DAV's TechTable

Blu-ray Playback Problems ?

2008-04-30T04:28:24Z

Blu-ray Playback Problems ?

After reading a few emails with people having issues playing back their Blu-ray discs created with Encore (or most other BD-R authoring apps), I thought I should mention a few basic 101 tips to help people just getting started with BR authoring.

FIRMWARE WARS - if you are making BD-R’s for yourself or for your customers, it a good idea to get to know the more popular Blu-ray players. WHY? Most of the older Blu-ray players (if not 100%) need a firmware update to play BD-R or BD-RE (re-writeable). WHY? I’ve heard arguments ranging from constant changing of the Blu-ray spec to copyright issues. Either way it will effect all of us at some point that are burning Blu-ray video from desktop applications like Adobe Encore.

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It really does not make a difference when you purchased the player – If your BD-R or BD-RE disc will not play after you’ve burned it and the firmware has not been updated, then you more than likely need to do a firmware update. I have provided a few links to get you started but I highly suggest doing a “Google” on your Blu-ray player model. Try searching for something like “Panasonic DMP-BD30 Firmware”. You will see a ton of posts ranging from links to download the firmware(always look for the manufactures site first) to issues with the current firmware.

Making a firmware disc is fairly straightforward. Most require you to download the file and burn it to a CD-R. When you load the CD-R in the player, it will read the file and ask you confirm the update. Make sure you READ FIRST – double-checking the country/region of the firmware.

I mainly use a Sony Playstation 3 for testing projects. The Playstation 3 is currently the cheapest Blu-ray player with an Ethernet port. This really makes it simple for updating firmware via the web. The PS3 seems to get a new firmware update about every 8 weeks or so. The most recent update gave us new BD-Live support that allows access the web from the video or menu for additional content. This may not be a huge feature now but will surely be large part of things to come.

I also use a Panasonic DMP-BD30 for testing and have had excellent results. The new 1.6 firmware offers faster load times. Note ** Sony and Samsung were shipping me test units over a year ago but they are yet to show up. We do have several early Sony and Samsung models in the Encore lab– Some of these models had serious issues early on but were fixed with Firmware updates.

Again – do your research. If you are making Blu-ray discs for sale, make sure to tell your customer that they may need a firmware update to play your BD-R or BD-RE discs.

Hopefully with newer models coming out now, the BR players will work more like standard DVD players as far as playing burned media.

If your player is playing your burned media OK – then DON’T UPDATE to newer firmware without doing a web search first. If it plays your BD-R media then leave it alone. See my comments below on the Playstation 3 2.3 firmware update.

One useful site I like and check often is Http://www.Blu-ray.com/firmware . These guys do a great job of keeping up with the issues and firmware links. They also have a good general forum as well. http://www.blu-ray.com

Quick Firmware Links:

Panasonic:
DMP-BD10

DMP-BD30

Sony:
BDP-S1
Playstation 3 - use your System Update feature

Pioneer:
BDP-HD1
BDP-94HD
BDP95FD

BDP-LX70

Samsung:

BD-P1000
BD-P1200
BD-P1400
BDU 5000

Denon:
All models

Philips:
BDP 7200

Sharp:
BD-H20

MEDIA WARS – BR Media is usually not an issue if you use name brand BR media. I have always used Verbatim and not had any issues. To get started with Blu-ray authoring, you should always use BD-RE (re-writeable) media until you know your authoring system and workflow are solid. Issues range from using the wrong ports (ODD SATA Ports on MacPros = BAD) for your Blu-ray drive, software conflicts to bad frames of captured video. Check out my previous posts which list a few of these issues.

Lastly on Media, new Blu-ray Media is being released and uses an organic dye for burning. It will be hard to tell if the older players will have issues reading it until it's been out for a while. I have not tested this new type of disc but will work with Verbatim on getting some samples and report back. – Just what we need, another variable to add to the mix.

CRAZY ISSUES: I have seen my share of crazy issues with both early DVD burning and now Blu-ray burning. Recently, the Playstation 3 (the best player for testing projects burned with Desktop BR apps) firmware update version 2.3 gave us a ton of new features but also seems to have affected people in different ways in regards to BD-R playback.

Here are a few 2.3 firmware PS3 issues I’ve seen first hand with-in the past 2 weeks.

Playstation 3 20GB model – would not play BD-R media but had no problems playing BR-RE media. (The same project was burned to both BD-R and BD-RE media). Spent quite a while and used 4 different brands of BD-R media - no luck. When I loaded the same BD-R discs into a 60GB version of the PS3 and the Panasonic BD-30, they played perfect no issues.

Playstation 60 GB model - could not control menus (Encore BD-R or Commercial Blu-ray version of Happy Feet) with a PS3 wireless controller. ***Fix – connect a USB cable to the wireless controller and all menus worked OK on both discs. The Sony BD remote worked with out issues. Spent several hours confirming this issue on this particular unit.

What does this mean? Hard to tell and too many variables. Sony may a few different BD drive mechanisms and/or controllers that they have been using for the different PS3 models over the past few years. They also have several different ways to control the disc menu with different hardware (controllers and remotes) . The GOOD NEWS is that the PS3 gets firmware updates regularly and hopefully this will correct these issues. I’m sure more will crop up. If you make money creating BD discs then I would highly suggest having a regular set top unit like the Panasonic BD-30 for confirming discs that won’t play on a PS3. Until recently, the PS3 has been a very solid player. I’m sure this will be short lived.

XDCAM and Premiere Pro 3.2

2008-04-14T04:54:11Z

Intro to PremierePro CS3 and XDCAM, XDCAM HD, and XDCAM EX support
For Intel Macs and Windows XP/Visa (Version 3.2.0)

What’s New ?
With Premiere Pro CS3 and the 3.2.0 update, you can now natively Ingest, and Edit Sony’s XDCAM (DVCAM), XDCAM HD, and XDCAM EX format. Just as you would expect from Adobe and the Premiere Pro team, just drag and drop directly from the card into the Project Panel and start editing. No need to transcode your video with “wacky” single platform codec’s and no need to worry about .mov and .avi files – just edit ! There are also more updates to the MPEG-2 (HDV) editing modes. For more info jump to the “What’s New in the 3.2.0 release?” section and read about new Fixes, Known Issues, and more.

To Learn More ………..Click Continue Reading

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With Sony’s XDCAM EX format, making quick rough cuts directly from your Sony EX camera is a snap . YES - you can edit directly from the Sony SxS Pro card in your laptop or a simple USB 2.0 cable connected to your camera. When you return to your studio, simply copy the Premiere Pro project file from your laptop to your desktop via a standard USB2.0 Thumb drive or Network connection.

Premiere Pro project files typically range from 1MB to 20MB in size (Projects do not include video assets, only Titler Titles). With Sony’s SxS Pro memory cards you can use various Express Card readers that are available to help you transfer your video to your desktop or simply use any USB 2.0 cable connected to your EX camera and transfer.

Here is an Adobe XDCAM workflow guide we put together to help answer some basic questions.

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/pdfs/PremierePro_xdcam_workflowguide.pdf

For this video I had the opportunity to try out the new Sony PMW-EX1 camera (http://sony.com/xdcamex) The camera is an amazing step up from the Sony Z1U (HDV) with full 1920x1080i , 1080P and lots of flexible frame rates. There are too many feature to list here but I highly recommend taking a look at the Sony brochure which is available in PDF format.

Download it here:
http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/markets/10014/docs/PMW-EX1brochurefinal3-08.pdf

For a great intro FAQ from Sony on XDCAM go here:
http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/minisites/cinealta/docs/XDCAM_FAQs.pdf

There are two featured videos for Premiere Pro 3.2.0.
The first video shows off the new XDCAM support and the second video “MixItUp” shows using XDCAM EX, Panasonic P2, HDV, and standard DV on the same timeline with no special codecs.

Tip:
When using mixed format media/clips the first thing to keep in mind is that you need to pick an editing environment or in Premiere Pro terms, a Preset.

