Little Frog in High Def

OK, to most of you from FCP land, keeping media separate by project is a no-brainer.  Because FCP did that for you.  In your Capture Scratch drive you had a Capture Scratch folder, and render folders, and in there you’d have different folders for different projects:

If you wanted to manage it even more, you could make folders with project names to point FCP to as the CAPTURE SCRATCH.  So that you could just back up the entire folder, capture scratch and all the render files.  So instead of “Captures and Renders” like I have above, you’d have CAPE MAY, and then Audio Renders, Capture Scratch, Renders…and so on.  Keeping media separate was easy.  And if you wanted to manually organize the footage on the Finder level even more, you could.

But Avid Media Composer does things a little differently.

Avid MC will make one folder on your media drives and call it Avid MediaFiles. And inside that will be MXF, then numbered folders.  Inside those numbered folders are your media.

When a project gets really big, there will be more than the “1″ folder. There will be a “2″ and “3″, because there is a file limit of 5000 media files.  But the main point is that no matter what project you have going on, ALL of the media from multiple projects will be stored in that one file path.  All of the organization is done internally in the Avid MC app.  If you need to delete media, you do it in Media Composer.  Move media from one drive to another, you use CONSOLIDATE…inside Media Composer. (Avid’s “Media Manager” for all you FCP people)

But what if you want to copy all of the media used in a project…including render files and precomputes (titles)…to another drive to give to another editor?  Or what if you want to delete all of the media and render files for a certain project.  Well, if you had to do this internally in Avid MC, it could be quite a pain.  You would use the Media Tool, but it does take quite a few steps. A lot of work.  (Or you could get Media Copy by Automatic Duck…that’s pretty slick!) But I have a tip that I can show you how to keep all of your media separated by project.  It’s something you do on the Finder level (or whatever the desktop is called in PC/Windows land).

Let’s say you have only one project going at the moment, so all of the media for that one project is in the Avid MediaFiles folder.  But now you want to start another project up, and you want to keep all of the media separate.  So, all you need to do is change the name of the Avid MediaFiles folder to something else.  Because if the folder is named anything other than “Avid MediaFiles,” Media Composer will not see the media inside.  It’s like playing peekaboo with a baby.  You cover your eyes and suddenly the baby can’t see you. “Where the devil are you?!” Well, that’s what happened to Stewy on FAMILY GUY anyway.  What I do is just add the name of the project to the end of the current name.  So “Avid Media Files X Games,” for example:

Now when I make a new project and start importing media, Avid MC will make a new Avid MediaFiles folder and put the new media in there.  And when I want to switch back to the other project, I just add the project name to the current Avid MediaFiles folder, and take off the added name from the first one, and then launch Avid MC.  Then if I want to copy all of the media and renders associated with the project, I simply drag and drop the entire folder onto another drive.

EDIT: OK, for an even better way of doing this, read the first comment by Ian Johnson.  How to keep your media separate, but online at the same time.  Even better than my tip.  Thanks Ian!  And another by Paul.  Great tips below.

The thirty-sixth episode of THE EDIT BAY is now available for download.

This one is about how the NLE is an extension of the editor…they act as one.

To play in your browser or download direct, click here.

To subscribe to this podcast in iTunes, CLICK HERE.

Well, I find that I haven’t much to blog about lately. I use this to share with people my experiences in editing…challenges I face and tips I might have. And since FCP X came out, I have made the decision to move back to the Avid platform. The only thing is, I am employed by a company that still uses FCP 7. And all my side work continues to be with FCP 7. So I have no breaking news on how I am transitioning back to Avid.

Yet.

But, I do have a nifty MPEG STREAMCLIP tip. This app is quite the “swiss army knife” of an app. I use it to rip DVDs to editable formats…other formats to editing formats, like AVI, WMV (with the Flip4Mac plugin), other QT codecs.

OK…so I am doing this one project that required me to deliver a streaming MP4 file in the H.264 format.  I misread the email (crap) and encoded to .MOV.  Well, their web host requires MP4, not MOV.  But the compression I did, thru a lot of trial and error, looked good.  I didn’t want to go through all of that again with MP4.

