Archive for July, 2010

Getting started and Help and Support pages in several languages

Posted on 28 July 2010 by Todd Kopriva | Comments (0)

[See the related post for After Effects.]

We’ve just published some new pages with getting-started resources, Help documents, and additional community resources in several languages.

English

More information on how to find information about Premiere Pro is here: “How to search for Premiere Pro tutorials, Help, and more”

Deutsch

Die folgenden Übungen und Lernressourcen, die von Adobe und Experten der Community vorbereitet wurden, bieten Anfängern und erfahrenen Anwendern einen Überblick über Premiere Pro.

Français

Ces didacticiels et ressources de formation proposés par Adobe et des experts de la communauté donnent aux utilisateurs néophytes et chevronnés un bon aperçu d’Adobe Premiere Pro.

日本語

アドビとコミュニティエキスパートによるこれらのチュートリアルと学習リソースでは、初心者も上級レベルのユーザーも Premiere Pro の概要を確認できます。

Español

Italiano

maximum dimensions in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, CS5.5, and CS6

Posted on 20 July 2010 by Todd Kopriva | Comments (0)

[Thanks for today's post go to Steve Hoeg, who did the hard parts.]

There have been quite a few questions lately on various forums about what the maximum image (frame) size is that Premiere Pro can handle.

This confusion is understandable, since there are actually several different limits depending on exactly which kind of image frame you’re talking about, and there were changes to the numbers for Premiere Pro CS5.

sequence size:

The maximum sequence frame size in pixels is 10,240×8,192 (widthxheight). If you attempt to set one of the Frame Size dimensions higher than this limit in the Sequence Settings dialog box, Premiere Pro will reset the value to the maximum.

still image and movie size:

The maximum frame size that can be imported for still images and movies is 256 megapixels, with a maximum dimension of 32,768 pixels in either direction.

For example, an image that is 16,000×16,000 pixels is OK, as is one that is 32,000×8,000, but an image that is 35,000×10,000 pixels can’t be used.

CUDA acceleration:

Whether a frame can be processed by the CUDA hardware acceleration portion of the Mercury Playback Engine depends on the size of the frame compared to the amount of GPU memory.

To be processed by the CUDA hardware acceleration, a frame requires ((widthxheight)/16,384) megabytes.

If that value exceeds the available memory, Premiere Pro will use the CPU only for rendering of the current segment.

This means that some images will not use CUDA acceleration on some cards but will on others.

For example, one image size from a Canon T2i is 5184×3456. Doing the math, this requires 1,094MB, which just exceeds the 1GB available on the Quadro FX 3800, but is still within the 1.5GB of the Quadro FX 4800.

exporting video with an alpha channel (transparency)

Posted on 14 July 2010 by Todd Kopriva | Comments (1)

You can export a file from Premiere Pro that includes an alpha channel (transparency).

In the case of FLV files, including the alpha channel just requires making sure that the Encode Alpha Channel box is checked.

QuickTime, AVI, and some other formats require you to specify the inclusion of an alpha channel from a color depth or channels menu. In some cases, a plus sign (as in Millions Of Colors+) denotes an alpha channel. In other cases, choosing to output to 32 bits per pixel implies the inclusion of the alpha channel; this refers to an output depth of 8 bits per channel for each of four channels: RGBA (where A is for alpha).

For general information about exporting, see “Workflow and overview for exporting”.

Export an FLV file with an alpha channel
  1. Select the sequence.
  2. Choose File > Export > Media.
  3. In the Export Settings dialog box, choose FLV|F4V from the Format menu.
  4. Choose an FLV preset from the Preset menu.
  5. On the Video tab, select Encode Alpha Channel.
  6. Set other settings and click Export or Queue to export as you normally would.

Export an AVI or QuickTime file with an alpha channel
  1. Select the sequence.
  2. Choose File > Export > Media.
  3. In the Export Settings dialog box, choose Microsoft AVI or QuickTime from the Format menu.
  4. On the Video tab, choose PNG, None, or Animation from the Video Codec menu, and choose 32 from the Depth menu.
  5. Set other settings and click Export or Queue to export as you normally would.

updated Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder Help documents

Posted on 12 July 2010 by Todd Kopriva | Comments (0)

I just updated the following Help documents:

Now would be a good time to grab a fresh copy of the PDF version, which you can do from the top of any page of the HTML versions linked to above.

I incorporated information and corrections from several hundred comments. We really appreciate it when you add comments to the pages of Help on the Web to give some additional information, links to tutorials, corrections, et cetera. (One thing that comments on the Help pages aren’t good for is questions that are better suited for the user-to-user forums.)

By the way, this was my last act as documentation lead for After Effects (which I have been for several years), Adobe Media Encoder (which I have been for several months), and Premiere Pro (which I have been for a few weeks).

I’m now in Adobe Technical Support, focusing on providing online technical support for these same applications. So, you’ll see plenty of me if you spend any time on our forums. Now more than ever I will be trying to help y’all solve problems with using these applications and trying to make sure that your feedback gets to the right place. With that in mind, please read this post about how to send feedback and communicate with us. We really want to help, and we really want your feedback, but it’s crucial that it come through the right channels so that the right people can see it. (I wrote that post for After Effects, and I’ll soon write one targeted at Premiere Pro, but the information is all the same but a few details.)