For example, if most of my footage is Sony XDCAM EX at 1920x1080 60i, then choosing the Sony EX 1920x1080 60i Preset would mean that those clips would not need to re-render or scale to another size or aspect ratio (no redline) .

If I wanted to downscale my HD footage to SD, then I might choose a DV WideScreen 16:9 Preset and use the Scale to Frame Size feature (Right Mouse Click on any clip on the timeline) and Premiere Pro will scale the clip to match the Preset. Another tip to remember is the Aspect Ratio for the Preset and the clips you are importing. Panasonic P2 1280x1080 uses a 1.5 aspect ratio while DV 16:9 uses a 1.2 aspect ratio so you may not be able to see the entire frame edge to edge. Premiere will handle this for you, just keep aspect ratios in mind. For more info and see it in action, watch the video.
Watch This:

Here’s a quick video showing the new XDCAM in action.

CHECK OUT Video 1:
Intro to Adobe XDCAM Editing:

CHECK OUT Video 2:

MixItUP !

Available Presets for XDCAM EX and XDCAM HD (XDCAM users can any Preset DV NTSC for DVCAM Mode).

Viewing the Metadata (right Click on the clip in the Media Bin and select Properties)

What’s New in the 3.2.0 release?

The 3.2.0 update adds compatibility with the Sony XDCAM range of cameras. This includes disc-based XDCAM and XDCAM HD cameras., and the newer SxS-based XDCAM EX cameras. Content from XDCAM cameras can be imported and edited natively without transcoding or conversion. This makes possible similar workflows to Panasonic P2, including the ability to edit content directly from XDCAM EX cameras.

Note: Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 3.2 does not support IMX editing or XDCAM HD50 editing at this time. Export to XDCAM is also not possible.

Adobe Premiere Pro now has presets for HDV 24p. Note: Adobe Premiere Pro does NOT support print to tape in 24p mode.

Improved handling of MPEG streams (e.g.: HDV video), along with error detection. MPEG stream errors can occur during recording due to tape dropouts, record start/stop glitches, timecode breaks, etc. Bad frames caused by these MPEG stream errors are identified during import/indexing or playback. These frames will play back as full red frames to alert the user that there is a problem in the encoded video at that location.
Adobe Premiere Pro will also log error messages to the Events panel, indicating where the error(s) were encountered in the stream. Users can open the Events panel, determine the location of the MPEG stream error, navigate to that location in the clip and take corrective action, such as trimming out the video glitch or covering up the red frames with duplicated good frames copied from before or after the glitch.
Note: MPEG files will need to be re-indexed to take advantage of the improvements in Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 3.2.0 For more information, please see Working with MPEG Files.

Notable fixes
Titles/Footage show up as offline when reloading saved projects.

Rendered preview files will be missing when reloading saved projects.

Certain filters and/or transitions aren’t applied correctly when reloading saved projects, until the timeline is forcibly refreshed.

When exporting via the Adobe Media Encoder, a long delay would occur before the progress dialog would show & rendering resumed (Mac OS 10.5.x only).

24p HDV clips shot on a Canon XH A1 come in incorrectly as 30 fps clips.

Creating an offline clip in the project window, then attempting to link it to media on disk would trigger a crash in Adobe Premiere Pro.

QT PAL movies rendered out of Adobe After Effects® software would be incorrectly identified as requiring rendering in a Adobe Premiere Pro PAL project.

DV Clips of certain specific durations would be incorrectly identified on the timeline as requiring rendering.

For P2 DVCPro clips, the right-most pixel column contained video garbage.
Fixed a memory fragmentation problem that would occur with projects with many custom bin columns.

Fixed a bug where exporting to a QuickTime movie (with QT 7.4) would crash the application.

Selecting "display only exact name matches" when relinking clip no longer crashes on Leopard.

Fixed an issue where 30p and 30f HDV clips would incorrectly be identified as requiring rendering in a 29.97 progressive project.

Known Issues

For Batch Capture of 24p, 24f, 30p and 30f HDV clips, it is recommended to manually capture clips one at a time or capture the entire tape or portions of the tape and edit the captured clips manually. Using Sub-clips from the captured clips can help remedy the issues with batch capture and organization of the clips in the project.

Download the PremierePro 3.2.0 Update for XDCAM Support and Improved HDV support

Note: Updates will not install on trial versions due to license restrictions

Click logo for PremPro 3.2.0 OSX updater

Watch This:

Click logo for PremPro 3.2.0 WIndows updater

Special Thanks to our Adobe Platinum VAR sponsers: www.mbsdirect.com for hosting the videos and special thanks to www.thedvshop.com for providing the 8 core GraVT Vista64 screamer and finally www.microsearch.com for the www.iKanCorp.com GreenScreen lighting system.

Apple's Compressor & Encore Blu-Ray

2008-04-12T02:46:59Z

Creating MPEG-2 Output Files for Blu-ray with Apple's Compressor 3

I've been getting a lot of questions from FCP Users on how to create "Blu-Ray legal" MPEG2 files using Apple's Compressor version 3.02. Here are a few simple steps to get you started as well as few tips for the new Blu-ray author. For the record, I have been able to get the H.264 AppleTV setting to play on some players but it is not 100%. My engineering team says that the version we tested (3.02) does not create true legal H.264 Blu-ray. Looks like 3.03 was recently released and has new AppleTV settings - not sure if anything changes in 3.03 yet - My guess is no.

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Tips for the new Blu-ray (BR) user.

For those of you that are new to Blu-ray authoring, it is critical to make sure your burner is connected and working properly (see the last blog entry on the MacPro ODD port(Optical Disk Drive) to get an idea of some of the hardware issues that are cropping up - the safest thing to use is an external BR firewire burner) Always use re-writable BD-RE media when testing. This will save you MONEY. (For the record, I use Verbatim) Burning a Data Disk using Toast is NOT A VALID BR BURN TEST. Blu-ray players are very picky about the video they playback. Encore will usually ERROR if it finds a problem. Unfortunately, the EncoreCS3 Error messages don't really tell you anything useful - but it does catch them. The Error usually comes during the Build Cycle (Indexing the LongGOP). If you get an Error 6, for starters, try creating a NEW smaller version of the project with a simple Encore menu from the Library Panel. Error 6 can also happen if you have an invalid menu (buttons too close or invalid highlight state -Remember KISS , Keep It Simple, if you are new to BR. If the disk burns OK after your NEW project test, then try re-creating the project from scratch, you more than likely have a corrupt project. If the re-created project does not burn, then you more than likely have a bad video/audio (out of Spec) file. I have looked at lots of trouble projects and it usually boils down to out of BR spec video( coming from Compressor or Avid) . The issue is more the new BR user playing with output settings.It's not really Apple or Avid issue other than it would be really nice to see a standard BR export option that works cross platform and different authoring systems.Both FCP and Avid can create legal MPEG2 files for Encore.Some exports produce high quality video that won't build properly in Encore this mainly happen when the Video and audio are different lengths and are off by a few frames.(zoom in on the Timeline @ frame level at look at the last frame for both audio and video - they need to be the same length for BR) this will cause an Encore error when building. To fix it, just trim the video or audio back a few frames so they are the same length. Sometimes you will see that the timecode is different for the video track and audio track in the Properties Panel. While Photoshop can really get your menus looking amazing, it can cause lots of issues if you do not understand the Syntax (Symbols) in the layers Panel in Photoshop and you start changing them. The Syntax tells Photoshop what each layer is supposed to do on the menu during active states (triggering an action, highlights and so on). If you are new, do yourself a favor and keep it simple - Pick an Encore menu from the Library Panel and don't change (Add) the buttons in Photoshop, change (add) them in Encore. Creating menus is fairly simple in Photoshop once you take the time to see how they work. I can't stress enough how important it is to do a few simple tests with your new burner set-up, knowing that it can burn a playable BR will ease your stress during the long encode times. (BTW - there is a new Blu-ray Hardware board for PremierePro/Encore encoding , I have been testing it for several months. It will be released by ADS as the Kompressor board. It's made by a company called Ambric (yes - Mac and WIndows) I'll do a review video of the board in an upcoming blog. I mainly use a Panasonic BD30K and a Sony PlayStation3 for my BR playback tests.

