workflow for editing 5d mkii via PPro CS4 ??
 

i have looked all through the forum and keep only reading about FCP FCP FCP. no, i won't switch, as i have too much invested in my fast pc's and software. i do both video and photo and am curious what your workflow is? i have an XH A1 as well and it seems so much easier with settings on projects in premiere pro. there are so many settings and options when starting a new project in CS4 for editing with 5D mk2.

i have chosen HDV, video shot in 1920X1080 original, and 30fps, which that is what the video was shot in, so that is what i have chosen. then of course i have to render the ENTIRE TIMELINE so i can edit smooth video that isn't choppy. oh, one more thing, there is an option for SQUARE PIXELS and anamorphic / non-anamorphic. i chose the anamorphic for square pixels. am i on the right track?

after editing i plan to export to 1920 X 1080, to blu-ray, even though my plasma tv is 720. i heard if you down-scale the image quality will be lost. another thing...i purchased an hdmi cable so i can view the footage direct on my tv. it doesn't look too good! this is supposed to be the most outstanding HD cam and i have seen it on the web. i was expecting national geographic - type footage but it looked like SD to me.

i'm very frustrated. thanks for any comments!

Steve

Me too!
 

I don't know the answers, but I too wonder the exact same things... Committed to CS3/4.

I'd guess you should always export to the highest quality possible - people who have 720 sets will down-scale automatically, no?

john

well maybe replies tonight i hope. odd that no one has jumped on this. it's a very common editing platform with very popular cam. i have a 720 tv and will still export for much higher than that, 1080 regardless. problem is there are way too many combinations, codecs, settings, 1080i, 1080p, square pixels, anamorphic, blah blah blah.

proxy editing
 

I'm very much a beginner at video, but I have been using the proxy editing method outlined in this link with some success:

Darts at Lark Tavern - Albany, NY - 08, Dec on Vimeo

Even if you don't use proxies, the poster has some good information about what settings to use for your project and for output.

Here is a video I did with my granddaughter. Completely amateurish but a lot of fun, and some of the footage looks great in HD:

Sacha Mom By Bob Gates On ExposureRoom

Oh, and raw footage from the camera looks great on my friend's 50" HD TV with an hdmi cable.

Bob

I will join you as another currently unable to produce a satisfactory workflow in Premier Pro CS4.

I do appreciate that Hi-Def is a tough thing to throw at any computer. It's 4 times larger than DigiBeta, the usual source for the Avid edit suites that I work alongside...I'm a post production sound mixer.

Those of us having trouble had I guess better start by looking at the minimum spec that Adobe state for a PC to work with HD:
<<2GHz or faster processor for DV; 3.4GHz for HDV; dual 2.8GHz for HD.
Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 (Service Pack 3 recommended) or Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1 (certified for 32-bit Windows XP and 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista)
2GB of RAM
10GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on flash-based storage devices)
1,280x900 display with OpenGL 2.0–compatible graphics card
Dedicated 7200 RPM hard drive for DV and HDV editing; striped disk array storage (RAID 0) for HD; SCSI disk subsystem preferred >>

My home Win XP PC falls a bit short of this, I only have dual 2.2 and no 'Raid' drives.
Knowing that 'minimum specs' are usually rather too optomistic, I guess my problems should first be tackled by at least getting my machine to a little better than their minimum specs.

The 5D2 records an H264 compressed .mov file, at 30 fps. H264 is pretty hard on the PC's processing as well. Really a 'finishing' codec but I know Canon needed to get that data onto the current CF cards somehow.
I receive H264 QuickTimes regularly in my sound studio and they run OK on a similar spec PC to my home machine.
Alas I can't run the native 5D2 files at home without stuttering.
So far my trials have led me to re-coding the files as mpeg2's (1920x1080) at 29.97 using the 'HDTC 1080p' preset in Adobe Media Encoder. Just re-wrapping them as mpeg4's doesn't work for me.
However as mpeg2's, my PC then plays the files cleanly, in say Windows Media Player and even Adobe Bridge. But that doesn't guarantee that Premier Pro will do so happily!

I'm also living in the UK, 25fps PAL land, so wish to end up with finished outputs at 25frames, more potential for dropped frames I'm sure.

