The Genesis Project

About six months ago, I began an entry that I thought would be the 'mother of all resources' to things principally related to After Effects but also about Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Production Premium.

That last about a week and I finally erased the entry. Why?  Because it's impossible to try and put it all in one entry and it would be incomplete at it's best. So, I've decided to do the next best thing: Tell you about the resources that I like to look at and use. It's long and so I've decided to break it into parts. 

Even just with the ones that I can recommend, use or have used, it's going to be a long list.  I would highly recommend that you bookmark this link and go back to it when you need it.

General Tech, Mac and PC geekiness:  Do you dream of putting your own PC together or building a hackintosh?  I do, and I find that a lot of others have fun with it too.  Along with carpal tunnel, we are a generation that has people that look at computers not only as a way to communicate but as a hobby.  For me it's all that and a job - go figure. So here are a few of my favorite resources if you are fascinated by technology and just have fun with gadgets.

Maximum PC - I subscribe to this magazine.  I pay money for a printed copy!  So, I must really, really like it.  Mac people think they are the hippest, but I will tell you there is some badness (in a good way) in the pages of Maximum PC. If the PC is the thing that makes you go or you're looking for ways to speed it up, this is a great mag.  I read it cover to cover and save some copies...

MacWorld - Lest PC people put me on a pedestal and Mac people hang me in effigy, I humbly submit that I pay money and read a printed copy of MacWorld too.  Not quite as edgy as Maximum PC, but no doubt a solid magazine to stay in touch with how to get the most from your Mac. Chances are though, you're tuned into AppleInsider, WorldofApple, or many others. 

Did you think I wouldn't mention Gizmodo or Engadget?  Check....Both of these cover a lot of ground and certainly most of it is not related to Adobe and our video products, but they're definitely fun to check out and can help you find things that you can use.

Tom's Hardware Another obvious choice, but hey I'm pretty obvious in my blog. ;-)  Great resource for PC goodness if you've never visited.

After Effects:  Okay, I can go pretty deep on this one, but I'm going to refrain and instead point you to a few of my favorites.  Of course, if you're looking for something approaching comprehensive, check out Todd Kopriva's entry.

Video Copilot:  Andrew Kramer is one talented dude and he puts a lot of his talent in terrific tutorials.  In addition, Andrew provides some AE presets that, depending on what you need, can be very useful.

CreativeCow AE Tutorials:  These are done by a number of people, but Aharon Rabinowitz has been one of the best.  He's since started focusing on Red Giant plugins.  Eran Stern has taken over the duties of AE tutorials and is similarly awesome.

Dean Velez's Motion Graphics Lab:  Another AE guru who used to work for Adobe for a time - Dean is passionate about motion graphics and is just an inventive guy in general. I credit him with being my first real AE teacher and I am forever grateful for his tutelage.

Maltaannon.com - Another great website that not only offers free tutorials but also free plug-ins.  I've not had the pleasure of meeting Maltaannon yet, but there is no denying his abilities.

Between the above four, you are going to be pretty busy when it comes to AE tutorials.  Next up, some thoughts on resources and Photoshop...

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Video editors and graphics artists have always relied on a monitor to help them achieve their vision.  Years ago, it was the size of the monitor that mattered.  It was also the refresh rates available.  Then came LCD's but they weren't black enough or fast enough.  Fast forward a few years and now we're dumping CRTs at the local recycling center and LCD's are the standard - the black and speed issues largely overcome.  Well, I've seen the future (at least the near future) and it's the DreamColor LP2480zx professional display.  Read on for some more.

I've been the beneficiary of Adobe's relationship with HP for many years.  Simply put, HP wants to show how their hardware can really help artists using creative software to get more done quickly.  In the same manner, Adobe wants to have terrific new hardware to show off how Creative Suite and how it's innovative features can help creatives get more done quickly.  See, a match made in heaven.

Well some time ago, I got a DreamColor display.  This display is different on a couple of levels.  For one, it purports to have BILLIONS of colors instead of 16.7 million.  Pretty special if you can see them - and it turns out you can.  The next thing that is perhaps not revolutionary but nice nonetheless, is the DisplayPort input in addition to DVI.

At first, I was like, 'okay, not bad, nice monitor.'  I don't know what it was that I did, whether it was loading the right drivers, connecting it to a Vista 64 computer, using the nvidia Quadro CX or connecting via the DisplayPort, but the end result was quite impressive.  Perhaps it was a culmination of all of the above. 

Here's the deal - you really do have to see the DreamColor to understand how good the picture really is.  I know, it's been said before for a million different things, but that's the best way for me to describe it.  The colors are vibrant and just seem to pop out.  The image is beyond sharp.  Superlatives aside, this is one incredible monitor.

