Jason, Premiere Pro 1.5 does allow you to edit offline versions of the original video, as well as export to AAF and EDL files for importing projects into Avid and Final Cut Pro. I believe this is a new feature.Yes Premiere Pro 1.5 does export AAF and EDL's, but the AAF feature isn't too great on the AVID's. We (unfortunetly ;-) have both and it's not the best combo out there.

Also if you're going to online a movie for AVID, you're going to want to go with the expensive AVID DS/Nitris (which again doesn't like Premiere's AAF's that much), as that's the only AVID box IMHO that's ready for digital intermediates at HD or 2K resolutions.

Plus remember that you don't have a tape to re-digitize, which is what the AAF and EDL workflows are based off-of. You're going to have files, and unfortunetly they're going to be ProspectHD AVI's, which aren't going to read in the AVID DS AFAIK.

In fact there's not going to be ANY timecode to work with, which is why I was suggesting useing FCP's ability to embed new timecode in a quicktime that doesn't originally have a timecode track. From there if you have to you can make a window burn of timecode onto the master to do a picture edit for the online version.

As you can see, this is not a straight forward process, but it can be done with some creative ingenuity and careful pre-planning.

Check this:
http://www.bandpro.com/products/hdtools/cameras/weinberger

very cool I wonder who is making that

Jason what about SheerVideo on mac?

<<<-- Originally posted by Jason Rodriguez : Prospect HD is good, but I have two problems with it-first it's a bit of a proprietary hack on top of Premiere,-->>>

Adobe we be disappointed to hear this. :) Premiere is as successful as at is because is has a very open API layer to allow third parties to enhance the product. These are not "hacks", Matrox, Pinnacle and Canapus have been enhancing the Premiere workflow for years, just as Pinnacle CineWave has done for Final Cut Pro. There is no difference.

<<<-- Proprietary codecs that are limited to one platform are also hard to share. -->>>

Yes that is true, yet sharing across system is rarely every done compressed. DXP or Cineon files become a suitable intermediate. However if you had an Apple/QuickTime version of the CineForm codec (no promisses yet), then sharing compressed will be much faster than uncompressed.

<<<-- And the second strike is that it's expensive. No one should have to pay $20K for a real-time HD system that is compressed, not anymore. Uncompressed yes, compression, no.-->>>

If you can find the same mix of quality and performance for less then you have an excellent deal. Avid RT compressed HD for $100k -- they do know the market.

<<<--My post was based on the assumption that they are going back to film. If that's the case then you don't want compression. -->>>

Yet if you are shotting HDCAM and mastering on D5 you can compression throughout the work-flow. We have a going-to-film production coming up for Prospect HD in the next few months.

<<<-- If you want a real-time compressed HD system (4 streams on a 2Ghz G5, then again, FCP is the hands-down winner with it's new DVCProHD codecs. They're 4:2:2, have around the same amount of compression as Prospect HD (Prospect is 8:1, I think DVCProHD is 9:1), -->>>

That are not comparable. For 1080 the DVC PRO HD only samples 1280 pixels where the CineForm HD codec (CFHD) samples all 1920. For 24p work the DVC PRO HD codec is only 960x720 samples which a bit rate of only 40Mbits/s (that is not much more than DV.) CFHD for 24p 1920x1080 10bit used a variable bit-rate that ranges between 120 - 180Mbits/s (it is a constant quality codec not a constant bit-rate codec which are designed for tapes systems.)

Basically never trust compression ratios.
DVC PRO HD starts with 960x720 x 16bits per pixel is 11Mbits/s per frame is compressed to 1.6Mbits per frame = 6.7:1

CFHD starts with 1920x1080 x 20 bits per pixel is 41Mbits/s per frame is compressed to an average of 6.5Mbits per frame = 6.3:1.

Although 6.7 and 6.3 sound simply the quality difference between a 1.6Mbit frame and 6.5Mbit is HUGE. None of this even takes into account that CFHD is wavelet compression which is more efficient than DCT compressors like DVC PRO.

Sorry for my rant. Don't dis compression unless you truely understand it. There are a lot of on-line (for film) compressed HD work-flows hitting the market soon. This is positive for the industry.

Hi David,

Thanks for the correction on my numbers. I'll apologize for that one since I wasn't giving your compression codec the credit it deserved.