The camera is capable of great things and with an arsenal of lovely Olympus lenses, a successful 'separate sound' method, a Hoodloupe viewer and a good video tripod, I'm capturing nicely...now I have to conquer the editing!

David

David, thank you for your info. i guess no one on the forum is using premiere pro cs4. this is the 2nd time i posted in 3 months with no responses. odd. there are so many people out there doing great video with this cam and yet, no responses. i will find it on the web somewhere.

as for me, i have been a cinematographer / video editor / audio engineer with pro tools recording studio / photographer / guitarist, for years. i enjoy it all and rarely sleep. not to mention i'm a computer guy. i will find the answers. i have pioneered new things before. there are just too many settings. i will not encode to mpeg2 when i have this nice mov file.

i'm running i7 quad core machine with 6 gigs ram, newest nvidia car with 1 gig ram on it....i still get stuttering. here is how you get past the stuttering..... drop the clips in the timeline and RENDER ENTIRE PROJECT! it takes about a minute for every minute of footage but there is no stuttering afterward and you can edit fine.

Steve

Yes,

I believe that we need to change the playback away from the QuickTime one.

We are all using Final Cut or iMovie:-)

All Windows applications seem to struggle with editing or even playing the 5DII files. I thought that magic answer was to convert them all to CineForm NeoScene before you start editing. You can download a 15 day trial from www.cineform.com

so i would need to buy a mac then? i just dropped decent cash on this i7. how does final cut compare to ppro cs4? can i get finalcut for windows? probably not.

- thanks Dave! i will check it out.

As far as I know, 5D files converted with Cineform Neoscene do not yet work as smoothly in CS4 as they would in CS3.

I tried CS4 and went back to CS3 for that very reason - even on Draft display mode I couldn't get realtime playback, but could with CS3.

I wasn't suggesting you go & buy a Mac just pointing out that those of us using Macs don't have a problem with editing the 5DII files. There is no Final Cut for Windows. iMovie ships with every Mac as part of the iLife '09 suite.

You seem to have ignored my suggestion of using Cineform's NeoScene. As I mentioned there is a full function trial & it does seem to be the most reliable way of getting the 5DII files into a CODEC that Windows editing applications can handle. Using an intermediate CODEC is the easiest workflow even on the Mac we generally convert to ProRes for Final Cut & iMovie automatically converts to Apple Intermediate CODEC.

Steve, there are several few good workflows for 5DII files with PPro CS4. In reverse order of my preference:

1. Render the files (time consuming but works great)
2. Transcode to high quality MP4. (CS4 loves to display MP4. I use Adobe Media Encoder to transcode. You can also just re-wrap from MOV to MP4 which is quick but has some downsides).
3. Cineform. I use NeoScene. (Yes the current version can stutter a little - but not too badly.)

If you pick a method I can fill in the blanks a little more. There are a few other workflows as well.

I'm getting pretty happy with CS4.1; more stable than 4.0 and projects load much faster.

transcode to MP4
 

I'm not Steve, but I would appreciate it if you would fill in the blanks a little about using AME to transcode to MP4. I have been using proxies (following Sebastian Barre's directions that I reference above), and it works well (especially if your proxies are .mov making the switch painless), but would like to try the MP4 route. Are there any particular settings I need to pay attention to?

Thanks,

Bob

Bob, yes I forgot to mention proxies - another good work flow. There really are several excellent CS4 workflows. In terms of using AME to transcode to MP4, I'm away from my editing computer right now - I'll look at it tonght (PDT) and edit this post with the settings.

So here's the MP4 transcode flow:

Open AME and Add the batch of MOV files to be transcoded
For the Format select H.264
For the Preset start with HDTV 1080p 29.97 High Quality*
Select the output file locations and <names>.MP4
Start the Queue
Go to dinner
When finished place the MP4 files in the PPro timeline for editing. As mentioned, Premiere Pro loves the MP4 format. The clips play smoothly with Automatic Quality, even with some color editing.

* I change the audio to 44.1 to match the 5DII output. Also I select VBR 2 pass if I expect the edit will take over one more generation. You can also up the VBR rate to 50 GB/sec, or use CBR at up to 50.