I also got the calibration device to really get this puppy set up right.  The calibration software setup was straightforward and fast.  It didn't dramatically change the color.  In fact, I would guess that it was about 2-3% total.  However, if you're a graphics professional and you want that 234,2,0 RGB value to be true while you're working - it's great to know that your monitor is correctly displaying the color you've chosen.  I'm not a print guy, but it's got to be frustrating when your work doesn't look the way you thought it did when you had it proofed. The closest analogy I can offer is when I've ordered prints of my photos and they come back slightly different - it's because what I'm seeing on my Mac (GAMMA!!!) is different than the actual values that are in the photo.

When I talked to some of the folks at nvidia, I got some additional information and it sounds like the DisplayPort along with 30-bits is a big part of what makes this monitor look so good.  Turns out that the DisplayPort allows the 30-bits to travel to the display thru the GPU without any compression.  They tell me that this translates into better gradient, shadow and highlight transitions along with better detail in those regions.

Those extra bits give you exponentially more colors to work with.  With 8-bit color you only have a palette of 256 colors - hardly something you're going to edit a photo with - you simply don't have enough colors.  16-bit color has 65536 colors (I even had that number memorized - sad I know) and while you think that seems like a good number of colors for photo or video editing, the truth is that it isn't.  What you and I see most often is 24-bit color or 16.7 million colors.  There's no denying that 24-bit color is adequate, perhaps more than adequate... that is until you see 30-bit.

Lest you think this is some HP DreamColor 'love-fest', let me mention some of the negatives from my perspective.  These are mostly pet peeves and perhaps some of them could be alleviated through a little investigation.  Case in point: Every time I fire up the monitor, it displays a dialog box with the input being used, the time since the last calibration, etc.  Not a big deal per se, but it gets annoying if you're booting it up every morning, or switching between inputs ala a KVM switch.

At one point, Vista 64 came up looking kind of funky and pulling the DisplayPort cable out and putting back in, didn't fix the problem.  A restart fixed it right up, but I can't figure out why it did it, so I note it here for you.

The price - at $1999.00 list, this is not a monitor for everyone.  I mean, you can buy an HP workstation and LCD panel to run CS4 for that kind of money.  Still, if you can swing it, there is no doubt that you will have a fine appreciation of what you've purchased.  In many ways, the price is like the Wacom Cintiq monitor - it's pricey but most people that have it, love it.

As cool and practical as the 24" model is, once you've done some work on a 30" and have the proper distance (i.e. - not 12-24" away but 36-60"), you want to edit/create on little else.  I'd love to see a 30" model for about the same price. In my opinion, that would be a sweet spot for HP and a real justification a good chunk of the professional market to embrace it.

Perhaps the biggest request I'd put in for the 'next' DreamColor would be a HD-SDI video input. It's got such vibrant colors, you naturally would like to see how hi-def footage would play out from Premiere Pro.  There is an HDMI input, but then you require some sort of video card with an HDMI output to be able to utilize it.  On the other side, you could use the HP LP2480zx monitor as a secondary monitor and drive the output directly from Premiere Pro.  I may have to give that a try myself and report on my findings. That brings up a thought - imagine two of these in tandem: one driving Premiere Pro and one driving your output? Schaaweeet!

And finally as an annoying aside - what's with all of the contraction and captilization inside of the word?  DisplayPort?  DreamColor?  Oh wait, Adobe OnLocation... ;-)

One part that I haven't mentioned much is the Quadro CX card. Look for an upcoming post with a little more detail on it in the near future.

In conclusion, this monitor rocks and I can see it being the new standard in the creative space as we continue to see more monitors like this become available.  If you get a chance to see one in action, don't pass up the chance.  And if by chance you have a few dollars burning a hole in your pocket, I would nominate this to adorn your monitor space - it's really that nice.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Premiere Pro has been out for a couple of weeks has been really well received thus far.  It's not only addressed some bugs but also added some new functionality like the RED workflows, .VOB editing and Avid IMX import.  I wanted to quickly post some of the feedback that's been posted on the Adobe forums. ;-)

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"I'm very happy so far with 4.1 - they did a great job"
 
"They fixed everything in Premiere. Works great now."
 
"I'm totally happy with 4.1 update. I swear the fixes have already saved a couple hours of life."
 
"4.0.2 it took 12-15 minutes to render each reel if I clicked the use 'use' preview file…Now with version 4.1 they rendered in 8-9 minutes…AND I didn't have to wait a minute or two for the reels to start rendering. 4.1 starts in like 5 seconds…Also when I open PR or AE project using AME. It doesn't make me wait at least a minute like to pick the sequence to render. Does it right away."
 
"Adobe - Thank you for V4.1.0 - Still export back to the older versions! :-) No render Q!"
 
"I agree with another poster in a similar thread. This has got to be a record for getting the full download out the same day as the AUM version…Nice job Adobe!"
 
"…loading projects is indeed a lot snappier than it was. Loading a 30 minute project (source material is 1:35 hours) with 17 AE comps, 100+ HDV clips, and some miscellaneous material within 4 seconds is not bad."
 