BTW, why would you not want to move around compressed files? That would seem to make more sense to me since it would take less time to transfer, and the process from going back and forth with compression-decompression is not lossless the last time I checked. In other words you're going down a generation each time you'd go from a cineform file to DPX and back. I would assume it would be best to simply keep everything in the cineform codec, and not have to constantly re-render and transcode from one format to another (and in the case of a feature film we could be talking about terabytes of data to move around). Frankly DPX/Cineon file sequences can become real messy very quickly unless you have some sort of tracking system like timecode embedded in the headers (like the S-two D-Mag does with the viper, or other DPX systems, i.e., Lustre, Nucoda, etc.) and/or window burns with file-name, etc.

To me though, it seems like the best approach is to do a offline/online style edit. Edit the film like the film industry has been doing for years. You keep the uncompressed digital files as your "digital negative", cut with a low-res "workprint", and then when you're done go back to the high-res files for an online.

Jason,
I've worked on many 35mm features that were compressed, it's not a bad thing at all.
-Les

I've worked on many 35mm features that were compressed, it's not a bad thing at all.
Was that at ILM? Even if it wasn't, I'm curious to know what type of compression scheme were you using, and what films they were.

Jason,

Yes I completely agree that compressed data transfer would be best the work-flow, convenient and quality. The only problem is that there is no agreed upon format to share compressed data in a online quality. One needs to deal messy uncompressed intermediates (or more conveniently D5 intermediates.) CineForm is hoping to help fix this.

Not at ILM. After that.
Lets just say that there were shots we worked on that we did some effects work on in a part of the frame, and it was cropped out and working on separately. On some shots it so happened that part of the frame was run through compression and part wasn't, the cropped part was comped back in with a hard edge with absolutely no blending of the edge. No issues. And it's not like it was on the edge of the frame, it was in the middle where everybody was looking.
Jpeg at about 4:1 compression.


<<<-- Originally posted by Jason Rodriguez : Was that at ILM? Even if it wasn't, I'm curious to know what type of compression scheme were you using, and what films they were. -->>>

as far as you guys know I have nothing but MAC or $20,000 Boxx system that can deal with POST editing for my camera in 10bit or higher?

Hey Obin,

If you don't have the money (or they don't have the $$) to purchase a new system for the camera, then the easiest, simplest approach (although easily the most time consuming), is to do a simple match-picture online edit. That's what all my film-school buddies had to do when they messed up their cut lists. For each edit line up the appropriate shot in online (say After Effects) by matching the image(s) by eye, and try to record each and every take and scene to a seperate folder to facilitate finding the right frame. I know it sounds time consuming, but it's cheap, and it will get you the correct results every time.

David is much more of an expert on compression effects than I am but be careful about a work flow that does too many iterations of lossy compression and decompression. Each time you lose a bit more. A single cycle at 6:1 may be visually lossless, but taking the same video and cycling it a couple of times at 6:1 may become a mess.

Steve,

Absolutely, multigeneration of a lossly codec an make a mess -- particularly when a codec isn't designed for that workflow (basically all the aquistion formats DVCPRO HD HDCAM, HDV etc have this problem.) When we set out to design production codec, multi-generations was planned up front. With our CFHD codec you can do ten generations without visual loss from the first to the last. This is why we feel confident that benefits of compressed based editing easily out-way the technically lossless nature of uncompressed.

I am especially interested in this as most of my work involves compositing 2D source footage with 5-15 layers of rendered 3D images. At HD resolutions, the amount of storage space consumed with this many uncompressed TIFF images defies belief. Being able to drop the storage requirements by a factor of 6 or so makes the whole process much easier to handle.

Is this the sort of use that the Cineform codecs are designed for? A good way to visually show their performance might be to put them through the same sorts of tests that are at onerivermedia.com under their 'codecs' heading. If that is too artificial a setup, perhaps a 'before and after 10x encodes' picture with something that is tough on codecs like outdoor scenes with moving grass or trees would be good.

Eliot

Eliot,

Those are excellent ideas. Now to find the time. The problem with onerivermedia comparisons it the uses of apple as the testing platform, if they do testing under AE on the PC that might be fine. However putting the x10 generation examples on our web site is simply something we must find time to do.

<<<--
The American cinematographer's manual will tell you the exact aperture dimensions. 16mm is from side to side. The real difference is that some cameras the K3 included use film perfed at both sides.

Super16 has the film perfed on one side and the aperture plate is enlarged to take advantage of the additional negative space where the perfs were.
-->>>

Going way back...

The K3 can actually take single perf film.
Single perf was not actually a S16 invention but arrived with the introduction of sound for the 16mm format.

Super16 uses the part of the film where the optical soundtrack used to be.

Some people enlarge the K3 gate to shoot S16 on it.