Then Andy Mees (the man who brought you Andy’s Region Blur, and other fantastic FREE tools) told me that converting MOV to MP4 is a very simple process with MPEG STREAMCLIP. It will only but putting the file into a new wrapper, no re-encoding.  All I needed to do was drop the clip into MPEG STREAMCLIP, select “SAVE AS,” and choose MP4.  A few seconds later (this is a 95 min file…700 MB)…and wham bam thank you ma’am…I have an MP4.

And the client is happy.

(Thanks Andy)

I will summarize to the best of my ability, what I heard and experienced at the Avid Event held at the Warner Brothers studio, Stephen J. Ross Theatre, July 13, 2011. To the best of my ability because I didn’t take notes, didn’t tweet, and had three Heinekens.

The evening started off with a video showing all the movies and TV shows that used Avid in their post. But when I saw TRUE GRIT (the new one with Jeff Bridges), I was perplexed, because I knew they used FCP on that. But then I remembered that this wasn’t just a show about Media Composer, but ProTools as well. And I have no doubt it was mixed with ProTools. They had sound bytes from many industry people, including my friend Norm Hollyn. All positive comments…very typical marketting video.

Then on stage they had two editors who had used Avid, switched to FCP, then back to Avid. Alan Bell and Jonathan Alberts.  They both started on Avid, and switched to FCP…and both for similar reasons.  Cost.  Avid systems used to cost upwards $65,000 to $100,000.  And renting them was a huge chunk of change.  Alan said that the budget for the system was more than the budget for him… so he explored other options, found that he could buy FCP and then put the full post budget for editing and the system into his pocket.  This is very true.  This is why a lot of people went to FCP…cost factor.  Jonathan had a similar experience…and was able to convince Fox Studios that FCP would be right for a feature he was cutting.  But then after a few years, they both went back to Avid MC.  Project sharing being a big factor.

A new presenter came on stage and talked about Avid’s recent history…how often updates happened.  Avid MC 3 in June 2008, then 3.5 a year later.  Then 4.0 six months after that.  Then last year in June, MC 5.0…and this year, March 2011, Avid MC 5.5.  That updates were happening faster than ever, because they knew they needed to keep up with current tech.  That they no longer needed to follow, but lead.  They talked about people demanding to work with formats natively, and Avid responded with AMA…and it works with P2, Red, XDCAM, DSLR…and won an Emmy for their efforts.  And that they know that the future of the NLE are the kids, so they have a great pricing plan for students…$295 for a fully functional Media Composer and 4 years of free updates.  DUDE…great time to be a student!

Then the presentation turned to third party support.  Before they continued they put up a legal disclaimer that they said they HAD to do…to protect themselves.  They said that anything they discuss about future possibilities and features “are not a promise.”  They may or may not happen.  They said this was for legal reasons only…that stuff is coming.  But, they needed to cover their butts.

They started off with showing the Matrox MXO2 Mini….then the AJA IO Express, and how they work with Media Composer.  But also showed off the M-Audio device (pardon me for forgetting the name/model), and said that now you can run Avid MC and ProTools on the same system without hardware conflicts.  And then the screen shifted to a new device…the AJA Kona 3 (much applause from the crowd)…and they said “yes, we are listening.”  And then they mentioned that they are not only working with AJA and Matrox…but also MOTU, BlackMagic Design and BlueFish.  And then went on to show that they are looking forward to more plugin support, from Red Giant Software (more applause…from me too.  COLORISTA 2 is what I want on Avid MC).

NEXT…the new UI.  Now, rememeber that I said that I had three Heinekens earlier? Well, I had two before the presentation, so I had to go to the bathroom really bad.  So when they started to show off the UI, I had to dash.  But I did come back in time to see some of the presentation.  Here’s a pic I borrowed from pietaricreative:

But I had seen the new UI before.  I am on one of Avid’s “Customer Advisory Boards.” They invite groups of working professionals to talk about what they are planning for the future, and want our feedback. I saw the new UI then (Oh, UI is USER INTERFACE).  Nice update, great look without changing the tools and locations of buttons we have gotten used to.  VERY sleek.  I love the look of the Audio Tool.

