To Transcode or Not to Transcode

With the release of Premiere Pro CS5 earlier this year, the topic of native editing, and more specifically, native DSLR editing has been a big one…worldwide. From literally every country I’ve visited, people are discovering the power of DSLR video and leveraging it to it’s fullest. But the questions I’m continually asked are, “Why does Final Cut Pro/Avid Media Composer force you to transcode? Why don’t you transcode in Premiere?”

This is generally followed by, “Surely, transcoding to an intermediate codec leads to better/more accurate color grading, higher bit depths, faster performance, etc…right?”

Well, the short is answer is: No. There are many misconceptions about transcoding, largely stemming from its long-standing traditional use. But as Dylan once sang, “The times, they are a-changin’…” and the same can be said for the way we work in our NLEs specifically, Premiere Pro CS5.

So, I decided to record a short (less than 9 minute) tutorial on ‘Staying Native or Going Intermediate’ to try and clarify some of these misconceptions, and educate users as to when, how, and why you might/might not stay native or move to an intermediate codec.

Staying Native or Going Intermediate? Transcoding and Premiere Pro CS5 from Jason Levine on Vimeo.

As mentioned in the video, this is not meant in any way to ’slam’ or ‘cut down’ on anyone’s personal choices for editing/workflow, nor am I stating that there’s no place for transcoding~there most definitely are great benefits in certain workflows. These are simple truths that I hope will provide some clarification.

Blog on.

Adobe Premiere Pro 3D Stereoscopic Realtime Editing

I’ve created a start-to-finish workflow on how you can create a 3D stereoscopic workflow in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 using complementary tools that are on the market today. It’s a must see for anyone getting started with 3D Stereo. This seven-part series covers Active, Passive and Anaglyph viewing as well how to play your videos on a consumer 3D TV. It’s a ton of information so I broke up the series into bite-sized pieces. Let me know if you have any questions and enjoy!—Dave

Output module constraints in After Effects CS5

In After Effects CS4, you may have seen errors like this when rendering and exporting:

After Effects AEGP Plugin Media IO Plugin
There is a mismatch between Output Module settings. Please verify your settings and try again. Property Data Invalid!
Medial02 error: 0x400e0004
Frame dimensions out of bounds.

This type of “mismatch” error message indicates that you have a setting in the format-specific settings that is incompatible with the settings chosen in the Output Module Settings or Render Settings dialog box.

Color Subsampling, or What is 4:4:4 or 4:2:2??

In the video space, there’s always a lot of talk about these number ratios - 4:4:4, or 4:2:2, or 4:1:1, but what exactly do they mean? Recently, someone argued with me that it was better to convert every video clip from my Canon Rebel T2i DSLR camera into a 4:4:4 intermediate codec before editing; that this would make the color magically “better” and that editing natively was somehow bad. They were wrong, and I’m going to explain why.

Before you read on, make sure you’ve read my earlier articles on 32-bit floating point and on YUV color, and look at the picture from the Wikimedia Commons site of the barn in YUV breakdown.

What is YUV?

Another area I’m getting pelting with questions about is the little YUV logo on some Premiere Pro effects. What exactly is YUV when talking about video?

The Life of an Audio Engineer

With the recent news about Adobe Audition coming to the Mac, I thought you might enjoy this spoof on the hurdles an audio engineer faces.

Camera workflow guides in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and After Effects CS5

Adobe has been putting out several white papers, workflow guides, and other materials to give the nitty-gritty details of how to work with several high-end cameras and formats. Many of these resources are collected here. This blog post is a summary of some of these resources, and links to some that aren’t captured on this page.

It’s official! Adobe Audition is coming to the Mac!

Today on Adobe Labs, Adobe announced that Adobe® Audition®, the all-in-one professional audio toolset for recording, mixing, editing and mastering, is planned to come to the Mac in a future release. Adobe Audition for the Mac will offer a flexible audio editing environment for fine-tuning single files or creating multi-track mixes. It will also deliver sophisticated audio restoration tools, enabling users to quickly transform problem recordings into usable soundtracks. Audio editors and video professionals will now have more choices for audio production, with Adobe Audition available on either PC or Mac platforms. Adobe encourages creative professionals to sign up to be notified when the beta is available so they can test some of the new features and provide the product team with their feedback.

Key innovations in Adobe Audition for the Mac include native multi-channel support for 5.1 surround sound for professional results, noise reduction and restoration capabilities and new audio effects including de-hummer, de-esser, and volume leveler. All of these capabilities are planned to come to Mac users in the next release of Adobe’s comprehensive professional audio editing tool.

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