(Blu-ray high quality 2 pass H264 encode times can take many , many hours( 30 hours for 130 min). MPEG2 encode times are much shorter and single pass is realtime on highend machines.The last thing you want is to waste time encoding and not being able to burn( I'll say it again - test your burner with a small project).

How to create a quick simple test:

The easiest and most simple test is to create a simple 5 minute video in PremierePro (just import some FCP mov clips) and File>Export>Adobe Media Encoder and choose MPEG2 Blu-ray and import the files into Encore, select the video and audio clips in the Project bin , rightmouse click and select Timeline. Goto the properties panel and set the end action (just "pickwhip it" back to the clip in the Project Panel. Click on the build Panel and burn to Blu-ray. We have several videos on AdobeTV (http://tv.adobe.com) which will show you a few quick demos of Encore)

Adobe Media Encoder from PremierePro :

(Thanks to the Encore Engineering team for double checking the workflow steps)

Apple's Compressor MPEG-2 settings.

Step-by-Step instructions for using Apple's Compressor v3.0 to
create Mpeg-2 stream and burn Blu-ray disc using Encore CS3.

Background Info on MPEG-2 Streams.

Types of MPEG-2 stream:
There are three common Mpeg-2 stream types that are used to deliver MPEG-2 encoded video in Compressor(v3.02) :
• Elementary streams: These streams contain only one Mpeg-2 content and no audio.
• Transport streams: These streams can contain several Mpeg-2 content channels and associated audio.
• Program streams: These streams contain only one Mpeg-2 content channel and its associated audio.
By default, the Compressor Mpeg-2 encoder creates elementary streams. You have to configure the Mpeg-2 encoder to Program streams to create Mpeg-2 files for Blu-ray.

Quick and Easy Workflow
The following workflow shows you the easiest way to create Mpeg-2 Program streams for use in Encore CS3.

Step 1: Add source media files to Compressor
1 Double-click the Compressor icon in the Applications folder.

2 Drag source files from the Finder or the desktop to the Batch window.

Step 2: Assign settings to jobs

1 Choose the setting for your source media file jobs in the following way:
Drag setting from Apple->Formats->MPEG-2->Program Stream under the “Settings” tab

Step 3: Make your MPEG-2 Settings

The MPEG-2 pane opens with the default Video Format tab.

Watch This:

Stream Usage pop-up menu allows you to choose how you intend to use the
MPEG-2 stream. Choose Blu-ray option.

Choose appropriate format in Video Format tab.

Step 4: Submit the batch
Your batch is ready to be submitted. Click the Submit button to submit your batch

UPDATED March 2008 Working with Adobe Encore CS3 and Blu-ray

2008-03-03T03:12:28Z

During our internal CS3 beta cycles of Adobe PremierePro CS3 and Adobe Encore CS3 , I spent most of my efforts on HDV and Blu-ray workflows while prepping for NAB 2007. The idea was to come up with a simple workflow allowing the user to ingest HDV and end up with a playable Blu-ray disc for the Sony Playstation 3, which is currently the least expensive Blu-ray player. In the Adobe booth we demo’d Blu-ray authoring on an Intel QuadCore Mac and playing burned media on a Playstation3. We had 2 Blu-ray discs, one encoded as MPEG2 Single Pass (draft mode) and a H.264 Two Pass (High Quality Mode) ** UPDATE ** Since this article was written last year, I have spent my early 2008 efforts on working with Panasonic P2 footage and Blu-ray and have been very happy with the workflow. P2 footage to Blu-ray works amazing well with Encore. Look for an upcoming article. Once you go tapeless , it's hard to go back to tape. I'll also be working with Sony EX tapeless footage this year as well - Stay tuned.

In the Sony booth Blu-ray area, a Sony Rep was demoing and burning Blu-ray discs from EncoreCS3 via a Sony burner and Dell machine. He was taking the burned BD-RE Sony disc from the Dell Desktop and playing it in the PS3.For time sake, they were also encoding in MPEG2 Single pass “draft mode” and using a standard DVD size project (720x480). This allowed them to demo a complete “click to burn” cycle in just a few minutes. They wanted to show a complete Blu-ray workflow from PremierePro’s Timeline to Encore to Auto Erase to burn, and lastly, playing in the PS3. It was a great demo. The video quality was so so, but keep in mind that the idea was to show the workflow, not wait for a long H264 Encode for the highest quality.

Read on to learn more .......

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CREATING THE PROJECT

For my tests I used the Mac OSX version of Adobe PremierePro CS3 and Encore CS3. For hardware, I used a new 8 Core MacPro Desktop and my 17” MacBookPro laptop. Both systems have internal Blu-ray Matsushita Panasonic BD drives. The Mac Laptop has the new Matsushita UJ-215I internal BD drive (www.fastmac.com and only fits the 17”) and 3 GB RAM. The Mac Desktop has the Matsushita SW-5582 drive and 8GB Ram. Both Macs are running 10.4.9. ** A note for PC users, I will be running the same workflow tests shortly on XP and expect similar results. The current tests had more to do with getting a fast machine for H.264 crunching and the 8 core mac was available. I recently upgraded my GravTY XP desktop (The DV Shop.com) to an 8 Core system running CS3 and will be posting the results soon. Having an 8 Core machine ( Intel Mac or PC) makes all the difference when it comes to processing power. Adobe and Intel have done a great job on utilizing the 8 Cores to about 80% (See screen grab). I did the same test on a 4 Core machine and all 4 cores were pegged at 98-99% - meaning that more processors would help.

The above Mac screen grab shows the 8 Core processors crunching a H.264 Two Pass file. Note the processors levels. I did a quick test on an 8 Core PC and got the similar results. If you were wondering whether to spring for an 8 Core, this should help your decision.Both the Mac and PC have utils for monitoring the performance of your memory and processors.

KNOW YOUR SOURCE

For source material, I used both Canon and Sony HDV demo tapes. The Canon tapes had demo footage from their new HV10, XH A1, and XH G1. The Sony tape had demo footage from their Z1U camera. Sony overlaid a Sony Z1U Logo in the upper right hand corner, which means at some point it was recompressed back to HDV and put back on tape therefore making the Canon footage a little cleaner. For BEST results, shoot your own HDV footage so you know where the source originated. After NAB, I used some of my own HDV footage I shot with a Canon XH G1 and the final Blu-ray quality was simply amazing. I am totally sold on the XH G1 and SDI.

THE REAL WORK

The HDV capture process in Premiere CS3 is the same as earlier versions of PremierePro. By picking the correct HDV project preset when I launched PremierePro, the HDV capture settings were ready to go.

One thing to point out, HDV to Blu-ray projects can get very large rather quickly. Most people just keep track of the footage files and their sizes, but when you start encoding for Blu-ray (or DVD) you can take up an additional 12GB per hour ( 3 Gb per hour for Standard DVD) and finally, once Encore starts the burning process, you take additional space to create the Image File (another 12GB per hour) which is burned on the disc. This Image file is automatically deleted once the burn is completed. Obviously, the file size will differ depending on your encoding method and settings. H.264 is roughly 7 GB per hour and MPEG2 is roughly 12GB per hour – but having a general rule of how much working space you need on your drive is key – many drives have errors on various long processes when they reach the last 20% of the drive. This one of many reasons to always create a simple internal 2 drive Striped Raid set for your video data.

For this first test project, I captured 10 minutes of 1440x1080i HDV footage, created a simple title logo and exported using the Adobe Media Encoder (AME). The new version of AME allows you to encode Blu-ray as either MPEG2 or H.264. In all cases I used the standard High Quality presets (make sure to double check that your frame rate is correct 29.97 NTSC or 25 PAL and so on). MPEG2 Single Pass encodes faster than RealTime. I found the Single Pass quality to be very useful when you want to quickly create a “draft” quality Blu-ray. For the best quality, I found using H.264 Two Pass (High Quality Preset – check your frame rate) to be excellent. The encode time was about 41 minutes for the 10 minute timeline (basically a 4 to 1 encode). REMEMBER, that I am using an 8 core Mac with 8GB ram. When I ran the same 10 minute test on my Core 2 Duo 2.33 Ghz 17” laptop, the results were 24 minutes for the MPEG2 Single Pass and 110 Minutes H.264 Two Pass.