The disadvantages of this method are that the files are transcoded, not re-wrapped so the quality isn't one-to-one duplicated, plus transcoding is slow. But it avoids the disadvantages of re-wrapping, such as clipped levels, having to correct the pixel aspect ratio and having to convert the sound separately. The MP4 file sizes are the same or somewhat smaller than the MOV files; that is they are realtive small files compared to NeoScene AVI files.

Earlier I had used MPEG2 transcoding (which also plays great with PPro) but quality is an issue for MPEG2; but the quality of MP4 is high enough to go to Blu Ray.

Hey Steve, here is another alternative mentioned on the forum and on adobe forums. You re-wrap (not transcode) the MOV container to the MP4 container. At least for me, Premiere Pro CS4 can easily play or scrub through the video once this is done, as if it was a native DV AVI/mov file, or HDV, AVCHD, XDCAM, P2, etc. This has worked for me with no issues (love it!) and several others, but some report that scrubbing the newly rewrapped MP4s are still slow. I used the windows program SUPER to rewrap the 5d Mark II's MOV files to MP4. My original post is below.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/1154446-post4.html

There's an easier solution from Adobe's forums for smooth playback/scrubbing of the 5D Mark II quicktime MOV files in Premiere Pro. Fabrizio Rizzio recommends rewrapping the MOV container into a new MP4 container (and you can either put the uncompressed LPCM audio into the MP4 container as AAC LC, or create a separate WAV file). You DO NOT have to transcode anything, thus you lose no quality going from MOV to MP4 -- you are simply changing the container. The MP4 should be exactly the same size as the original MOV file, except for the uncompressed LPCM audio. This way, Premiere uses its own h.264 engine to scrub or play through the file (MP4), rather than the slower quicktime engine (MOV).

The experience editing the new MP4 is like editing any native file format to Premiere Pro CS4, like DV, HDV, AVCHD, etc -- smooth scrubbing, playing, etc.

I used Fabrizio's solution to rewrap the MOV into a MP4, which is a utility in windows/PC called SUPER. On the Mac side, or PC side, you can use Quicktime Pro to also do the same thing (hopefully with no transcoding)

****************


Adobe Forums --> Re: How to transcode Canon 5D mark II H.264 video into something editable? from Catmandog

Hi Guys.

I found somewhat of a solution to getting smooth video working with un re-transcoded 5d2 videos, so you don't have to transcode them at all and original file size and quality will be maintained.

What you do have to do is convert them from a .mov container into an .mp4 container, but you dont re-encode them or change codecs. You do have to process the video independently from the audio to get the converter program to successfully complete the task.

Download "Super" file converter (freeware) SUPER videos

- Drag and drop original 5d video onto Super
- Select MP4 as container type
- Select Direct Stream Copy for the video option (no re-encoding)
- Select Disable Audio for the audio option

- Pick your output folder by right clicking anywhere on super's interface then hit Encode. (process is quite fast of course)

Now you'll need to do the audio on it's own.

- Select WAV as your ouput container (if you want wav?) then manually sync up the wav file with the mp4 file in premiere

Has been working great for me. It is a mystery as to why premiere is ok with Canon's H264 codec in a .mp4 container, but not in a .mov or .avi container.

Note - During the container change you will lose the pixel aspect flag that tells premiere how to display the vid, so you'll have to manually interpret the vid as square pixels (right click in bin on the vid clip and select interpret) Premiere reports the resolution as 1920 x 1088, but upon further investigation it is infact still 1080

Charles - if it wouldn't be too much trouble I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say about using neoscene - filling in the blanks. I've been considering buying it.

Thanks,
Fred

First, I'm a fan of NeoScene. Cineform has jumped in and taken the pain out of editing 5DII files with Premiere Pro. Here is what you get:

Fast batch transcoding (the process to convert MOVs to AVIs goes very quickly)
Usually plays smoothly in Premiere in the Automatic Quality mode, even after some color editing, but may stutter a little now and then
A very high quality editing format that survives many generations of editing (important to my tasks and style)
The correct method to take 10bit color into the 8bit editor (avoids color banding)
Converts 30 fps to 29.97 using all frames, and converts sound to match (the correct frame rate for down stream applications - Blu Ray)

The workflow:

Open NeoScene, then the Convert tab, Select Files and add the batch of MOV files to be transcoded
Under Prefs select High Quality and the Target Directory
Start
Read a little e-mail
When finished place the AVI files in the PPro timeline for editing

NeoScene also has a 10 bit exporter from PPro so you can edit in parts and then combine the high quality files for further editing.

