)

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

My MacBook Pro, running Snow Leopard i.e. Mac OS 10.6.8, often hangs during shutdown.  If I start it up, do almost nothing, then shut down it is ok. But otherwise, if I do something significant, like run Adobe Premiere, it hangs on shutdown.  The only way out is to “Button It” i.e. press and hold the Power Button to force a power-off.  This leaves the file system slightly damaged, as reported by [Boot Camp > Windows] (not sure if I have MacDrive running or not), if I happen to run that immediately afterwards.

On booting again to Mac OS, the OS appears to mend the file system and recover lost files, which appear in a [Recovered] folder of [Trash].  Typically these are files I (directly or indirectly via an application) most recently created prior to shutdown, for example Adobe project-saves and cache file saves.

This is a nuisance, and (naively at least) raises concerns of some more significant kind of damage occurring some day…

Web-search suggested maybe Kapersky Anti-Virus 2011 (for Mac) might be responsible.  My experience indeed confirmed that – once I removed Kaspersky (for Mac), the Mac OS shutdown behaved normally once again.

{BUT, as recorded in my next post, re Adobe, could the apparent Kaspersky-hang be the result of an Adobe failure-to-terminate process?}

Kaspersky removal:

  • Since my copy of Kaspersky (for Mac) was installed as part of Parallels Desktop 8, it did not come with its own installer/uninstaller package.  Instead I had to run Parallels Desktop (no need for any of the VMs to be running, just the “shell”), then use menu option: [Parallels Desktop >  File > Uninstall Antivirus for Mac…].
  • Tip: on doing that, nothing seemed to happen for quite a while, so maybe worth leaving it for say 15 minutes to see if a confirmation “Removal succeeded” message pops up.  Or if that doesn’t work, try updating Parallels Desktop and trying again (that is what I ended up having to do).

(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 Media Encoder: Additional Formats

Monday, November 12th, 2012
  • http://www.larryjordan.biz/prelude-v1-0-1/
    • With this release, Prelude now provides new transcoding options that are optimized for editing.
    • While the ideal option for Mac users is to transcode into ProRes, this isn’t a viable option for Windows users. Since Prelude is cross-platform, Adobe provides two other options: MXF OP1a and P2 Movie. Of the two, I prefer P2 Movie > AVC Intra 100. This Panasonic codec is 10-bit, uses I-frame compression, and creates file sizes somewhat smaller than ProRes 422. For most editors, it should provide excellent quality.
    • For Mac users wanting the best quality, I recommend creating a custom preset in Adobe Media Encoder using ProRes. For editors needing to support files in a cross-platform environment, I recommend AVC-Intra 100. (The 100 version has a higher bit rate, and generally higher quality than the 50 version.)
    • http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5409

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…)

Sony EX3 Noise & Bits-Resolution

Monday, November 5th, 2012

It looks to me like it is worth recording from a Sony EX3 in 10-bit when there will be subsequent Neat Video -type temporal denoising in post.

I tried a quick-and-dirty experiment, confirming that, despite the relatively high noise of the Sony EX3 (as compared to mainstream broadcast video cameras), high bitrate 10-bit 4:2:2 recording offers a greater potential than 8-bit 4:2:0  when the Neat Video type of temporal denoising (motion-compensated, I think) is applied in post.

I have yet to dig-down into this, e.g. to see how it would be affected by dropping down to “8-bit but still high-bandwidth” recording, hence I can only conclude that the combination of high bandwidth, 10-bit and 4:2:2 is beneficial.

The experiment:

  • Make an extremely low-light recording on the EX3, in 1080 50i mode.
  • Import it to a SD resolution project in Adobe Premiere.
    • No “scale to project size”, hence pixel-for-pixel, with the HD clip therefore appearing to be “zoomed”.
  • Compare the original to a copy that had the following affects applied:
    • Fast Color Corrector
      • Input-range (0, 1.6, 114), to brighten the (deliberately) under-exposed image.
      • Increase Saturation to 200.
    • Remove Noise (Neat Video)
      • Temporal noise reduction only, radius 4 (frames).