Encode Times Table for the 8 Core Intel 3.0Ghz

Compression Type	10 Minute HDV Encode	File Size in GB

MPEG2 Single Pass	8 min (Fast Draft Quality)	2.1

MPEG2 Two Pass	14 min	2.1

MPEG2 CBR	8 Min	2.1


H.264 Single Pass	25 Min	1.1

H.264 Two Pass	41 Min (Best Quality)	1.2

H.264 CBR	18 Min	1.4

Source: Sony Z1U 1440x1080i

Hardware: Macintosh MacPro Dual Quad 8 Core 3.0 Ghz. 8 MB Ram. OSX 10.4.9

Next step, Launch Encore CS3 and select Blu-ray for Authoring Mode, 1440x1080 for Dimensions and H.264 or MPEG2 as the codec (depending on which one you exported out of PremierePro).For my quick test, I simply imported the video and audio files (takes a few minutes to read the H264 file, be patient) and selected both clips in the Project Panel, right mouse clicked and selected New >Timeline. Encore automatically named the timeline with the same name of the first selected clip, in my case, Sony H.264. From Project Panel I selected the Sony H.264 Timeline and took the End Action “pick whip” from the Properties Panel and dragged it to the Sony H.264 Timeline in the Project Panel.

This creates a quick looping project. Next, I clicked the gray area in the Properties Panel, which will change the Properties Panel to Disc. I used the “pick whip” again on the Title Button and dragged it to the Sony H264 Timeline in the Properties Panel. This will allow you to select the “Title” button on your Blu-ray remote and restart the Disc from the beginning. Lastly, I selected the Build Panel and pressed the [Check Project] button and then [Start]. This would have listed any errors in the project. There were none.

I use Verbatim BD-RE (re-writable) Blu-ray media as they always result in a great quality disc. Encore can erase them in just a few seconds and they can be used over and over allowing you to start with a quick preview of the video quality without wasting a BD-R disc (write-once). Encore goes through several processes before writing the disc. Some of these are ; Transcoding the Audio (remember, the video was already transcoded from Premiere and AME), Importing Sequences, Building Movies (folders), Building Disc Image, and finally Write the disc.

The write speed currently is 2.5x on the Desktop models and 1.0x on the internal laptop slim drive. If you are writing a 20GB disc, it will take a while. Again, this is a great reason to use reliable media BD-RE media for testing in case something fails.

After the write process was completed Encore ejected the disc. I put the disc in the Playstation3 and in just a few seconds the video was playing. *** Note *** the Playstation 3 requires the 1.6 or higher firmware update to play BD-R and BD-RE discs. If you have a PS3, make sure you have updated the Firmware using the System Update.

I have also played the disc on the Samsung and higher end Blu-ray players with no issues.

A FEW MORE NOTES

If you are new to Blu-ray authoring, you will find the process in Encore to be much the same as creating a standard DVD. The Menu creation is the same with the exception of the size of the menu (HD), I did have one menu, which the quality seemed low, and I realized that the menu I selected was a 720x480 size , after adjusting the size in Photoshop to HD, it looked fine. In later tests, I created larger projects (2 Hrs) and used sub-menus, the same as if I was creating a standard DVD. Encore had no issues.

Be careful when adjusting the bit rates for video and audio, try using the default settings in AME and Encore. I always use AME straight from PremierePro rather than importing the Quicktime or AVI into Encore and having Encore Trascode the video. It’s simply a matter of disc space. Both Premiere and Encore use the same AME engine, only the presets are slightly different.

(OK - The War is OVER. THIS IS OLD NEWS) WHAT ABOUT HD DVD ?

WHAT ABOUT BD-J ?

I also got a ton of questions at NAB on BD-J (Java) which is a method of making an interactive Blu-ray menu and more. This is obviously a possible future direction for Encore and other Blu-ray authoring systems, but requires an entirely new menu-editing mode. The BD-J authoring system I saw at NAB used a ton of Java command lines and, to me, this seems to me to be the wrong approach for the typical user of Adobe video tools. We will have to wait and see what the Encore Engineering team dreams up for BD-J or maybe they have a different approach all together ; )

FINAL THOUGHTS

I wasn't’t quite sure what to expect from creating my first Blu-ray disc. The PremierePro editing and Encore process was as simple as creating standard DVD's with the exception the various settings. The 1440x1080 workflow seems to be perfect for the standard LCD's and Plasma 16:9 screens as the 1440 image fills the entire screen. The HD quality looked beautiful and I now seem to be spoiled and whenever I see a standard DV project burned to a Standard DVD-R it just isn’t the same. The only thing I can compare it to is Cassette Tape to Compact Disc. As we all know, Cassette Tape is pretty painful to listen to after years of Cds.

UPDATE 5/17 David Helmly Adobe Systems,Inc.

I have been getting questions on the various Blu ray burners we have tested with Encore CS3 and we will be posting them on the Adobe site once PremierePro CS3 and Encore CS3 ship this summer.
Some of the models we have tested: Pioneer BDR-101A , Sony BWU-100A , Plextor PX-B900A , Lacie d2 External Blu-ray Drive , Matsushita UJ-210S , Matsushita SW-5582 , Matsushita UJ-215I slim laptop, Phillips SPS7000 , LITE-ON LS2B1S , LG GBW-H10N. Note I plan to check out the new Primera Bravo SE Blu and the Bravo XR-Blu as they also use the Matsushita Panansonic SW-5582.

Entry Update 3/01/08

IMPORTANT MacPro UPDATE: Using the 2 ODD onboard SATA ports.

I have had a lot of questions recently on using the Optical Disk Drive (ODD) SATA ports on the MacPro towers with Encore Blu-ray burning. These 2 ports are located under the Front Fan Housing. People wanting to install an internal Blu-ray drive are finding it more and more difficult to get their hands on the older IDE/ATA Blu-ray drives like the Sony 100A or the Panasonic 5582 or others. These drives can simply connect to the spare IDE cable in the MacPro drive cage. SATA Blu-ray drives like the new LG GGW-H20L , Pioneer BDC 202, and the Sony BWU 200S are becoming cheaper and cheaper, now under 399.00. It would seem like a quick and easy solution to simply connect the SATA Blu-ray drive to one of the ODD SATA ports on the MacPro logic board. If you choose this route you WILL run into a ton of burning issues. I have spent hours testing this and it will not work reliably as of today. I see issues with burning a simple BR data disk in Mac OS 10.5.2, which now appears to support Blu-ray BD-R mounting and writing (Apple makes no mention of supporting BR) . Toast 8 seems to have issues burning BR with the SATA ports as well.

Someone from the Apple Hardware team responded to us with this statement:

"I spoke with our engineering folks and they've said that those ODD SATA ports were never intended for customer expansion. They were there for future possible expansion. In the current Mac Pro 2008, those ports should be turned off completely. It looks like the best alternative right now is the approach you've taken with the converter board. I'll keep poking around to see if there is any more data on this but for now, I think that the best answer is that those ports aren't supported for expansion."

I also spoke to our lead engineer on Encore and asked him to double check with Sonic (they write the Blu-ray and DVD drivers for Encore) and he replied with this:

"The AS_Storage team found a problem in the transport layer in OSX. They’re going to report the bug to Apple, but will look for a work-around in the mean time. I’ll let you know if we find a resolution."

I HAVE FOUND A WORKABLE SOLUTION FOR INSTALLING SATA INTERNAL BLU-RAY DRIVES:

You need to buy a cheap (20-30 US dollars) 40 pin IDE/ATA to SATA converter adapter. This small adapter connects to the back of the SATA drive and gives you 40 pin IDE on the back side and it appears to work OK. I have been testing this found no down side. You may need an IDE extension cable depending on the SATA drive you buy. My Pioneer BDC 202 Blu-ray drive did need a 4" extension cable. The drive still shows 4x speed. If anything changes on using the ODD SATA ports on the MacPro , I will post info. For now, save your self the headache and get an older IDE internal drive or SATA with the Manhattan Adapter or use an External Blu-ray burner (best solution) PLEASE BE SMART - HAVE AN AUTHORIZED MAC SERVICE CENTER INSTALL THESE DRIVES: you don’t want to void your warranty.