And not only that…64 BIT!  Meaning that it can access more processors, more RAM…and render faster.  64 Bit, and a new UI that doesn’t completely change the way you do things… That’s what we look for in an NLE.  Unless the change is for the good (Smart Tools), changing the user interface because you THINK it will be better is one thing (FCP X for example…not designed by a professional editor with professionals in mind)…but changing the look to make things better.  There were a LOT of working professionals working on this interface, and that is all the difference.  Added speed and functionality under the hood with 64 bit…a new look that is cool, but the steering wheel, gear shift, turn signal and window controls are where you are used to them being.

What else? Support for Dolby Surround 7.1 mixing…IN MEDIA COMPOSER.  More audio functions because editors demanded them.  DNxHD 4444 (more applause!)…and ProRes encoding.  Yes, ProRes ENCODING.  From Media Composer, Mac or PC based.  Because they know that a lot of deliverables are now based around that format.

Then they showed a video of the ELLEN SHOW…on how they were Avid, switched to FCP, then a year later came back to Avid.  This video was a little dated, and very much a marketing tool.  The editors involved were all definitely from Avid backgrounds, so when they said things like “something I did in Media Composer with two steps took five to six steps in FCP,” I rolled my eyes.  Because I know that people from Avid backgrounds don’t run FCP properly.  When i was on a show with 6 editors…4 FCP experts and 2 Avid converts, the only people who constantly had issues where the Avid people.  This was a case of switching to a tool and not having people who knew how to use that tool properly…so they switched back.  BUT, I will say that Avid MC in a shared workflow environment is hands down better than FCP.  No question.  MC lets you work without having to think about the technical stuff.  And with FCP, you need to pay attention to the technical stuff, or crap will happen.  That’s the big difference.  But, with creative editors, not having to think about the technical stuff is a weight off their shoulders.  Only a good thing.

Then the presentation ended, and the mingling began.  They invited us to talk to Avid representatives about our concerns, our wants and our needs.  I stayed in the theatre for a while chatting with my friend Dan Wolfmeyer (@dwolfmeyer), and with Rob Ashe (who I know from twitter as @robtheeditor and just met that evening).  We all came from Avid, and switched to FCP…and were shooting the shit when Angus McKay (Avid employee) came by and wanted to hear our thoughts.

Then I wandered out to the vendor tables.  I spoke to the Red Giant people who assured me that they were working closely with Avid to make plugins for them…GREAT news.  Saw MOTU there, but they were demoing FCP (odd…)…Avid, Matrox, Sorenson.  I wandered outside and looked at the Euphonix Artist Series including the Artist Control and Artist Transport. Not sure how I’d integrate these into my editing workflow, but I sure would like to see what they would add.  Completely programmable..get my hand off that mouse, which I’d like to do.

I met a lot of people I knew, more that I didn’t.  Got a ribbing from Terry Curren of Alpha Dogs (who has a podcast with Phil Hodgetts) about my steadfast devotion to FCP in the past… yeah yeah.  I have always walked in both worlds, but yes, I did prefer FCP.  Now…well, we all see where FCP is going, so coming back to Avid isn’t that big of a transition.

The biggest thing they wanted us to take from this event is…”We are listening.”  Avid of yore (8 or so years ago) became this bloated, content, arrogant thing that we had to listen to.  They released products and we had to do things they wanted…and had to pay through the nose to do it.  They had a strangle hold on us and knew it.  Then when then dumped Apple as the platform…Apple released FCP and slowly FCP crept into Avid’s territory, eating up it’s market share.  That woke Avid up…because suddenly they went from top dog to being on death’s door. They were on the brink of foreclosure.  Avid realized they had to change, and change fast.  LISTEN to the demands of editors, otherwise we would switch to another application…because we could.  And they did change.  A full 180 in a few short years.  Now they heed our advice more than their own internal voices.  That is the makings of a good company.  One that listens to the users.

Oh, and they did mention at the presentation that they are used in 80% of the “professional” marketplace (I quote that because the term “professional” is the topic of much debate lately)…and that 50% of the Avid workforce were editors and people who worked professionally in post.  So they have people who worked in the trenches, who worked as editors and sound engineers…now working at Avid to make the tools better.  That instills in me confidence that they will continue to do right by us…and hopefully not let us down again like they did years ago.  Like Apple did weeks ago.