"…a noticeable performance increase"
 
"Hats off to Adobe for finally coming through and polishing the decoding for AVCHD….I know we had to wait a while for the update, but I'm glad they didn't rush it and do some hack job, considering the update actually makes editing AVCHD that much more intuitive and efficient.  Looks like we have a winner in my book!"
 
"…my big projects load 10x faster and I get realtime playback with Magic Bullet looks. Also get twice the frame rate when Dl to AE….
Also great better BCC support...cool and even better it only takes less than a second to click back to Premiere from any other program. 8 times faster at least….I'm happy."
 
"Premiere opens much faster now. It takes a few seconds for a big project instead of several minutes. Transitions between still work now perfectly AC3 audio is now audible."
 
"That's the quickest I've ever seen an update available on the website, after just being released."

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...Now if only we could get every one to spell Premiere Pro right...Ah well, that's a problem that can wait for another day.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you're in the New York City area, you might want to come to ProMax BDA.  It's a high-end design type event around motion graphics and the like. The plus side is that you get to meet with a lot of top broadcasters and post houses.  The down side is that it is not a free event.  So if you're a full-time designer, you should definitely look at this event as continuing education.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm back in the blogosphere!  My absence has been punctuated by visits to the likes of HBO, CNN, FOX and many more. Broadcast is alive and well but my entries have consequently suffered. 

In my absence, Premiere Pro version 4.1 has been released.  It's a terrific release and I wanted to give some thoughts, miscellaneous tidbits and point people to some resources to learn more.

There are really quite a number of features and improvements that make up Premiere Pro 4.1, but the biggest thing for me is the little fixes that are never talked about. Premiere Pro 4.1 is faster and more responsive and at the end of the day, that's always a huge plus for myself.

I'm not sure which part of this release is the most important to me personally, so I'll go with listing a few.

Deeper RED camera workflows - RED camera files are BIG!  Really BIG! And as a result, playback and performance can be quite a challenge.  However, because of the way RED writes the file, Adobe can look at a fraction of the overall image.  In essence, Premiere Pro offers you a proxy workflow with the original .R3D file!  In addition, we now can access the Source settings of of the RED file giving you access to things like exposure, tint, temperature, etc. 

I haven't seen anyone else offering anything close to the RED functionality that we have with a desktop piece of software.  Premiere Pro will also allow you to browse the media via the Media Browser panel.  This means, that you no longer have to dive into strangely named folders and then load up an R3D file amongst the quicktime proxies.  Now, Premiere Pro automatically detects a folder of RED folders and allows you to browse and view all of the media without the unnecessary Quicktime files.  If you're at all interested in the RED workflows, be sure to try it with the sample RED files that are on the web.  Oh, by the way, you need to get the RED stuff from them (as a perpetual beta).  Check it out here - RED download for Adobe

Faster load times, bigger projects, more responsive - Who doesn't like this?  Launching and loading projects has gotten significantly faster with Premiere Pro 4.1 in all aspects.  Projects load faster and timeline playback on challenging codecs like AVCHD have taken a huge step forward. While we're mentioning AVCHD...

More AVCHD support - Premiere Pro 4.1 adds 1080p and 720p native support.  Premiere Pro remains one of the only non-linear editors to provide native editing.  No transcoding means no waiting which means a more efficient workflow.  You like this, right?

.VOB editing - This one came out of nowhere for me and Dave Helmly has evangelized this feature quite a bit.  In a nutshell, this allows you to edit non-encrypted DVDs right off the DVD.  It is pretty strange when you pop in a DVD into your Mac or PC and then start marking ins and outs inside of Premiere Pro all while you're having it look directly at the DVD.  This will come in handy when the customer needs you to import or edit from some media that they have on a DVD from a year ago...

Some new presets in Adobe Media Encoder - One of them that we're pretty excited about is the new YouTube HD preset.  You can now export YouTube compatible HD material, upload it and not have YouTube destroy your video quality!  As a guy who was so frustrated with YouTube quality that I moved over to Blip.tv for small blog video clips, this is fantastic.

There is certainly a bunch more, but at this point, I'll point you to a couple of videos and resources

Dave Helmly's TechTable - He's put up a couple of new videos including a review of Premiere Pro 4.1.  The link will take you to his Premiere Pro overview blog entry

Dave's video - more of the same in his comfortable and educational style.  30 minutes of Premiere Pro goodness. 

Download the PDF of Premiere Pro 4.1 from the Adobe website: Good read and worth the time - the link is on the bottom left.

Todd Kopriva's got a great blog on all things After Effects and his two most recent entries focus on RED and the 9.0.2 AE update

If I were to offer another top feature it would be this - Premiere Pro 4.1 also paves the way for our hardware partners to develop better support for their current hardware offerings.  Expect new releases from AJA, Matrox and BMD in the near future.

In conclusion, this is a must have release and the feedback has been very positive.  So, check out Premiere Pro 4.1, After Effects 9.0.2, the links. 

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)