If you want to try the Manhattan adapter, here is some info:

Purchase:
http://www.computercablesource.com/sata-adapter-adapt-your-serial-ata-drive-to-a-ide-40-pin-controller-manhattan-170000-internal-use-1383.html

Hope this helps
DKH

AfterEffects CS3 8.02 Update is Ready (Includes P2 Support)

2008-01-22T19:58:11Z

The AfterEffects CS3 8.02 update is NOW available. To update, launch any CS3 application and go to the Menu option Help>Updates. The Adobe updater will scan your CS3 apps and start downloading. Once it starts downloading, make sure you close all of your web apps and any open Adobe apps. There are STILL EXPORT ISSUES WITH QUICKTIME 7.4.Hopefully we will see a quick update for QT from Apple as many AE users have been crippled by 7.4.For mac users the 8.02 update includes OSX Leopard support.

Read on to learn more about the 8.02 update .......

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Welcome to Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional, version 8.0.2. This document contains late-breaking product information,updates, and troubleshooting tips not covered in the Adobe After Effects documentation.

Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional, version 8.0.2, allows you to natively import and edit content from Panasonic P2 equipment, without transcoding or rewrapping. Adobe After Effects supports the Panasonic Op-Atom variant of MXF, which is the format used by Panasonic DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, and DVCPRO HD video cameras to record to P2 media. For more information, see the "Import assets in Panasonic P2 format" section of Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional Help on the Web.

Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional, Version 8.0.2 also includes important fixes
(noted below).
-----------------------------------

On Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard), Dynamic Link didn't work correctly in Premiere Pro when switching between UI and non-UI versions of After Effects.

● On Mac OS, clicking a folder alias in an import or replace file dialog box in All Acceptable Files or All Footage Files mode displayed a “Can’t import file” error

● On Mac OS, OpenGL and hardware acceleration used all VRAM on the GPU until the driver failed, causing display corruption of the OS and After Effects, or possible crash.

● On Mac OS X v10.5 on PowerPC with OpenGL enabled, received an error "composition too complex..." on NVIDIA GeForce 6800 graphics card.

● On Mac OS with OpenGL enabled and project in 32bpc mode, colors were dropped.

● PSD layers didn't import properly from PSD files with layer groups.

● Crash when saving a project with a custom output simulation when output profile is the project's working color space.

● On Mac OS with OpenGL enabled, better memory management on low memory cards.

● Fixed support for AJA's QuickTime codec suite.

● When Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously was enabled, there was a significant pause >12 sec, on an 8 core, 16gb Mac between when RAM preview finished building and when it started playback.

● When you import a PSD file with vector masks inside layer groups using the import Composition - Cropped Layers/Layer size option; the PS vector masks are no longer offset from their original location.

● If you import a PSD file with Photoshop shape layers into After Effects 7, save the project, and then open that project in After Effects CS3, the masks created from the Photoshop vector masks are no longer scaled up to fill the composition.

● Linear light footage setting is now preserved cross-platform.

● When animating type to drift slowly, the tops of the type (when moving vertically) and side (when moving horizontally) of the letters were clipped on every other frame. Fixed. (45898)
● Low-end laptops that don't meet minimum OpenGL requirements crash on quit in some cases.
● Adaptive motion blur for layers in collapsed compositions was based on the local speed in the composition, rather than the effective speed---so static layers only got two samples of blur even if the precomposition layer was moving fast in the containing composition.

● Preserve Underlying Transparency is no longer ignored when layer styles are applied.

● Layers that are inside of a PSD layer set no longer have the layer set's opacity applied twice.
● Photoshop clipping group was applied twice on import.

● Layers inside a PSD layer set with a mode other than "pass through" were cropped to document bounds rather than reflecting layer data.

● Footage conformed to a higher frame rate left footage frozen on a frame before the end is reached.

● After Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously was enabled, After Effects CS3 would show high CPU activity evenwhen idle.

● QuickTime gamma handling scheme broke WYSIWYG color management workflow common to video users.

● QuickTime footage that imports with SDTV/HDTV profile will be assigned an sRGB profile on Power PC, or with the "Match Legacy After Effects QuickTime Gamma Adjustments" option checked on any platform.

● After Effects CS3 v8.0.2 fixes Mac OpenGL support for supported video cards under OS X v10.4.10 and v10.5. See also http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/opengl.html.

● Multi-machine rendering rendering of Photoshop files failed with error "The Photoshop Library operation failed because the file name was not valid".

● Error occurred when using Increment And Save if the project was saved at the root volume of a boot drive.

● The current frame didn't finish rendering if you switched away from application. Fixed. To enable this fix, please modify the preferences file and restart the application: ['General Section'] 'Allow Idle Application Rendering in 8.0.2' = 01.
● Wav files listed as 24-bit 48 KHz played back as noise or highly distorted. Fixed. (46149)
● Camera raw files now display correctly after being adjusted in the Camera Raw dialog box on import if color management is off.

● Important bug fixes for encoding and decoding H.264-compressed content.

● On Mac OS, support has been fixed for Apple's Uncompressed 10-bit (v210) codec when FCP Studio 2 is installed.

● Incorrect layout and functionality of localized PSD choose-layer dialog/radio buttons has been fixed.

● A mask path or shape path can now be correctly extended from its first point using the Pen tool.

● Decoding of PAL v210, UYVY, and 2vuy formats has been corrected.

● With Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously enabled, QuickTime footage was sometimes not included in rendering by background processes if any QuickTime footage was missing when the project was opened.

Known issues
● Layer blending modes and opacity are not honored for imported Illustrator CS3 files. Please set the blending modes and opacity in the After Effects composition in the Timeline panel after importing Illustrator footage items.
● When Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously is enabled, Save RAM Preview and Save Frame As > File render slowly because they do not used the cached rendered frames.

● Crash may occur with ATI x700, x800 graphics cards if the project's color depth is 32bpc and Transparency Grid is enabled during OpenGL interaction. Please check http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html for availability of updates.

● When you import or place a PNG file that was rendered from Adobe After Effects CS3 or earlier into Adobe Flash CS3 or Adobe Illustrator CS3 and earlier, the image is several times larger than expected. See also http://www.adobe.com/go/kb402369

● Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard): Crash when previewing per-character 3D text animation if the project's color depth is 32bpc. Please check http://www.apple.com for availability of OpenGL support updates

● When importing a Photoshop file as a composition, vector mask blending modes are incorrectly set. Please set the blending modes in the After Effects composition in the Timeline panel as needed after importing.

● Launching After Effects CS3 v8.0.2 under Rosetta on Macintosh Intel hardware breaks P2 import. To reset the functionality, please delete the following file: ~/Library/Preferences/com.Adobe.After Effects.8.0.2.plist.

● Freeze or crash when you start on a system with Realtek HD Audio (Windows XP). See also http://www.adobe.com/go/kb402308

● Multiprocessing performance issues with multi-core machines, especially high-end 8-core hardware. When all 8 cores try to render a complex or memory intensive composition with Render Mutliple Frames Simultaneously, the application can become memory starved if each process has insufficient memory. To remedy this, there is a text preference to control the maximum number of cores that Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously will use. Open the text preference file and look in the ["MP"] section for: "MaxNumberOfProcesses" = "0". "0" is the default setting, which disables this preference setting. For better performance on an 8-core machine with 8GB RAM, for example, change the "0" setting Simultaneously to 4 cores, each getting approximately 2GB of RAM.

● For other performance tips using large dimension or complex compositions, see the "Improve performance" section of After Effects CS3 Help on the Web.