OK, I’ll end this with a final note.  One thing that I have taken from the NLE wars is this…be on your toes. Don’t be content with one system.  You do a great disservice to yourself by being proficient on only one system.  When Avid fumbled, I was familiar enough with FCP (from all the small side work I did), to be able to pick up the ball and keep running without missing a step.  Now that Apple fumbled, I can pick up the ball with Avid and again continue without stumbling about.  I am also learning Adobe Premiere Pro, just in case I need to use that in the future on some job, or in case Avid stumbles again.  Be on your toes…be knowledgeable with multiple tools.  You only make yourself more employable.

The thirty-fifth episode of THE EDIT BAY is now available for download. A blacksmith bucks the system by making a new hammer and changing the way blacksmithing is done. So does Apple..

To play in your browser or download direct, click here.

To subscribe to this podcast in iTunes, CLICK HERE.

I didn’t always use Final Cut Pro, and I didn’t start using it from version 1.  I was a late convert.  I started out using Avid Media Composer.  But I did start using it after version 3 came out.  Before that I, and many other editors, begged and pleaded with the companies we worked with to use their Avids, after hours, to do our side projects.  But then FCP came out, and was cheap, so we could then use it to do all of our side work.  And I did use it for a lot of projects, but nothing for broadcast.

Then FCP 4.5 came out.  Now it not only had external hardware for it (Targa Cinewave, Matrox RT Mac), but it also worked with DVCPRO HD natively…capture directly via firewire, at full quality.  And that was the HD format that was taking the documentary world by storm. I did work on a TV series that was shot with that format.  720p 24over60.  But the Avid Meridians, that the production company used at the time, didn’t edit HD.  So all the tapes were converted to SD and then captured.  And we were going to online with the Avid Adrenaline.

Well, the Adrenaline was Avid’s big mistake.  It was slow, ploddingly so…and it was difficult to get accurate captures and outputs.  And at the time we went to online…it only did 1080i.  Well, all of our tapes were 720p…so we had a problem.  The tapes had to be converted to 1080 and then captured…and that was a HUGE expense.  The nine-episode series went $200,000 over budget.  That hurt.

Then I was approached to edit a two-hour History Channel show and the producer planned on shooting DVCPRO HD with the Varicam.  Well, I knew that Avid couldn’t do this. Sure, the Adrenaline had been updated, but I still was very wary.  Besides, I just attended a Los Angeles Final Cut Pro Users Group meeting where they touted DVCPRO HD native workflow with FCP 4.5.  So we talked to a post expert about workflow, and they highly recommended FCP 4.5  And said that we could do all we needed to do with it to deliver a broadcast show. AJA had the hardware, it was solid. We could use firewire drives…all was good.  So we leapt.

And since then Final Cut Pro was my primary choice for editing. Yes, I still used Avid, but editing with Final Cut Pro was more natural to me. It seemed to think they way I thought.  I was faster, able to do more effects with ease.  It was the perfect tool to use for the projects I was presented with.

But it still wasn’t used in Hollywood all that much.  People looked down on it…thinking it was prosumer. It did start out that way, but it made huge strides in the professional editing market.  It started seeing use on the TV show “Scrubs.”  Walter Murch decided to use it for COLD MOUNTAIN.  More and more commercial productions and music videos were cut with FCP.  It was gaining ground.  But it wasn’t easy.  It took a lot of effort for us to convince people that FCP was ready for broadcast, that it did a better job than Avid.  That despite the low cost it was as good as Avid.  In fact, if the companies went with FCP, they could save a lot of money, and still produce the high quality they were used to.

It took years of struggle, but finally FCP made in-roads, and found a home in many production companies.  But there were still editors who mocked us for using FCP.  And who said that Apple wasn’t serious about the NLE market.  They had so many other things they paid more attention too…iPhones and iPods and iPads.  They didn’t put that much effort into FCP was their argument.  It was hard to believe, seeing that FCP 7 was so solid…there were more plugins and side apps made for it than any other NLE (HUGE support base)…more hardware options for FCP than any other NLE.

