Sheer Video Codec for Editing in Premiere CS2/CS3?
 

Is anyone using the Sheer Video codec for editing in Premiere?

If so, how does it work?

Just fine. It's just another QT plugin, once installed it works on all QT-compatible apps.

Unfortunately I'm having no luck getting any video encoded in the SheerVideo Codec.

I think all is installed okay. However, when encoding DV to SheerVideo using Quicktime Pro, I have had these two results:

1. And error about incorrect file lenght
or
2. When encoding completes, the audio is okay, but the video is black

I have tried to export out of Premiere Pro CS2, both HDV 1440x1080 and DV, and all I get is an export error.

I am using a PC. Are there detailed settings somewhere for using Quicktime or Premiere Pro for getting the video encoded into the SheerVideo codec? (I have had similar results trying to export out of AfterEffects.)

Obviously, I don't understand what I'm doing, apparently, but I don't understand why just using Quicktime isn't working.

Jack, Sheer has a lot of options, which ones are you using?

DV:

I have been able to get DV into the SheerVideo RGB codecs using Quicktime Pro and exporting from Avid/Pinnacle Liquid or Premiere Pro CS2.

Using QT to convert DV to Sheer Y'CbCr[A] 8bw 4:2:2 creates video that is nothing but the first frame of the original file, but the audio is okay.

Using QT to convert DV to Sheer Y'CbCr 8bw 4:2:2 causes this error near the end of the conversion:
Error 2014: the movie contains an incorrect duration

HDV:

Trying to export out of Avid/Pinnacle Liquid from HDV crashes the program.

I was able to export out of PP from HDV to Sheer RGB 1440x1080.

However, I have found no way to convert HDV to Sheer using QT. (Apparently this is not possible.)
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I would like to do an edit in Avid/Pinnacle Liquid and reassemble in AfferEffects and color correct, etc. their using the SheerVideo codecs. Apparaently, this is not possible. It seems I must export out of Liquid using an uncompressed RGB AVI (which is huge) and which would require each cut to be exported separately, etc. Also, the color space conversion is not ideal I don't believe.

It looks like it might be possible to edit in PP which would allow me to transfer to AE and change to the Sheer Codec. Is this right?

I have not been able to find a tutorial or workflow for using SheerVideo Codecs on a PC. Perhaps the Sheer AVI codec that is in Beta will be helpful.

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I also have read that people use SheerVideo for capture. But I haven't read any where how. Can HDV be captured in the Sheer Video Codec (which one?) and used directly for editing in Premiere Pro CS2?

Thank you for any suggestions or references!

Jack, I do it all the time, I don't think that there is any in Sheer tha hints that it cannot be done. You can use something like MPEG Streamclip , which supports petty much all flavors of MPEG, to read an HDV .m2t file and convert it to any QT codec. BTW, it would be helpful to know what options you are using. When selecting Sheer in the QT dialog box there is an "Options" button. What settings are you using?

Again, I do it all the time, not in Avid but from FCP. Any program that uses QuickTime should be able to work with *any* codec installed. BTW, what vertsion of QT are you using and what version of Sheer?

Don't know about PPro but yes, you can capture as long as your software allows you to select the QT codec for the capture and you have a fast enough machine.

Pablo et al:

I have begun to get SheerVideo to work.

I was contacted by someone from Sheer who saw this forum, and he answered two of the problems.

1. The repeating first frame is a bug in the newest release by Sheer (2.6.6.3). I installed version 2.6.5.2 and I can now encode into the Sheer Codec without this issue. Apparently the bug in the latest release is being worked on, but there it is not fixed quite yet.

2. The 8bw codec that didn't work for me is for a specialized legacy use that doesn't apply to me, and I shouldn't use it.

As far as transcoding from mpeg, I bought the QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component, which allows quicktime to read mpeg files.

I also installed MPEG StreamClip and it works as an excellent interface, in to Quicktime, as well as offering many additional benefits.

I have also found the way to export to the Sheer codec using Procoder 3, but this program is a little more arcane for this purpose than MPEG Streamclip.

I have additional questions, but I need to try some more things first. (For example, I'm not sure when 1440x1080 video should be converted to 1920x1080 or left as 1440x1080 when moving into the Sheer codec.)

We are working on a documentary and we need to bring new video (HDV 1080i, 1080 24F, 1080 24P, 720P (JVC)) as well as old video in many formats together into one project. We also need to deliver parts of the project for different purposes as we go along before we finish the whole piece.

The SheerVideo codec looks like a perfect solution for this:
1. Lossless and reasonable size
2. Usable for high quality grading, etc. in AfterEffects
3. Handles colorspace conversions virutually perfectly.

I hope this is right, but at the moment, this looks very promising.

TmpGenc will successfully output to SheerVideo. However, it won't read m2t of mxf. So, again, you'd need to convert to an intermediate format.

SheerVideo just released an update a couple of days ago that fixes all the problems I was having.

I don't know which will work out best, but as this point I have no problem converting from HDV to SheerVideo with Quicktime, MPEGstreamclip and Procoder 3. (Quicktime and MPEG streamclip require the Quicktime MPEG-2 Playback Component to read the HDV file. Won't this also allow TMPGenc to read the m2t directly?).

I have been able to export SheerVideo from Avid Liquid sometimes. Other times it crashes.

What would be ideal right now for me would be able to export an EDL or similar out of Liquid that AfterEffects can read. It appears the current solution is to export each cut separately, then transcode to Sheer Video using Quicktime, then import them one at a time into AfterEffects.

I have PP CS2, though, so maybe that is a better option for an ongoing project that will be finished in AfterEffects.

Liquid is convenient for doing cutting, and it may work out as useful for this as a lot of the project is being done in segments.

Not quite that but this script http://aescripts.com/2008/01/18/magn...edit-detector/ might help. It detects the cuts in a sequence automatically and creates and AE layer for each cut.

I'm with SheerVideo tech support, and I'd like to first thank Paolo for standing by our product :-)

Second, to anyone who has any questions at all about SheerVideo: if you can't find all the answers you need by searching through forums, I cordially invite you to email us at BitJazz!

For informational questions: info [at] bitjazz.com
For customer service: service [at] bitjazz.com

We'll be happy to answer any questions you may have, so please don't hesitate to contact us.

I'd also like to do a little plugging: SheerVideo is 1/2 price from now until the end of NAB!

Cheers,

Owen Smithyman
Technical Associate
BitJazz, Inc.
http://www.bitjazz.com

You're very welcome Owen, it's great to see that BitJazz is reading the forums. I used SheerVideo almost every day for the past year and it served me well.