NEW WORKFLOW VIDEO: After Effects P2 Support in Action

2007-11-10T01:17:29Z

Watch This:

As promised here is a quick workflow video showing the new support in After Effects CS3 for Panasonic P2 MXF.You will see this P2 feature as part of the next free update (v8.02) which is due to be released before the end of 2007.

A few key points:

AE Importer P2

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Native Panasonic P2 MXF on the AE timeline

Using Effects on P2 Footage

Premiere Pro Project Importer: Import full PremierePro P2 Projects or take your pick from a project sequence list

Imported Premiere Pro CS3 P2 Project

Take advantage of the Production Premium video suite by using DynamicLink between AfterEffects CS3 and Premiere Pro CS3. Just drag and drop from the After Effects Project Panel into the Premiere Pro Project Panel.

After Effects P2 Support Update

2007-10-19T16:26:33Z

Just a quick note on After Effects CS3 and P2 support:

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The After Effects team officially announced support for Panasonic P2/MXF format at the IBC show in September. They are currently working on the next update for AE and it will include P2 support. They are planning to release the update before the end of the year. I am currently working on a new short video, which will show After Effects CS3 working with P2 footage.

The Premiere Pro CS3 3.1 Update Mac and Windows is now available. You can access it via the menu: Help>Updates in Premiere Pro. It will also be available for download via the Adobe support page next week.

UPDATE Nov 10th 2007 New After Effects P2 Video is now up. Click below to check it out

http://blogs.adobe.com/davtechtable/2007/11/new_workflow_video_after_effec.html#more

Intro to PremierePro and P2 support

2007-10-09T09:48:49Z

Premiere Pro and P2 support

for Intel Mac OSX and Windows XP/Vista

(version 3.1)

What’s New?

With the new Premiere Pro CS3 and the 3.1 update, you can now natively Ingest, Edit, and Export the Panasonic P2 format. All you need to do is to shoot your video and simply drag ,drop , and edit – it’s that easy. There is no need to transcode your video with an intermediate codec in order to use them on the timeline, and there are no AVI or Quicktime wrappers – just native P2 format.

Premiere Pro CS3 will actually allow you to edit directly on the P2 card. This means you can shoot your video and start making a quick rough cut on your laptop while going to your next shoot. Once you get back to your desktop Premiere Pro workstation, you can copy the P2 clips onto your desktop workstation and continue editing. For those of you with a Matrox Axio, you’ve been asking for a laptop based solution to use with your Axio and it’s finally here.

If you use or plan to buy any of the AJA or BlackMagic products, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with their support for Premiere Pro CS3 (v3.1) as well. More on that later….

Watch This:

I have created a quick Intro to Premiere Pro CS3 and P2 video. This video shows you our P2 support in action.

TO LEARN MORE .....click Continue reading

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Watch This:

I have created a quick Intro to Premiere Pro CS3 and P2 video. This video shows you our P2 support in action.

Click Here to CHECK IT OUT:

Quick Facts:

Here’ s a quick recap of Using Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 with Panasonic P2 Content.

TRUE Native P2 Editing

Direct editing from P2 media

All frame rates and resolutions are supported

Mixed media on the timeline (different Codecs and sizes) for example, HDV & P2

Metadata-rich workflow

Export to P2

Here are a few more tips when working with PremierePro and P2 clips.

Make sure to choose the correct P2 Preset in Premiere Pro’s welcome screen. These presets support all of the P2 formats ranging from SD to HD and various frame rates including Varicam. You can make additional P2 presets under the custom tab.



2.   Viewing Metadata of a P2 clip is done by right clicking the clip in the Project Bin and selecting    Properties.



3.   Video and Audio P2 folders: When you import clips into Premiere Pro, you just need to show Premiere where the Video folder is located in the CONTENTS folder. Premiere will automatically find the audio and match it to the video.



4.    Clip Naming: Premiere Pro will assign the P2 User Clip name from the P2 media card as the name for the item in the Project Panel. This name is different from the MXF file name that you see on the media. As always, you can rename a clip in the Project Bin without changing its file name. Premiere will keep track of this “virtual” name for you. For example, if you were shooting scenes in different cities (like Annapolis) you could change the User Clip name for each city you shot for your video. This is different from the actual P2 file name. Rather than use the file name , as its first choice, Premiere looks to see if there is a User Clip name. BEWARE – there is a user mode (1) on the camera that will name every clip the same, so when you import the clips, they will all have the same name (I’m not sure why this is a feature on the camera, but it’s there). If this happens to you, you can rename the clips in the project panel in Premiere or you can use the P2 Viewer application to change them. Take the time to read your camera manual - at least read about User modes- It’s a great feature. BTW: You can always look at the Creation Date Column in the Project Panel to help sort your clips if they were named the same.



5.    Icon View: Remember to change your view to Icon View in the Project Bin. This is fairly quick and allows you to scrub each clip and re-assign the thumbnail. It’s acts like a mini P2 browser. Also remember that you can quickly clean up the icons by selecting the fly out menu (small arrow on the upper right corner of Panel) and choosing Clean up. I find myself using this a lot with P2 media.



6.      Multi Formats: Mixed media work great but remember to pay attention to frame size and scaling. I use DV footage (720x480) all the time with HD resolutions. But, I mainly use it for PiPs (picture in picture) I’m not big fan of scaling DV to HD. It usually ends up looking like VHS. I know there are several hardware boards which scale and they all support PremierePro’s Scale to Fit command, but it still looks like DV to me.

7.     Spanning: Clips that span multiple cards ( must be imported and joined manually ) You can use the timecode or the Creation Date column in the Project bin to sort clips to the correct order

8.     Audio Only: You can import just the audio from a clip if needed. If you import any clip from the AUDIO folder, Premiere will import it as a single mono clip.

9.    CONTENT Folder: When using the Export to P2 option, remember that Premiere Pro will recreate a new CONTENT folder with all of the expected P2 subfolders. This will allow for you to take your rendered timeline to another P2 editor like Avid or FCP. It makes no difference whether it was created on a mac or pc.



101 Facts:

The P2 card is a high speed PCMCIA card and requires the P2 driver for your Mac or PC. It will appear on your Desktop or My Computer as Flash memory card. The file system is FAT 32 which has a 4GB max file size. The camera will automatically start a new clip after 4GB have been reached. The cards currently range in size from 4GB-32GB. You can use up to 5 PCMCIA cards in one device depending on the number of slots available (typically 2). There are also hard drive storage options available for P2 cameras as well. The FireStore and Shining Technology are a well-known options for both HDV and P2 cameras. I haven’t used either one for P2 yet.

CONTENTS Folder: has a very specific folder structure of sub folders. It’s best not to rename them but rather create a TOP folder for example “Annapolis Day” and drop the CONTENTS folder into the TOP folder.

VIDEO Folder: contains video MXF files

AUDIO folder: contains upto 16 independent mono audio MXF files for each clip, using the clips file name with the channel number appended ( 0, 1, 2, 3 for 4 channels)

CLIP folder: contains clip metadata, stored as “[filename]”.xml

ICON folder: contains a thumbnail icon or poster frame stored as a BMP.

PROXY folder: contains proxy files, stored as .mp4files and containing quarter resolution MPEG-4 video at around 200kbit/sec and one mono AAC audio track, along with a BIN file. Adobe Premiere Pro does not support this function.

VOICE folder: contains voice annotations added after capture in .wav format.

HDV Editing..... A Different Take

2007-10-01T17:31:06Z

HDV Editing:      A different take…

Over the past few years, HDV has given us lightweight and affordable cameras. Just ask anyone who shoots video for a living why they like these new cameras. These range from small palm corders to lightweight shoulder cams.The next time you see a professional video shooter, look at the camera they are using. Chances are it’s a small high quality HDV camera from Canon, Sony, or JVC.