Then FCP X came out…and the rug was yanked out from under us.  Not only did Apple release a version of FCP that didn’t meet the needs of the broadcast professional…they EOL’d (End of Life) FCP 7…the last version that DID support professional broadcast workflows.  Everything the Avid guys were saying was right…Apple dumped all the professional features and made an NLE (Non-Linear Editor) for the masses.  They used to use us to tout their software.  Articles on their website showed how Bunim/Murray, the largest reality show company in the US, built their facility and workflows around FCP.  Films edited with FCP…”Jarhead,” “Zodiak,” “The Social Network.” TV shows… They were, and always had, used broadcast and film productions to showcase FCP as a professional editing solution that is so good for Hollywood, just imagine how good it will be for your projects!

Then they release a product that is useless for all those projects. Lacking every professional feature we have come to rely on. And not only that, change the interface so drastically, professional editors would be lost. All indications point to them leaving the broadcast market and aiming at the prosumer.  Why cater to 3% of your user base (according to Philip Hodgetts), when much more can be had from the people in the much larger, middle-range?  People making content for the web, DVD…  After all, tape is dead, according to Apple.  In saying that, they have indicated how out of touch they are with professional workflows. It might not be in the majority, but it is certainly there, and will be there for YEARS to come.  Avid knows this…and I highly doubt they will every remove tape capture and output from their software.

We professional editors rely on “muscle memory.” That is knowing where all the buttons, keys, menu options are when we are cutting…knowing them SO WELL that it is second nature to click on a button to do what we need done. If that one button moves, or doesn’t do what we need…that slows us down.  And in our high-pressure environment, we can’t afford to be slowed down.  When Avid changed the weight-lifter icon to an up arrow…the button indicating that you wanted to LIFT out a section of video…that threw us for a loop.  And when they moved the SELECTION arrows to the Smart Tool bar on the left of the timeline, that caused a lot of havoc.  Editors all over were furious.  Their muscle memory was disrupted.

FCP X goes well beyond that.  Forget everything you know about editing, and start over. Learn everything from scratch.  And change the names of everything, change the way things are organized…and call it “better…an improved way of doing things.”  Who’s to say it’s better?  What we have worked for us…worked well. Why fix what isn’t broken?  Sure, FCP X is now 64 bit, and can address more memory, and therefore is faster…people were crying for this.  They got it, but in the process, a complete re-design.  Adobe didn’t do that.  They went 64-bit and retained the look and feel of the app.  Everything is the same, well, most things.  But if you used Premiere CS4, going to CS5 is easy…nothings different.

Apple says that eventually they will add back some if not all of the pro-features missing from FCP 7.  But will it be too late?  Avid Adrenaline was a huge debacle that caused me and many others to switch to FCP. And even when things were fixed, and Avid came out with newer hardware, and much improved software, we stayed there, because it did what we needed. Now it looks like FCP X is doing to Apple what Adrenaline did for Avid…causing professional editors to look at alternatives. And once we find them, once we get used to the working with them, will we be inclined to switch back?  Switch back to a completely foreign interface?  We’ll see.

And yes, we could stick with FCP 7.  FCP X didn’t cause it to break. But sticking with an NLE that has no future will only go so far.  There will be no further improvements to the NLE we know and have come to rely on. It is gone. So we will continue to use it while we explore options that do work the way we need to work, and will advance with technology.

Future posts will have me doing projects with Avid MC and Adobe Premiere Pro, as I test the waters to see which will work best for me. And if Apple does come out with something that will fit my workflow later…who knows, I might go back.

Time will tell.

EDIT: To be clear.  I will continue to use FCP 7 as long as it does what I need.  But when it won’t be able to handle a workflow need I have I will explore other options.  If the next version of FCP adds the professional functionality I need… and allow for more advanced options other than included templates… then I will explore it as an option.

This all started when I sat down to give ScopeBox a spin.  ScopeBox, as you can see via the link, is a way to get external scopes running on your Mac.  Feed it a signal via firewire from a camera, or via a signal into a capture card connected to the computer.  When I was testing it out (and I am still in the middle of testing it, so no final conclusions at this point and time), I noticed that the video levels that it indicated was different than what I saw in FCP or Color.  BUT, I should note that the scopes in FCP and Color didn’t show the same thing either.  But this I knew.  I have grown accustomed to trusting the Color scopes more than FCP’s… even though I know I am not supposed to trust either one.  Because software scopes are no match for hardware ones.  But I felt that the ones in Color more closely represented what I saw when I did have hardware scopes on a system once.