I believe Video Guys still sells NeoScene for $99. If you use NeoScene check the Cineform website frequently for updates.

Different Formats
 

Thanks for the info Charles. Many times I'll be mixing between three different camera formats - Sony Handicam, Canon XH-A1 and the 5D Mark II so it's looking like NeoScene may be the solution to get those into the same format.

Thanks,
Fred

It should be mentioned that as nice as Neoscene is, it is the lowest version of Cineform.

It does a fantastic job on the 5D files... but if you want more you should also explore
the other options that Cineform has to offer...

I use Neoscene on a laptop just for the 5D files when I'm out of town... just for ingest
and archive...

I also use Cineform Prospect on my editing workstations....

So I can ingest from the 5D while out in the field with Neoscene and bring the external hard drive back and do the editing on the workstations using Prospect....

Prospect and some of the other Cineform products allows editing of the 5D and other
cameras just as if you were editing RAW footage with their First Light options...
there are lots of extra solutions that you will get in those packages...

The best thing I like about Prospect is that it allows me to mix any footage from
many different cameras seamlessly.

Just saying, as nice as Neoscene is, and it is nice, don't forget to explore the other
options that Cineform has to offer....

they have tryouts to work with before purchase....

thank you
 

Thanks to Charles for your very full and helpful response to my question (and to many others).

Bob

I have been using neoscene for quite a while now with my 5d footage and it is awesome. Before cs4 premiere 4.1 there was some issues with preniere but not cineform but now everything flys with my core i7 and is really simple. I also have a macbook pro and neoscene with it is ok, but i use it for backup and general acquisition in the field then get into more complex editing on the pc at home

Does this method maintain the 0-255 range ... or does it "clip" it to 16-235?

Does the program not allow you to import the audio at the same time as the video?


Premiere won't work with .AVI's?


Thanks for this heads up note!!

1. Unfortunately, the rewrapping into MP4 method makes the levels clip from 16-235
2. SUPER can open the audio at the same time, and you can either A) "copy" the audio to a WAV file or B) transcode it to AAC LC in the new MP4. In other words, you can have a separate MP4 and WAV file, or have the new MP4 have both un-transcoded (full quality minus levels clipping) video, and the transcoded/compressed audio.
3. Premiere Pro can open AVIs, it just cannot scrub or play smoothly the original 5D Mark II MOVs, unless you re-wrap the MOV container into a MP4 container.

Try it yourself and see if it works.

3a. Alternatively, Or you can re-wrap using Quicktime, transcode to a MP4 container using Adobe Media Encoder like others suggest, or transcode to a Cineform codec like NeoScene.

At the end of the day, Premiere Pro CS4 can easily scrub/play the MP4 files as if they were native DV AVI files, HDV M2T files, AVCHD MTS files, XDCAM MP4 files, P2 MXF files, etc.

YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN AWESOME!

LET ME SAY THIS.... I'M DONE WITH THIS!

Allan - thanks for the in-depth info man! i may try it but to tell you the truth with so much going on, and being the type of person to never quit, i find myself spending more time being a mad scientist of data and transcodings in my geek dungeon, than i do filming and being creative. i thought i could shoot and copy and drag the clips on the timeline from the mkii. not so! with my i7, it took a minute to render each minute of video. 2 hours of video, 2 hours to render. i could have used tape. then after that i have to wrap to mp4? man, what a hassle. from now on i'm using tape and capturing from my hd video cams and only using the mkii when i really need to. i hate to resort to that but this is crazy. my huge 2 hour mov timeline freezes and locks in cs4 when it feels like it. cs4 hates mov.

having said that, on to Nigel....