Just thought I'd mention this as some people with K3 cameras go to ever such a lot of trouble trying to get double perf film which is hard to get these days and it is silly as it will take standard single perf, it just will only shoot the normal standard 16 image on it unless it has been modified for S16.

love

Freya

I am tired. Been downloadin codecs all day and encoding my footage to them..seems that lots work fine with windows media player for playback and none work in premiere pro..most almost work but drop frames every 2-3sec maybe 2-4frames dropped at a time...it's the code not hardware as windows media plays the stuff fine

I have used the LeadTools codec and it seems very nice..even Premiere color work looks great with that codec! Now if I could jsut get it to playback smoothly!!!! gawd this is a pain!

LeadTools for 8 bit is good and I would finish with that if I could get it to PLAY!

Which of the many Leadtools codec is the one you are using?
Mjpeg2000?

BTW, I need someone to post a zipped small video clip of RAW images to test some compression mixtures and quality.
To make this, first I would need to code an app that decomposes the RAW images as my proposal's description, so it would take me some time.If anyone just made it, please, post it too! :)

@Obin: Did you test Huffyuv for compressing the raw captured frames?
If the answer is yes, what is its speed in fps?


Does anyone know what's the speed of Huffy on a P4 3.X GHZ for a 640x720 video clip? And for 960x1080?
I'm talking about B&W, 8 bits but I don't know if it supports this format.

I ask this because I don't owe a P4 system (Athlon 2500).

Update: I've just tested a 640x720 clip with Huffy and it gives me 2.3:1 compression ratio and a speed of 25 fps on a P3 1GHZ with a slow disk....for an RGB compression.

I just found out a strange thing, in the SOURCE monitor in Premiere Pro and Premiere Pro HD v1.5 the clips playback PERFECT..then when you drag the same clip onto the timeline and hit space(Play) the clip stutters...what could this be? why does the source monitor inside Premiere work and the timeline monitor not?

if this one tiny little thing could be fixed we can POST this HD stuff with a really great LeadTools Codec...arrgghh...someone MUST have a clue to this little mystery eh?


I am using this codec with VERY good results!:

LEADMCMPCodecE.EXE

from www.leadtools.com

I think this is just a Premiere problem Obin. I've heard such
things about Premiere before. Have you tried another NLE
(demo for example)? Try Vegas. Or perhaps an NLE that can
actually work with 10 bits?

Obin,
You've probably already thought to make sure that your project settings in Premiere Pro match the settings of your source. There is a chance that Premiere is trying to transcode your clips into some slightly different format for editing. This would explain why they play back smoothly in the source window. Are you at least able to advance frame-by-frame through the timeline without playing it back?

The leadtools web site seems to suggest that the MCMP codec puts a slightly higher priority on speed and compression than the MJPEG codec. The MJPEG codec seems to put more emphasis on video editing interoperability. I haven't tried either codec yet, but I have Premiere Pro 1.5

hmm...on the timeline it does NOT have a red render bar and when I apply an effect it turns red till I render so I don't think it is transcoding...it's more like some type of playback issue...one thing I notice is that when I play from the timeline it seems to be in RAM as the disk does not read like it does when play is from source window...maybe this is a clue??

guys what NLE software is 10bit?

BTW I am using MCMP

Some versions of AVID support 10 bit I think. Try looking around
their website. I think that is the only PC NLE out there with
support for high bit depths. FCP on Mac supports it as well?

Isn't 10 bit video a codec issue?
I mean presumably if you have a 10bit codec it should work with whatever?

Although having said that Avid DV Express only works with DV and premiere is weird and fussy about codecs generally, but surely Vegas would work?

love

Freya

Yes that should work, Freya, if a 10 bit codec can downsample
to 8 bits the NLE would be requesting. The only problem is that
you will most likely loose 2 bits of information when outputting
your cut and you will definitely not have it when doing fades or
other effects inside the NLE.

Both Vegas and Premiere are 8 bit only, just so everyone knows.

hoorayyy..Vegas 5 works!!! I can edit 24p 1280x720 LeadTools lossless jpeg in realtime AND get some amazing REALTIME preview of FX !!
I sure like the UI of Premiere more then Vegas but hey this WORKS!! awesome!

creative freedom!

www.dv3productions.com/test_images/HD%20editing%20PROOF.jpg

I am going NUTS over how well Vegas works with this camera footage! EVEN 8 bit in Vegas is not bad at all for color work..I have no idea why but it looks really clean!

oh and renders are like 5-10frames a sec!! using the LEadTools Codec! BLAZING FAST!

No high-$$ HD Camera
No high-$$ deck
No High-$$ HD monitor
No High-$$ edit box....

just simple VEGAS VIDEO..I am impressed. VERY impressed.