OK, I am doing testing, looking at the comparisons when…I noticed something.  I am parked on the same frame of video in FCP and Color.  Kind of bright, so peaking a little over 100IRE, blacks a little high too, muddied.  BUT, when I switched back and forth from FCP and Color…the signal I got from them to ScopeBox was DIFFERENT!  The image from FCP was a little hotter….brighter.  Just by a couple points, but noticeable when I switched back and forth and looked at the scopes.  The signal coming from COLOR was different than that coming from FCP…even though I had the same hardware involved.

By the way, the hardware involved is my MacPro Octo 3.0 Ghz Jan 2008 machine, outputting from my Matrox MXO2 Mini via HDMI or Component (same issue on both) into my Matrox MXO that is connected to my MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz Duo core machine.

So the image looked different.  In FCP, the image was brighter.  Well, the brights were brighter, the blacks were actually more crushed too.  This concerns me.  Which is the PROPER video signal?  Because I color correct in Color, but then output to tape in FCP.  I wondered if this was an issue with my hardware…the MXO2’s.  So I went into work and that machine is running an AJA KONA 3 feeding a Flanders Scientific (FSI) monitor via SDI.  Using the built in scopes on the FSI I checked this again.  Sure enough, THOSE scopes didn’t match what FCP or Color was showing, and it TOO was showing the offset between FCP and Color.  Again, FCP was hotter and more crushed.

This is not good.  And I am sure that if I point this bug out to Apple, they will do nothing, as FCP 7 and Color 1.5 are legacy apps, with FCP X around the corner.

The full sized screen captures of the scopes from ScopeBox can be found here.  SIGNAL FROM COLOR.  SIGNAL FROM FCP.

Comments welcomed.

UPDATE: Here is a frame of video seen from FCP and Color…output via an AJA Kona 3 to an FSI monitor via SDI.  FCP scopes, and FSI scope…and Color scopes, and FSI scope. http://www.littlefrogpost.com/pictures/ScopeComparison.jpg

OK mates, time to get out of your flat and out meeting people.  People in your industry.  Talk shop, see great demos, have a chance to win fabulous prizes!  You can sit around your flat any old time…but a FCPUG Supermeet is a once-a-year event.  This is the perfect way to network, get to know other editors.  Talk shop without your significant other staring at you blankly.  Learn something new…TEACH someone else something new. I mean, for pete’s sake, Alexis Van Hurkman is going to be there!

Where? – THE GREAT HALL, KENSINGTON CONFERENCE & EVENT CENTRE

When? – Thursday, 23 June, 2011 Doors open 16:30 for SuperMeet Digital
Showcase featuring 15 vendors and PLENTY OF NETWORKING – SuperMeet 19:00 -
23:00
How Much? £15.00 per person plus ticket fee.
£10.00 for Students and Teachers with valid ID plus ticket fee.
£20.00 per person at the door
Ticket will include 2 raffle tickets.
Any raffle prizes? Of course.

And World Famous Raffle valued now at over £24,000.00

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http://www.artbeats.com/littlefrogHD0611

OK, so I am playing a bit more with Adobe Premiere CS5.5, and this time seeing what it can do with still images…pictures.  Typically I will do my moves on stills in After Effects, or Motion, because the way FCP does them is wrong on many levels.  The “ease in, ease out” is iffy, at best in FCP (never worked for me), and zooming from really far out to really close in isn’t a constant speed.  It starts out fast, and slows down.  I forget the term for this…the speed is constant, but the perception of it is that it starts out fast, then slows down.  Well, After Effects, and Motion, compensate for this and make it look more consistent.  So I wanted to see what Premiere could do.

I brought in some photos I shot of my kids, with my Canon T2i.  The pictures are 5184×3456 pixels.  Now, FCP would choke on these, because they are over the 4000 pixel limit. Not at first, but when you try to render…BAM! “General Error.”  Which tells the editor nothing, unless they know from experience that you can get that if you have pictures that are either CMYK color space, or over 4000 pixels.  Adobe Premiere doesn’t have that limit.  It took in the pictures no problem, and allowed me to work with them, and render them, no problem.

