Question for Adobe users
 

I have this friend who er........has an embarrasing problem. He would like to buy an XH-A1. What he is worried about is, from what he is hearing, working with HD in premiere then rendering to SD for final delivery is no easy task.

I'm a Vegas user and find it ridiculously easy: Shoot in HD, Capture in HD, Edit in HD render to SD which is burned to DVD.

Did he hear wrong with regards Premiere?

His current way of doing it is to donwvert to SD in the camera, then edit and render as normal which won't give as good a result as staying in HD for as long as possible.

Hopefully a few of you have trodden that path already and have an answer.

What is his primary concern? Easy of use? Quality? Speed?

Anyway, this thread might have some info:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=70792

Hey...thats a great read, especially for me being a Vegas Evangelist!

I've tried to show him the way, but he's comfortable with Premiere (actually he's more than comfortable...talented git more like!)

The No1 concern is getting the absolute minimum loss of quality from the source HD to final SD DVD.

Heres some videos on working with HDV in PP2 (capturing, Exporting,SD projects and making DVD)..see if they help your...er..friend.

http://www.esnips.com/web/Premiere-Pro-2-Video-Tutes

Work flow is a pain HDV to SD with PP2. I tried the Beta PP3 and am very optimistic. Unfortunately, I had to uninstall PP3 and reinstall PP2 because the beta limitations affected PP2.

Workflow with PP2:
XH-A1 -> HDVsplit (Laptop) -> mpegstreamclip (Desktop) -> PP2 -> Debugmode (frameserve) -> Tmpgenc -> Encore (IMG file) -> Primera Duplicator -> SD DVD

HDVsplit does a nice capture without having to install a full PP2
streamclip fixes occasional timecode problems PP2 can't deal with
debug framserves to save space
tmpgenc resizes better than PP2 and creates the 2 streams Encore likes

When I get PP3 I'll start using Cineform (already purchased). PP2 hates Cineform but the Beta PP3 worked fine. (Relief!!)

PP3 comes with OnLocation (DV Rack) for capture (Nice)
PP3 comes with Encore 3 which can output BluRay. (Cool)
Maybe as player prices drop we won't have to be bothered with dropping to SD anymore. Hey, - want to buy some great Sony VHS duplicators?

My workflow in PP2 is somewhat different.

1. Capture XH-A1 footage directly into PP2.
2. Drop the footage on HD timeline.
3. Edit.
4. Render final product in HDV MPEG2 25Mbs.
5. Drop final product on SD timeline.
6. Scale to 45% to fit SD 16:9 and apply "sharpen" filter (30).
7. Render SD timeline to MPEG2-DVD for SD DVD delivery.
8. Encore DVD for SD DVD authoring.
9. Render final HDV MPEG2 25Mbs clip to AVC 12Mbs for HD delivery.

I end up with two products: SD and HD.
In step 9, I use Nero Recode to render final HDV to AVC. This saves 1/2 the space while maintaining the same quality.

Wow......I feel for you guys using Premiere. Thats sounds like they have you all jumping through hoops to get anywhere. Genuinely, Vegas is a complete and utter pussycat with HDV. Sorry if this is rubbing salt in your wounds.......it just is.

That said....you can all return the favour and gloat when you are all burning your Blu-Ray discs with CS3:-( No sign of DVDA doing anything so far.....I live in hope!

Alastair,

As far as the workflow I outlined above (I call them '9 Steps to HDV Success'), what problems do you see there that are specific to Premier? In which ways Vegas is doing a better job in offering a simplier workflow?

Hey Maksim, do you use cineform at all?
I am just starting to test my PP2 system with my A1 and HDV seems a little sluggish on my system. Its not impossible just seems less robust than DV. Any tips on performance? I am on a dual 2 ghz xeon machine w/1.5 G ram.
I was thinking about getting CINEFORM but I would like to just use PP2.

Hi Jack:

Actually, I am not using cineform. You would not believe me if I told you that my main workstation for now is a 3 years old Toshiba laptop with 17" LCD, 3GHz Pentium IV and 1GB of RAM. I am specing out the next powerhouse system as we speak, but for now that's what I am using. The editing is not as fluid as DV, which is expected, but I don't feel the need for cineform.

With Premier Pro CS3, especially if one was to go encoding AVC and authoring Blu-Ray, I heard that quad-core CPU is a very nice to have. AVC encoding is a killer, but the results are nothing short of awesome!

As far as performance, dual-core or quad-core (or two separate dual-cores), 2-4G of ram, fast disks (or disk arrays), do not use your system drive for capture or editing, and use separate capture drive and separate drive for the final output. Format your hard-drives that you use for video (especially the one you use for capture) with the largest possible cluster size (64K). I can go on...

Maksim, thanks for you answers. You mentioned CS3, is CS3/PP3 supposed to have a performance boost of any kind that you know of?

PP2 doesn't use memory or resources very well, especially multi-core. PP3 is much better.

You don't need Cineform for simple editing, but if you're going to color correct or do anything fancy, you'll want it.

It's hard to say whether Cineform results in an actual loss in quality. The frames look slightly fuzzier but without the obvious artifacts in raw m2t. Kind of a trade-off. Sort of like an NR filter.

Jack,

Only from utilizing processing power more efficiently. PPCS3 has higher system requirements as well.
I do second Brad's input on the fact that CS3 will most likely make better use of multi-core systems.

PP2 System
 

Man I keep seeing all these problems with PP2 and wonder what is different with my system. I'm working on a Indi full length movie and have logged at least 18 hours of footage so far with no problems at all. I have a AMD 4800 dual processor, Dual Nvita video cards (1.5 megs video ram) 4 Gigs ram, and 4 SATA drives, the capture and render drives are RAID 0. We shoot nearly everything is HD 60i and the down convert after render. I have shot 2 shorts in 24f as Canon calls it and it also edits great. I did download the capture preset for Canon 24f and 30f, but we use the HDV 60i for the 60i stuff. The reason we use PP2 and After Effects is that I am lucky enough to have 2 CGI nuts on staff and they do some mind bending stuff. Also there is another thread on here about PP2 that seems to refer to many of the same problems so, I may just be lucky. I just want to say when PP2 works it is an amazing program.

Wynn Bradford

CS3 is coming
 

Reply from Adobe received today

Dan, I have searched for your order and have found that your order is for
Creative Suite 3 Production and the expected delivery date is around July 14, 2007