workflow for editing 5d mkii via PPro CS4 ??

[Steve Rotter]

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

[John Vincent]

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

[Steve Rotter]

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.

[Bob Gates]

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

[David W. Taylor]

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

[Steve Rotter]

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

[David W. Taylor]

Yes,

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

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Steve Rotter

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.

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

[Steve Rotter]

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.

[Mike Hannon]

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.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Steve Rotter

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.

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.

[Charles W. Hull]

Originally Posted by Steve Rotter

i'm very frustrated. thanks for any comments!

Steve

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.

[Bob Gates]

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

[Charles W. Hull]

Originally Posted by Bob Gates

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.

[Allan Tabilas]

Originally Posted by Steve Rotter

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.

Steve

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)

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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