I put a still on the timeline, and out of habit, double clicked on it to open it in the Viewer (preview monitor).  I was glad to note that my FCP muscle memory in how to do that also works in Premiere.  And I was happily surprised to see that all the controls I am used in After Effects were available in Premiere:

If you want to manually move the still about the frame with the mouse, you click on the word MOTION and that gets you cross-hairs, telling you that you can move the pic with your mouse.  Or you can adjust the horizontal and vertical position by clicking on the numbers and moving the mouse to the left or right, increasing or decreasing the numbers.  Either way you want to work.

But the cool thing is that you set your keyframes, adjust it where you want to start and end…and then you can right-click on the keyframes and choose TEMPORAL INTERPOLATION>EASE IN or EASE OUT.  This will start the move on the still gradually, and end on it gradually, rather than the jerky sudden start and stop you normally get…and typically get with FCP (even if you use EASE in and out…because it rarely works right).

So I do my move on my still, I put the playhead just before the still, press play and… it stutters.  Hmmm.  Might be because I am on an older (two generations older) MacBook Pro…2.4Ghz model.  Or because the still is very large.  Or because I am on a DSLR 1080p24 timeline, which already has a yellow bar…meaning that Premiere needs to process the footage as it plays.  Might be a combination of all those factors.  So I made a DVCPRO HD sequence, 720p24.  Brought in some footage in that format, made a new sequence with settings to match…and the footage in the sequence had no color, meaning that Premiere could deal with it natively, without any processing needed on the fly.  I added a still, and moves (the spot with the still had a RED render bar, and it did on the DSLR sequence as well) and pressed play.  It played through without any problems.  So I assume it is because the system already had to deal with processing the DSLR footage.  Things might be smoother on the MacPro.  I’ll have to test that and tack my findings on the end of this post.

OK, so back to the DSLR sequence and the jerky still.  It was only jerky the first time, for when I played through the second and third times, it was fine.  Having a bit of knowledge of Adobe products, I assume it built up a buffer…a RAM PREVIEW of the move.  And I assume the more RAM you have, the more buffer it can build with footage that needs to be processed.  OK, well if I want this to be smooth the first time, and all additional times because I am on a laptop with limited resources, I rendered the still.

And I found out something too…a little bit about how Premiere handles rendering.

I started rendering the picture, but then decided that I wanted to change something, so I cancelled the render. When I did, nothing was rendered.  This might be normal for Premiere people, but you see, coming from Avid and FCP…when we render, if the render is stopped, everything that was rendered up the point you cancel stays rendered.  Even halfway through clips.  Well, I found out that if you render only one clip in Premiere, if you stop the render, the render is lost…all of it.  Premiere only retains renders of full clips before you cancelled.  Meaning, if you have 5 clips to render, and you cancel the render partway through clip #4, clips 1-3 will retain the renders, but clip 4 wil not.  There are no partial renders of clips in Premiere.  All or nothing.

That was fine in this case, I was going to make a change.  But what about LARGE renders?  I guess I am used to FCP and Avid MC where at times rendering everything can be too much to ask the computer, and we need to render in chunks.  You can still do that in Premiere.  But what about large files…with layers of video.  And you start the render…and an hour into it you realize that you want to change something on the last clip.  So you stop the render, and all the progress you made up to that point is lost.  That can be a bummer.  Someone on Twitter (@Salah_Baker) said that “that is when the razor blade becomes your friend.”

There is a logic in keeping one render file per clip…so I won’t fault them for that.  Because when I make a change in FCP to a clip, I have to re-render the whole darn thing anyway.  Avid is a bit better about that, but then again, it manages media and renders better than anything, so…

Still, I’m very happy with how Premiere deals with pictures that I am satisfied.  Better ease in and out, ability to handle large stills..and they are much higher quality than I am used to in FCP.

OK, if you have been following me for a while, you know that I use both Avid Media Composer and Final Cut Pro…and I am pretty proficient with both. If you haven’t been following me for a while… I use both Avid Media Composer and Final Cut Pro, and am pretty proficient with both. I am a fan of both. I might lean more towards FCP, because it better fits the way I like to edit. But I know that Avid had strengths in many areas that far surpass what FCP is capable of. Plus I started out on Avid MC. So I am comfortable with both.

