Prospect presets in Premier Pro CS3

[Julian Frost]

Installing NeoHD added a bunch of presets into Premier Pro CS3. They're all labelled "Prospect xxxxx", where xxxxx is the resolution, frame rate and other description.

When I create an HD project from, say 5D mk II footage converted to AVI by NeoHD's HDLink, should I be using the Prospect 1920x1080 29.97fps project preset, rather than any other preset (say, a 1920x1080, 29.97fps preset I created myself)? What does using the NeoHD-provided preset do any differently?

When I use the Prospect preset, a Prospect splash-screen comes up, and there are no red/yellow render bars on the timeline. When I use my own project preset, the time line has red render bars.

Thanks.

Now, if only I could get NeoHD and Premier Pro and Encore CS3 to work properly together on a clean-install system!

P.S. I enjoyed the First Light intro videos on Vimeo. I learned a lot from them, and am itching to use First Light! My vacation to Italy is coming in 2 weeks, so I should have a bunch of footage soon. Time to format the Nexto DI to make space! :-)

[David Newman]

Why are you trying to create you own presets if the Prospect presets work correctly?

[Julian Frost]

No!!! You've got it backwards! :-) I've been using my own presets for my Canon cameras (XH-A1 and 5D mkII) since *before* I installed NeoHD (a week ago). My question was, what gain does using the Cineform Prospect presets get me? Is there any difference in those presets to the basic one I've been using for months? I can tell 2 differences immediately.... The Prospect preset gives me a nice splsh screen and no red render bar on the timeline... but I also remember comments from Cineform saying to disregard the red/yellow render line, so what am I gaining (other than the cool splash screen!)? Does the Prospect preset engage some special feature in NeoHD or Premier Pro CS3?

[David Newman]

You are confusing CS5 with CS3, that comment on red/yellow marker is for CS5 only. You get more real-time performance if you use our presets.

[Julian Frost]

Ok, cool. Thanks, David. I'll be sure to use them for all future projects.

[Julian Frost]

So when I use the Prospect presets that came with NeoHD, and add any kind of transition (say, a simple cross-fade), Premier Pro CS3 places a red line above the timeline. When I try to play the timeline, the frames containing the cross-fade display a red "X" in the top left corner and the transition is "ignored" (IE. the clip instantly appears/disappears and does not fade in).

As an experiment, I tried pressing the Enter button to render the timeline. Ater doing that, the timeline will not play back! It'll play a few frames, then stop. If I use the FirstLight B&W LUT on my footage, when I go back into Premier, move the CTI and release the mouse button, the monitor screen becomes corrupt, displaying a negative version of several frames combined with each other.

I've also found that when using the Prospect presets, Premier Pro CS3 crashes after every few edits.This means I have to save the project virtually every time I make a change, just to be sure I don't lose everything.

Basically speaking, NeoHD has turned what used to be a very stable editing system into the proverbial deck of cards on my Dirty system, and something unusable on my Clean system!

[Julian Frost]

Why do the Prospect presets from NeoHD have the Device Control set to "Serial"? I have to change it to DV/HDV every time I use the preset to avoid getting errors!