From the Beginning:

I have had the opportunity to work with HDV from the beginning. With our 3rd party plug-in partners, we actually had support in earlier versions of Premiere (6.5) with excellent codecs like CineForm’s AspectHD (still my favorite software based HDV solution for Windows users) and later on, MainConcept’s MPEGPro and the NEW MPEGProHD.
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Intermediate vs Native:

With the introduction of PremierePro 1.51 we included a version of Cineform’s HDV codec and had a lot of satisfied first time HDV users as well as a lot of customers asking for true Native HDV editing (also known as m2t). I think it’s safe to say, that not all of these customers were up to speed on HDV being an MPEG2 technology and using Long GOP for editing when it comes to Native Editing. Our Native HDV m2t editing is a good experience for typical video workflows. It involves a simple HDV Firewire capture and Premiere automatically generates a quick Index file that makes it possible for PremierePro to edit the MPEG2 information. But depending on your computers performance you can start seeing one of the drawbacks of Native m2t HDV editing when you have a timeline with several layers of video and effects. While Preview Playback looks good and timeline editing works great, at some point you will start to see your systems true limits. A Fast Processor (s), Fast RAM and Fast Disk Access all contribute to your editing experience (zippyness). Yes, we take full advantage of multiprocessors and the new CORE Technology chips from Intel (& AMD). Native m2t HDV editing is a very processor intensive process. FOR MORE INFO on LongGOP (group of pictures) check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDV (click on #6 to get to the editing part)

Again, Native m2t editing is fine for most people and most routine videos, but having an Intermediate codec like Cineform has its advantages. Using an intermediate codec means that the Native HDV MPEG2 stream is converted (transcoded) on capture into a special format (codec) that is less work for the CPU to decode when editing on the timeline. This means companies like Cineform can add Real-time effects, color correction, and more because the processor is not tied up decoding the MPEG2 stream as with Native m2t editing. All of this happens with a software plug-in. For the techies out there, Cineform uses a Wavelet codec. The downside for some is that you need to buy AspectHD from www.cineform.com but if your time is valuable, and you want a software based solution (ie, laptop) it’s worth a look. They do offer a free full working trial. Cineform also has a new plug-in for CS3 OSX mac users too!

The hardware boards:

Hardware products, like the Matrox RT X2 and the High-End Axio handle Adobe Native HDV truly amazing. They offer a great editing experience and give the benefit of accelerated MPEG2 DVD output/rendering. The Matrox boards can render a typical timeline for DVD (m2v) output in Real-time, if time is money and you spend a lot of time waiting on Export to DVD – look at this option. I’ve done several 2 hr HDV videos using Matrox Axio and got quickly use to the Real-time performance for most Adobe effects and a slew of special Matrox effects and DVEs. Their new set of “Shine” effects and Presets are getting a lot of use in my videos. I should also be honest and tell you that all of the HDV work I’ve done with the Axio could have been done on the much cheaper Matrox RT X2. It is basically an Axio LE Jr. without the Pro video and audio connectors. It is currently the most cost effective hardware accelerated board for HDV users – I’ll be doing a full CS3 review on the Matrox boards in an up coming blog. The Matrox Axio and RT X2 3.0 drivers for PremierePro CS3 have a ton of performance enhancements.

My Best HDV Experience:

What’s the BEST experience I’ve had with HDV?

Honestly, - Not using Firewire for Ingest, but rather using SDI. What is SDI? Think of it as “FAT Firewire” or better yet, a fire hose vs a drinking straw. It’s a “Big Pipe”.

The HDV camera I find myself using the most is the Canon XH G1. Not only is it a 3 chip HDV camera, it has on-board SDI. The quality is simply amazing. It offers a beautiful range of shooting modes and frame rates. With SDI you can forget about the Long GOP MPEG2 step. You can ingest (capture) from the SDI port on the camera into any SDI capture board. These boards range in price from $295.00 and up depending on the features needed. They are available from BlackMagic Design, AJA, and Matrox and a few others. Cineform also offers ProspectHD and Prospect2K which use certain models of the AJA and BlackMagic SDI & HDMI boards. They give excellent RT performance enhancements and it uses Cineform’s well-known Wavelet codec. If you need help in deciding which board is right for your needs, you can always get help from an Adobe Platinum Var or cruise forums like the www.CreativeCow.com.

Creative Timelines (lots of Photoshop, AfterEffects, and Filters)

When it comes to doing complex “Adobe Style” creative timelines, SDI capture is a great start. You can pick your SDI capture format ranging from Uncompressed 10 bit HD to I-Frame compressed editing modes. Each board and manufacture has different capture/ingest modes and PremierePro Presets to help you get started. The key thing to keep in mind is that you can still shoot with HDV and get all the benefits without the LongGOP step.

Just think; Long GOP is Long GONE! Simple and FAST with SDI. (Ok, that’s not my tagline – it’s actually Convergent-Designs)

But, I already have an HDV camera !

For those of you that already have an HDV camera like the highly successful Sony FX1 or Z1U, Convergent Design saves the day with their new HD-Connect SI converter. This small converter allows you to connect your existing HDV camera via Firewire to an SDI card. Basically giving you a pristine image in any codec your Non-Linear Editor (NLE) board supports for capture. An added bonus is a RS 422 deck control port is built in! In the case of PremierePro, I first tested it with the Matrox Axio to capture in their high quality I-Frame mode which saves on disk space (the Axio also does Uncompressed 10bit with RT effects). The workflow is truly a pleasure to edit long projects with all of the real-time you would expect from Matrox.

I also tested PremiereProCS3 the AJA LHe card in an Uncompressed 10bit workflow and was totally sold on the quality and the smoothness of editing 10 bit on the timeline. They should also get credit for their Capture and Playback setup screen which exposes nearly all of the high-end features in the PremierePro recording and playback architecture.   AJA has been long known for their attention to detail and control over the capture and output process (up/down convert) and with PremierePro CS3 they spent extra time exposing it.

BlackMagic Design should also get a mention here as well. They are also well known for their SDI boards and have a fast growing range of products. They have just introduced a new compressed codec for PremiereProCS3 Windows called "Online JPEG" and at 12MB per second and full 1920x1080 resolution it is sure to get some attension.They are best known at Adobe for their part in several motion pictures, one of which is SuperMan Returns. Every frame of SuperMan returns was ingested with PremierePro and BlackMagic Design Hardware. If your curious, check out this case study: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/showcase/index.cfm?event=casestudydetail&casestudyid=114473&loc=en_us

I’ll be doing write-ups later on AJA and BlackMagic Designs and PremiereProCS3 Mac OSX support soon and will use the Convergent Design SI converter in a Mac SDI based workflow. One thing to think about when deciding which SDI board to choose is your disk requirements in regards to uncompressed or compressed workflows (I-Frame). Compressed workflows offer nice quality at lower data rates. Yes, there is a trade off on Quality vs disk space. Uncompressed 10 bit SDI HD projects need large fast raids.

If you’re curious, I use mostly www.G-Technology.com raids. They offer the HD, HDV, or DV user a wide range of raids for laptop and desktop use. They are also a good resource for helping you to match a raid with your PremierePro capture board or laptop based system. If you see me at an Adobe event, I’ll more than likely have my portable G-raid mini as I edit a lot on the airplane. This little wonder, is a hardware based raid that has built-in FW 800. I was sold after using it for 10 minutes!

Lastly, I should mention that I was extremely impressed with Convergent-Design converter when I had to update the firmware to a newer version. They have a very simple JAVA based firmware updater program that makes updating firmware a piece of cake.

Do your Homework:

As with all 3rd party add-on hardware for Adobe Video products, make sure you review the hardware requirements on the various websites. Adobe OpenHD has a number of them listed for you. http://www.adobe.com/adobeopenhd/. Adobe also has a group of resellers or VARs called Adobe Platinum Vars. All of them are very familiar with hardware requirements needed for the various boards. If you want to build your own system, the board makers also have system requirements that list the various pieces needed to make a compatible system. If you’re a Mac user, you already know that you only have 1 desktop system with board slots to choose from - How easy is that!

Too much info:

I know I covered a ton of different products in this blog.It’s really, more of an intro into up coming articles and I wanted to introduce a lot of key players as well as an alternative way to work with HDV cameras. It goes to show the extensive support that PremierePro and the rest of the CS3 video family have with our 3rd party partners. For more specific information on the products mentioned, visit their website. Here you will find SD/HD, capture Codecs, and other various features. All of these partners have released or soon will release new CS3 updates. Make sure you check out their current information.