The last thing is 10-12bit editing...but for now why not use 8bit Panasonic Varicam at $100,000 is 8 bit Sony HDCAM is 8bit..I can live with 8bit for a while I think...if I really NEED 10-12bit I can save with tiff files for special shots and edit colors in Combustion or After Effects...

OMG Vegas will playback 4 filters IN REALTIME on HD video! no it's not FINAL QUALITY but it's a REALTIME PREVIEW at 24fps! amazing

Now I think I am starting to see what the "Vegas Cult" is all about.

;0

now what I need is a way to take the OVERLAY that is the Vegas Monitor and pipe it out FULLSCREEN to a DVI LCD monitor...hmm anyone have any ideas?

<<<-- Now I think I am starting to see what the "Vegas Cult" is all about.
-->>>

:) Nah not yet! You only think you do! ;)

I've been really impressed with Vegas myself but like you have been trained on premiere which just gets in the way. :(

love

Freya

<<<--
now what I need is a way to take the OVERLAY that is the Vegas Monitor and pipe it out FULLSCREEN to a DVI LCD monitor...hmm anyone have any ideas? -->>>

Doesn't decklink do this?

love

Freya

I am going around all hardware and keeping the workflow software ONLY untill the last final output for a MASTER

<<<-- Originally posted by Obin Olson : I am going around all hardware and keeping the workflow software ONLY untill the last final output for a MASTER -->>>

I don't understand? You said you wanted to connect it to a DVI monitor which is hardware? Maybe I misunderstood but I was just trying to say that the decklink cards can preview on dvi monitors and one of them can even use high resolution flat panel computer monitors as a cheap HiDef preview?

What are you actually up to now anyway, I lost track of this thread eons ago and now theres 35 pages!

Do you have any hardware connected to the computer or are you just doing software tests for now?

love

Freya

Like I said I am bypassing all hardware using a standard PC with Vegas Video and I want to use a 2nd computer monitor fullscreen with overlay for 1280x720 playback while editing..camera is working well now and I am about to shoot aproject with it!

You can 'tear off' the preview screen and just drag it onto the 2nd monitor, whatever it maybe.
Vegas is nice. I use it for my HDV, too bad it's front end is not replaceable for 16 bit, like premiere is.
-Les

I'm totally confused by it all. I've just spent a couple of hours trying to work out this whole thread but it's just too long at this point.

What exactly is your camera Obin? I know you were going to put some kind of ccd in a K3 camera but I don't really understand much more than that!

What kind of ccd did you settle on and what kind of interfacing do you have between it and the computer, some sort of eithernet? What are you doing for capture software? The low end H.D. cameras I have seen so far have had scary software that I couldn't get much out of.

Really curious to know exactly where you are with it all now!

love

Freya

That is good news obin. Couple of questions. What file format did you save in from streampix, jpeg?

Is Leadtools software necessary? Was this compression software?

How much raw footage do you think could be stored on 300gb external drives?

This is the beginning of something really good.

6megs a sec flat out...so you get 1/2 what you would from minidv with MUCH better compression

going out of streampix to avi with LEadTools codec

hey obin,
when you get a chance, could you please post something cut together in vegas.

thanks ;)

Eric, I could but what would the point be? it's going to be windows media 9 for your because of size... it's just editing HD like you would edit DV ...same thing way bigger frame size ;)

i'm just anxious to see more footage.. any footage of from the camera.

Obin,
I second what Eric said. I'm anxious to see some footage too. WM9HD is beautiful stuff man. My projector is 1280x720 and I run DVI straight to it from a PC. I don't have the sheervideo codec, so I haven't been able to watch that quicktime clip. As far as I can tell, sheervideo is still Mac only. But I'd love to see what kind of images that sensor of yours gets blown up 84 inches wide.
Please! Pretty Please! Just even 8 seconds of something. Hell! I'll take 6 seconds.
I'll even take hundreds of individual 1280x720 images and compile them into a WM9 file for you. ( Matt begins whimpering like a child who wants its mother... it's 1280x720 mother)

Freya: it's quite easy

1. camera: SiliconImaging 1300 (Micron CCD chip)

2. interface: CameraLink => requires special CameraLink board in PC

3. software: streampix (comes with the camera). VERY lowlevel!

Rob S. and myself are figuring out how to our own camera
"firmware" or software. We both are quite busy at the moment though.

I've been looking at these cameras!