hey, i wasn't ignoring what you said and i know you didn't say go to mac BUT, you got me thinking. i was actually thinking of selling this machine, and taking a little loss and getting a mac for video editing only. final cut. what mac do you suggest. i never had a mac before. i'm a pc geek. i have the iphone and ipod and love the products. i know it's easy to work with. i was thinking of the mac where the os is in the screen. no laptop. what do you suggest for video editing. AND if i were to do this.... will final cut handle avi and mpeg2 files that i shoot from my hd video cams? will final cut just capture via .mov then from my canon XH A1? thanks! i'm really not looking for this crazy mad scientist approach and just want stuff to work. i'm for mac if it's seamless and makes my job better.

currently i cannot import this timeline into encore..it's crashing everything. i just need to get this footage of my son's first time at the zoo, and all the other great stuff onto disc. i am not going to attempt blu-ray, just hi quality dvd unfortunately. i want to get this done and move on. i'm rendering the entire timeline... 2 hours.... and then will try again to import into encore. if that doesn't work then i will export to mpeg2, then import that file into cs4, then export to encore. what a pain.

thanks,
steve

Steve, no problem. I think a lot of people are having issues editing 5D Mark II MOV files with Premiere CS4, whether on the Mac or PC version.

Re-wrapping the MOV files into MP4 is fairly quick (at least 20MB per second, equivalent to 4x real time of a 5MBytes/40MBits per second), even though it is another step. You are not transcoding the files -- you are not recompressing the files. So you will not lose quality, other than Premiere Pro clipping the RGB levels from 0-255 to 16-235. Steve, it's another step, but it is manageable.

So it's a decent solution (in addition) to using an intermediate codec like Cineform, or say Apple ProRes for Final Cut Pro. Transcoding to those intermediate codecs takes up additional time, and substantially more disk space, though the big benefit for those codecs are made for multi-generation workflows, color grading, etc.

Attached is a screenshot of SUPER re-wrapping a MOV file into MP4, but also transcoding the audio from the original uncompressed LPCM into AAC Main audio. (you can also do stream copy and write out to a separate WAV file)

1) Select Output container as mp4, outvideo codec as h.264/AVC
2) Select Stream Copy as it will not transcode the video, simply rewrapping the video
3) Right click, select Output File Save Management, and select a location
4) Drag your original 5D Mark II MOV file into the SUPER window
5) Hit Encode

Thanks guys for giving us a selection of your 'proven workflows' on PPro CS4.

It still appears that what works for one may not work for another.

For instance Charles says that PP CS4 loves mp4's. Alas when I use AME to make an mp4 the way he suggests I still can't play smoothly at 1920x1080 mp4. If I drop to 720x480, I can easily play it but it looks really crap. Very pixellated.
I've tried NeoScene...very big avi's but not smooth and I've used Super which also still glitched.
I've just dropped the 5D2 mov's on the PPro timeline and rendered, which worked fine and I'll keep trying with that but I think making up a resonable length movie will still lead to problem playback on my existing PC.
I may therefore return to making mpeg2's which my machine plays best of all.

I guess it's all down to the power of your PC once you get around the fact that the 5D2's mov's won't play in PP4 natively and you'll have to choose a suitable 'wrapper'.

David T.

Dave, you're right. thanks for your insight... great info.

what was the point to going tapeless? this takes longer than real time. with no proven method it's taken me even longer.

for video i will be using my Canon HV30 and XHA1, using the mkii only for when i really need it, since this is such a pain. i dumped 3.5 hours mkii footage to DVD which resulted in 4.5 gigs on the iso image. quality isn't the best, looks like average SD. i did a re-edit late last night, trimming it down to just 2 hours. exported to encore again but this time as mpeg2 for bluray with 35 CBR. i will check quality tonight. maybe when i get time, over the weekend, i will try the H.264 for bluray. i have read quality isn't that much "better" with h.264, it just saves on space with similar results to mpeg2 and takes MUCH LONGER. i will stick with mpeg2 for bluray at 2 hours.

anyway, here is what i did. after the ppro 4.1 update, i just dropped all clips in the timeline, rendered entire timeline (realtime) and edited, then exported to encore as mpeg2 for bluray. timeframe is the same as recording to tape and capturing.

while looking for an imac today for video editing only, i found adobe has released CS4 4.1 this is supposed to address the issue in this thread. they say it will prevent all the rewrapping and will support all files, even .vob files right off disc. i hope so.

Steve