Hi there,

I've got a bit of a problem hopefully someone can give me some advice on.

In a couple of weeks, I'm entering a 48 hour film comp. Our shooter has decided to film using a Canon ID mk4 but I only have a HP xw4600 system running XP and Adobe CS3 and a Matrox RT.X2

This system edits HDV nicely - but stuggles with anything else. DSLR footage will all be shot in 1080p.

Should I buy something like CINEFORM NEOSCENE, upgrade to ADOBE CS5, or use some other intermediate codec trick to make editing this footage easier?

Upgrading hardware is not an option at this stage...

Any advice appreciated.

I'm on CS4, so i believe the steps would be different for you, but otherwise, the end result would be the same.

Drop the Canon footage on a Matrox HD timeline. Export as a Matrox HD file (1440x1080, 30p).
The raw export might take you long, but that's the sacrifice. Otherwise, once you've exported the Matrox .AVI, start a new Matrox HD project, and you shouldn't have any headache...Simply cut away.

Realize though, that you will loose the 1920x1080, and be working with 14440x1080.
Depending on your final export, i would also suggest going down to 1280x720p for web output.
But if the footage is well done, then don't worry about the pixel count.

Good luck.

PS, make sure when exporting as a Matrox codec, to use the Matrox accelerator, and don't do it through AME...

Adobe CS5 and CUDA graphic card (even one of the cheapest models) should give you more horsepower than Matrox will ever deliver, especially with AVCHD footage.

Adobe CS5 and CUDA graphic card (even one of the cheapest models) should give you more horsepower than Matrox will ever deliver, especially with AVCHD footage.

That sounds good but won't work. I just had a very similar situation with a guy I was helping and he insisted his dual core machine with a high end graphics card could crunch anything. He had to finally realize that with the AVCHD codec its the horsepower in the processor that makes the difference. If you don't have a quad core running at least 3ghz then don't even bother to try.

John, You will have to transcode it into something else. If your machine handles HDV well then that is the obvious choice. Since the turn-in for the 48hrs is SD you won't have any troubles with the drop from 1920 to 1440.

Good luck, Greensboro is the last weekend in June this year. Our team is coming together nicely.

Have a look here: Adobe Forums: System requirements for Premiere Pro CS5 (http://forums.adobe.com/thread/810750?tstart=0)