Cineform AspectHD and Prospect HD/2K:      www.cineform.com

MainConcept: http://www.mainconcept.com/site/

Matrox Axio and RT X2:http://matrox.com/video/home.cfm

Canon HDV Cameras: http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ProductCatIndex1Act&fcategoryid=102

BlackMagic Design:      http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/

AJA: http://aja.com/

Convertgent Design: http://www.convergent-design.com/

G-Technology: http://g-technology.com/

Next Article? PremierePro CS3 version 3.1 and Panasonic P2!

Adobe Production Premium CS3 and Apple Final Cut Studio 2.0 and Blu-ray Burning

2007-06-22T06:15:15Z

One of the most popular questions I get from various Final Cut Pro users is what can they expect to gain from installing Production Premium CS3 and what will it mean to their future workflows. One thing that is perfectly clear is that the FCP users should expect to view Production Premium CS3 as an add-on to their current software and not a replacement to their favorite NLE editing app. The same would be true for any longtime Avid Xpress Pro or Avid Media Composer Mac user as well.

For some, Production Premium CS3, and more specifically, PremierePro CS3 OSX (MacTel) will do everything they need from an NLE stand point , but for many FCP and Avid users they will want to continue to use the app they’ve been using and trusting for years. Many FCP and Avid Mac users will more than likely end up buying Production Premium strictly from a price/value standpoint and later realizing that it’s a very capable mac video suite on it’s own and when you add it your current workflow you’ll be surprised what you can do.

Read more to learn and watch workflow video

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For starters, any FCP user can now burn Blu-ray DVDs by exporting a Quicktime Reference movie and importing it into Encore CS3, not only can you end up with a HD Blu-ray disc but you can also Save/Export the Encore project as a Flash video site with all menus and navigation intact. This is a huge feature for many users who would like to post their DVDs on-line for review or for final output. This is one feature that I don’t dive into in this discussion, but it should not be over looked.

For the past few weeks I have been working with different HD workflows using Final Cut Pro 6.0 and Production Premium CS3 (PremierePro CS3 , AfterEffects CS3, and Encore CS3) to see what users will experience when they attempt to use these apps together. The most common workflow questions came from typical HDV users wanting to use AfterEffects and FCP and end up with a Blu-ray disc that could be played on a standard off the shelf Blu-ray player or Sony Playstation 3.

A High Quality version of the video of the HDV workflow can be seen here:

** Requires Quicktime to View **

Click Here to View Quicktime Video

Please note: the system used for the demo was a new MacPro 8 Core with 8GB ram (thanks to www.MBSdirect.com for providing the test unit). All FCP, PremierePro and Encore rendering times were accelerated 3x to save time on the video.

Below are some screen grabs from the video that show the basic workfow of starting the project in FCP 6.0 (capturing HDV) and importing video into PremierePro CS3 and then jumping over to AfterEffects CS3 to create a quick animated titling composition and using Adobe Dynamic Link to make changes to the After Effects comp. A few things to note are that all of the FCP Studio CODECs are available for PremierePro and AfterEffects to import and export. This is a huge plus. The use of Quicktime Ref movies in Encore save a ton of time and help quality by not having to re-render the video.

Step 1.

Capture footage in FCP (HDV from a Canon XH G1 in this case)

Step 2.

Set up timeline in FCP and import needed clips into PremierePro CS3

Step 3.

Use Dynamic Link from After Effects and PremierePro to create AfterEffects composition

Step 4.

Export finished timeline from PremierePro and import back into FCP

Step 5.

Make additional changes and final adjustments to timeline in FCP

Step 6.

Export Quicktime Reference Movie from FCP and import into Encore CS3

Step 7.

Setup Encore for 1440x1080 Blu-ray project

Step 8.

Complete links and authoring steps in Encore CS3

Step 9.

Burn Blu-ray disc

Step 10.

Watch Disc on Blu-ray Player

The real use of PremierePro CS3 for the FCP user in this case is being able to view your sequence of clips and the AE comp together, as they would appear in FCP but having the freedom to make changes in AE without rendering. Having this ability to jump back and forth making changes to your AE comp will save you tons of time. Once you use Dynamic Link , it’s hard to go back to rendering your AE comp every time you need to make a change and then importing it back into FCP.

Again, the main use of PremierePro CS3 in this case is to enhance your After Effects workflow. You can choose to export the final AE quicktime movie from PremierePro CS3 or AE CS3.

I also plan to look at both AJA and BlackMagic Design HD workflows as well. The most promising thing from these HD SDI cards is the ability to buy 1 SDI card and use it for both Apple’s and Adobe’s video suites. For those users who need Windows XP for their 3D workflows, these HD SDI cards also appear to work when using Bootcamp on your Desktop MacPro. Again, giving the user more output flexibility with these cards (Not to mention that the Windows version of ProductionPremium could be used in the PC 3D workflow as well) – who would have thought that we’d have so much flexibility from one desktop machine.     Now that’s cool!

DAV's TechTable

Blu-ray Playback Problems ?

Blu-ray Playback Problems ?

Quick Firmware Links:

Here are a few 2.3 firmware PS3 issues I’ve seen first hand with-in the past 2 weeks.

XDCAM and Premiere Pro 3.2

Intro to PremierePro CS3 and XDCAM, XDCAM HD, and XDCAM EX support For Intel Macs and Windows XP/Visa (Version 3.2.0)

There are two featured videos for Premiere Pro 3.2.0. The first video shows off the new XDCAM support and the second video “MixItUp” shows using XDCAM EX, Panasonic P2, HDV, and standard DV on the same timeline with no special codecs.

Here’s a quick video showing the new XDCAM in action.

Notable fixes Titles/Footage show up as offline when reloading saved projects.

Known Issues

Download the PremierePro 3.2.0 Update for XDCAM Support and Improved HDV support

Apple's Compressor & Encore Blu-Ray

Creating MPEG-2 Output Files for Blu-ray with Apple's Compressor 3

Apple's Compressor MPEG-2 settings.

Background Info on MPEG-2 Streams.

Quick and Easy Workflow The following workflow shows you the easiest way to create Mpeg-2 Program streams for use in Encore CS3.

** UPDATED March 2008 ** Working with Adobe Encore CS3 and Blu-ray

Entry Update 3/01/08

AfterEffects CS3 8.02 Update is Ready (Includes P2 Support)

NEW WORKFLOW VIDEO: After Effects P2 Support in Action

After Effects P2 Support Update

UPDATE Nov 10th 2007 New After Effects P2 Video is now up. Click below to check it out

Intro to PremierePro and P2 support

Premiere Pro and P2 support

for Intel Mac OSX and Windows XP/Vista

Watch This:

TO LEARN MORE .....click Continue reading

101 Facts:

HDV Editing..... A Different Take

HDV Editing: A different take…

From the Beginning:

Intermediate vs Native:

The hardware boards:

My Best HDV Experience:

Creative Timelines (lots of Photoshop, AfterEffects, and Filters)

Just think; Long GOP is Long GONE! Simple and FAST with SDI. (Ok, that’s not my tagline – it’s actually Convergent-Designs)

But, I already have an HDV camera !

Do your Homework:

Too much info:

Next Article? PremierePro CS3 version 3.1 and Panasonic P2!

Adobe Production Premium CS3 and Apple Final Cut Studio 2.0 and Blu-ray Burning

Intro to PremierePro CS3 and XDCAM, XDCAM HD, and XDCAM EX support
For Intel Macs and Windows XP/Visa (Version 3.2.0)

There are two featured videos for Premiere Pro 3.2.0.
The first video shows off the new XDCAM support and the second video “MixItUp” shows using XDCAM EX, Panasonic P2, HDV, and standard DV on the same timeline with no special codecs.

Notable fixes
Titles/Footage show up as offline when reloading saved projects.

Quick and Easy Workflow
The following workflow shows you the easiest way to create Mpeg-2 Program streams for use in Encore CS3.

UPDATED March 2008 Working with Adobe Encore CS3 and Blu-ray