Finding a PC workflow for editing with Premier Pro CS4

[David W. Taylor]

I'm new here and have browsed for info but it's easy to get confused...so many new areas for a poor 'sound guy' to learn with HD video!

I live in '25fps land' and want to end up with either 24 or 25 frame HD outputs.
I'm PC only and have Premier Pro CS4.
So I'm hoping you PC based guys can make suggestions on a workflow from the 5D2 30 fps and ones that include useable presets in PP CS4 would be appreciated.

My PC isn't the fastest (dual core 2.4) and I start off with juddering 5D2 native .mov playback alas.
Currently I'm trying NeoScene conversion and have looked at 24p.....which upsets me on movement (because of the 'lost frames'?) and 29.97 which plays OK in Windows media player, but still seems to be unhappy in all the project pre-sets I've tried in Premier Pro.

I guess I'll work on getting an editing workflow, then tackle the 16-235 color issues.

David T
PostFade

[Richard Wakefield]

hello from another UK'er with the same problem!

i've created a solution which works really well for me, and it might help you too:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/canon-eos...-question.html

u won't need neoscene (i'm not a fan of 24p either), and you can re-render as raw HD using PPro if you want smooth playback

it's certainly not the best solution, but it's quick/easy, and perfect for what i want to do...

[David W. Taylor]

Thanks for the reply Richard, I had read your earlier post.

I have a PC that can't play the raw camera .mov files without juddering. This maybe a hard drive speed (not a raid array) issue or perhaps the fact that I only have 2Gb RAM.
After conversion through NeoScene, in either 29.97 or 24p. the .avi's play cleanly in Windows Media player, but I note the sound is always out of sync.

The same NeoScene .avi's hiccup in which ever project type I open in Premier Pro CS4.
There aren't many choices for 1080p project setting in PP CS4. What do you choose?

I haven't explored importing the raw .movs and letting PP CS4 make them into 25fps...since they won't play even at 30fps without jumping.

I'll work on getting an editing workflow, upgrading the PC if I can get some leads on whether that's required. Then think about the 16-125 dynamic range issues and the sound. For that I'm running 'separate sound' but need the 5D2 audio as sync guide.

David T.

PostFade

[Allan Tabilas]

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)

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

Re: How to transcode Canon 5D mark II H.264 video into something editable?

Hi Guys. (Fabrizio Rizzio)

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

[David W. Taylor]

Allan,

Thanks for that.

I've downloaded the AVSConverter, it's version 6.2.
Menu must have changed though as now after selecting .mp4 and setting the in and out files there is a 'profile' box. None of the choices is 1080p HD and I can't see a 'Direct Stream Copy' optiopn so I'll make some 'uninformed' guesses and see what I get.

Any further thoughts would be appreciated.

David T.

[Richard Wakefield]

sorry David, I should have said, I'm in the same situation : dual core, raid, 2gb ram
the raw movs stutter, as do the large avi conversions.

so what i do is put the raw avi files on the timeline,
export as raw HD .mpg, then use those to edit. Then it's as smooth as anything, and I can use any number of plugins etc as per normal editing.

cheers

[David W. Taylor]

Allan,

As you will have gathered I was 'too fast off the mark' and managed to download the AVS trial instead of 'Super'....but then it is confusing as I can't see a way of actually get to the Super programs download yet!
DT

[Allan Tabilas]

Try this link

Follow Fabrizio's instructions completely. You'll create a new MP4 file (non-transcoded h.264 file, simply re-wrapped), and a WAV file. Alternatively to the WAV, you can also compress the uncompressed LPCM into AAC LC format, right in the same MP4 container.

[David W. Taylor]

Richard: Your method of converting to 25fps works for me.I'm dropping the files in Media Encoder CS4 and they then do play smoothly in Premier Pro. I will have lost the lower and upper levels though now won't I as PP has the 16-235 range doesn't it.
I'll see what it looks like after doing some editing. Can't believe the transcode from 30 to 25fps won't show up though.

Allan: I did get 'Super'...but despite following Fabrizio's instructions carefully, the playback of the new .mp4's is still no good!I can see it makes sense and can't work out why their is no improvement. You obviously get an instant change when Premier gets the file in the .mp4 wrapper.

Thanks for starting me off....

David T.

[Allan Tabilas]

No problem. I'm going to try Richard's solution of "retiming" or rightclicking the clips in Premeire, and doing interpret footage - 25fps , then throw the clips into a sequence, with the audio sped up to 120% -- to see if this makes scrubbing/playback/editing of the original .MOV 5D Mark II files possible. This will be even faster than using SUPER or Quicktime Pro to rewrap the MOV to MP4 (without transcoding the video).

[Thi Ng]

Allan,

Thanks for the Super's pointer. Turn out this app is very useful for converting/rewraping the 5D2 mov file into the (audio)format which Pinnacle Studio 12 supported.

[John Harvey]

there doesn't seam to be a link on any of these to download the Super program? any clues?
want to try this method. How did you guys get it?
thanks

jh

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by John Harvey

there doesn't seam to be a link on any of these to download the Super program? any clues?
want to try this method. How did you guys get it?

You obviously missed Allan Tablias's posting (#4 in this thread) & this link SUPER .

[John Harvey]

no, didn't miss it. I tried it many times. for me using firefox or netscape that opens a page with a ton of text and a link at the bottom that says download here, go there, opens another page with lots of text, find another link that says download here, click that and another page opens showing the screen shots of the program and more text and links for every other tool imaginable, but never any download window pop up. Yes I have pop ups enabled :-)

Thought it was funny, frustrating, anyway, have it now with the link I found.

actually finally found the link at the bottom of the last page here, phew! what a maze, I must need glasses!

http://www.erightsoft.com/S6Kg1.html

jh

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by John Harvey

no, didn't miss it. I tried it many times. for me using firefox or netscape that opens a page with a ton of text and a link at the bottom that says download here, go there, opens another page with lots of text, find another link that says download here, click that and another page opens showing the screen shots of the program and more text and links for every other tool imaginable, but never any download window pop up. Yes I have pop ups enabled :-)

Sorry, I found the page but hadn't actually clicked on the download link. Funnily enough following your link I have just been through the same maze although the guy must be aware of problems downloading from his web site as he has very specific instructions (which still didn't work when I tried:-)