Make the comparison via Preview:

  • Set resolution to 100%, image size to Full.
  • Render the result, i.e. so timeline had green lines not red.
  • Compare by eye.
    • The unprocessed 8-bit (XDCAM-EX) and 10-bit (Cineform-High) recordings appeared identical i.e. very noisy.
    • The denoised 8-bit looked slightly better but the denoised 10-bit looked very significantly better, indeed just about usable.

Great Camera Comparison Summary

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/aadams/story/cameras_now_its_rocket_science/

From March 2012

Sony EX3 Noise & Bits-Resolution & Green-Screen

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

It has been said ( I believe by Alister Chapman ) that there are only marginal benefits from recording XDCAM-EX to more than 8 bits, due to the relatively high noise of this camera, as compared to more typical broadcast cameras.

In my experience, while it was a wonderful step-up from my Z1, certainly it’s recordings are noisier than I’d like, leading me to pretty-process certain footage (using Neat Video denoising plugin to my NLE).  And as a recent project with reasonably well-lit green-screen illustrated, it’s noise in shadows can be a particularly nuisance (much time in post experimenting to work around this).

So I wondered:

  • Even if marginal, to what extent is 10-bit beneficial to EX3 recording?
  • For the EX3, when recording 10-bit, it is also 4:2:2, surely a benefit to chroma keying and resizing (reframing, stabilising/deshaking/tracking).
  • Could the benefit depend on editing workflow?  For example:
    • What if subsequently de-noising (like I mentioned)?
    • Some NLE’s do bits-dithering, hiding the quantisation/banding that would otherwise be apparent from having only 8 bits.

I need to do my own experiments, but for now, here (below) are some results from web-searching…

(more…)

Sony EX3 for Green Screen (Greenscreen)

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

 Tips on using an EX3 for chromakey (e.g . Greenscreen) work

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdcam-ex-cinealta/139146-green-screen-tips-ex3.html

Sony EX3 Settings Videos (& Comments)

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

I’ve used the EX3 since it came out, 2008, but it’s always good to compare agains others’ experiences.   Only recently have I used it in different ways (green-screen, on-set monitor).

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mNlvOuoERoE

EX3 SDI Output

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

 Worked, but config was not as straightforward as I first (naively) assumed:

The big “Gotcha”:

  • Must first Disable the iLink (IEEE 1394, small FireWire) interface. Otherwise SDI won’t work at all.  I guess EX3’s SDI & iLink might share some circuitry?
    • In EX3 Menu, OTHERS category (last i.e. final category):
      • [i.Link I/O] :Disable.

Then, in EX3 Menu, VIDEO SET category (3rd category), then:

  • [YPbPr/SDI Out Select] : HD
  • [YPbPr/SDI Out Display] : Off

This worked fine in practice.

FurtherTips:

  • Under EX3 OTHERS Menu-Category:
    • With EX3 [Country] = [NTSC Area]:
      • “HQ 1080/60i” gives [1080 interlaced 59.94fps 4:2:2 YUV10].
      • “HQ 1080/30p” gives [1080 progressive 29.97fps 4:2:2 YUV10 ].
      • “HQ 1080/24p” gives ??? (Cinedeck accepted it only at 30 fps)
    • With (correspondingly) [PAL Area]:
      • “HQ 1080/50i” gives [1080 interlaces 50fps 4:2:2 YUV10]

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Effects-Order: Denoise before Deshake

Thursday, November 1st, 2012

This is my impression, from the expressed views of others:

  • If you have e.g. 60i or 50i then do any stabilization first, so it gets maximum temporal information, prior to any deinterlacing e.g. to corresponding 30p or 25p.  Presumably if double-deinterlacing e.g. to 60p or 50p then this is immaterial.
  • If you’re using noise reduction, always do that prior to stabilisation as it helps the algorithm to concentrate on wanted detail and not on random noise. But then if it’s Neat Video denoising then that works best with stable progressive material.

(more…)