The main streampix interface doesn't look so bad to me! I don't much fancy scripting tho! ;)

Presumably it is easy to grab frames but harder to grab actual video? Or maybe it all has to be done thru scripts and the windows interface is just a media player? What is easy and or difficult about the software?

So you are re-writing the actual camera firmware! Is that because it cannot continuously stream video at the moment, only a given duration at a time?

love

Freya

Ok Matt! hear the call..I will try and edit some shots for you :)

guys streampix is not bad but it does not support the camera all you can do is capture, Xcap controls the camera and that thing is a bear even Rob hates it! and he writes software!

just wait around a bit and I think we will have a good capture program on the market before you know it!

Well, you've got to seperate things. SiliconImaging has built a
camera head that includes some chip and thus firmware. We are
not going to change that (at least as it looks now).

We are developing other software that runs on a PC that is more
geared towards how movie makers use such camera's. In essence
it allows us/you/whoever to turn a "PC" into a "camera".

The idea is to make it small enough so it is portable and allows
you to attach 1 or 2 harddisks (depending on shooting options)
and it will record straight to harddisk with things like viewfinder/
monitor out.

We are still a while away from that, though. I'm also gonna go on
vacation, shortly. I know Rob S. is currently very busy with other
things as well.

Matt Promise you will give me a full on report of how this stuff looks on a 80inch screen? I have been dying to see this footage on a REAL HD monitor!

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : Well, you've got to seperate things. SiliconImaging has built a
camera head that includes some chip and thus firmware. We are
not going to change that (at least as it looks now).
-->>>

Oh! That's what I thought you meant when you said firmware earlier! Phew! Glad to hear you are not having to mess with that!

So it's easy to capture individual frames at the moment but not motion?

Is the software proving very hard to write?

Thanks for all the help and info! :)

love

Freya

Software and system development for such things is always
hard. Even the big manufacturers find that hard.

You can easily capture motion as well. It is just written out as
single frames which must convert to a movie. Remember that
a movie is nothing more than a sequence of individual frames.

Even a photo camera can make movies, albeit usually at a lower
framerate. ANY camera (sometimes with changes) could be used
for making movies in the technical sense of the word.

Freya Paget wrote:
So it's easy to capture individual frames at the moment but not motion?Capturing the frames is not terribly difficult. Given their size, however, the challenge is writing them out to disk in a timely fashion.
Is the software proving very hard to write?I wouldn't say especially hard, but then again that's a relative thing. The biggest challenge for me so far is squeezing in the time to work on it! It's also time-consuming because I'm working with stuff I've never done before -- DirectDraw for example.

Freya:
Here is the rundown as I see it. We (Silicon Imaging) and others make cameras that are basically the sensor with some intelligence to control it (where the camera firmware resides) - small, low cost (relatively) and some basic interface. For speed, we have been a proponent of camera link, an industrial high speed interface because we can also supply low cost frame grabbers (capture cards). For the record, we also support USB 2.0 (not applicable to the speeds required here) and gigabit ethernet.

A software developer's kit (SDK) can get video (single or continuous) into PC memory if you are doing your own application. There are some off-the-shelf packages that can display and record. The two bandied about here are XCAP and Streampix. XCAP is more of a researchers' tool. Although the interface is not great for cinematography, it is actually easy to use and very powerful for other purposes like machine vision. Streampix is a recording package - very good at moving continous video to disk. Post processing is pretty weak - they are improving their Bayer algorithm on Obin's request and can save in a bunch of formats. Both of these packages can either save single frames or large binary files of continuous video. This is done to speed the recording time - no preprocessing at all.

The good thing about these packages and hardware is that they are 8/10/12 bit aware. The gang here is developing a replacement for recording and file formatting so that standard NLE applications can then be used. They are also working on the hardware packaging to be as usable as possible - that involves cameras, computers, power, etc. I'm doing my best to help support these efforts since there is a lot of work being done to help a community of people by what seems about 6 people or so. I think the results have the possibility to bring incredible changes to a lot of indies.

I think that the challenges here are not in doing it, but in doing things at least as good as a professional result requires. This is in the understanding and implementation of: integration of the camera head into a suitable camera body (lens and DOF issues abound), a good viewfinder, disk recording without dropping frames using a minimum of disks and $$, a simple but complete user interface, a small but powerful enough computer, Bayer and color processing that provides the best quality image, possible compression to reduce cost and size but not compromise image quality, and the smooth movement of the capture video to NLEs.

There are people with varying needs here, from 1280x720@8bits/24fps to 1920x1080@12 bits/30fps - very different solutions are required.

I'm sure that I left things out, but I think that is the charter of what is going on in Alternative Image Methods in about 3 or 4 threads.