But, I like to be a well rounded person.  Mainly because I dish out post advice, and I like to be sure to give people the proper advice based on many factors in their post/production workflow.  For this reason I have owned and used capture cards from all three major FCP capture card makers…AJA, Matrox and Blackmagic Design (As well as Aurora…I had a Pipe Pro Studio).  So, now I am digging into Adobe Premiere Pro, to see what all the hoopla is about.  I hear a lot of people raving about how much better this is than FCP or Avid.  It’s about time I looked for myself.

INTERFACE.

Took a little looking around to see what was where.  I couldn’t find the INSERT and OVERWRITE buttons for a while.  Always used to them being in the PROGRAM (Canvas) monitor.  In Premiere, they are in the PREVIEW (Viewer) monitor.  But, they are there.  You can drag clips onto the timeline, or use the period or comma buttons (insert and overwrite), or drag into the Canvas.  Many ways to get things there.  Standard J-K-L keys for keyboard operation, and I and O for marking IN and OUT.  So that is comfortable enough.  And you can customize the keyboard…which helps those of us with pretty set in “muscle memory.”

I like the media browser.  Allows me to find the media I want to import from my various tapeless sources.  I can OPEN files in the Preview monitor before I decide to add them to the project…so I can see what I have. And then I hit upon the thing that people RAVE about Premiere.  The ability to import all sorts of tapeless media, without converting/transcoding.

WORKING NATIVE

OK…I will have to admit…this is frickin’ COOL.  I could get used to this.  I have a small external drive with DEMO files on it.  AVCIntra, DVCPRO HD (both from P2 cards), AVCHD, Canon DSLR, XDCAM EX, RED. Stuff I use to demo things, and to test things.  Well, I was able to bring in all the footage into the project with ZERO transcoding.  Just a few seconds to make the clips and there they were, ready to go.  Now, when you choose a new sequence, you have to choose the settings of that sequence.

For this test, I choose AVCINTRA 1080p24.  I imported clips from my AVCIntra card, then some DVCPRO HD, AVCHD, XDCAM EX.  All instantly…all natively.  Man, I can get used to this.  I mean, sure, first I’d have to copy the cards to my media drive, but still…instant import into the application is slick. I was able to mix the footage fine.  I got a yellow render bar…even with the AVCIntra footage, that the sequence was designed for.  Maybe that isn’t a render bar…a QUALITY bar?  I’ll have to do more reading up on that.

When I added the DVCPRO HD footage, it was smaller on the screen, and the render bar turned red.  Well, it was 720p, so it did appear smaller.  Didn’t automatically scale like I am used to with Avid MC and FCP…but I right-clicked and there was an option to scale to sequence, and I did, and it went to the yellow render bar, to match everything else.  And I was able to play all this footage back, no problem.  LOW resolution…it started at 25%, but I made it 50% at least.  And it was fine on my tower.  My laptop slowed a little, so I made it 25% for that, and things were fine (running off a FW800 G-Drive mini).

AUDIO MAPPING ISSUE

OK, at first I was really annoyed by the following behavior, until I noticed it only happened when I mixed media types.  Now it still annoys me, but a little less.  So in this AVCIntra sequence, I have 4 channels of audio from the footage…4 mono tracks.  They show up on the first four channels, and I can move them up or down…anywhere I want (after I unlink them from the video).  But when I added an AVCINTRA clip…and DVCPRO HD clip…the audio clips from them ONLY appeared if I dragged the footage from the Viewer to the timeline.  OVERWRITE wouldn’t bring over audio…only video.  I could drag audio down LATER, after video.  Or DRAG the clip and get both, but not with the mappable keys, or the Overwrite option.  AND…to top it off, they appeared on different tracks than the other 4 clips.  It appeared on track 5…and I can’t move it…up or down.

After talking with a couple people it seems that the AVCHD audio is showing up as a STEREO track, while the AVCIntra audio is all MONO.  And because of that, they cannot be on the same audio track. Premiere will bring in a stereo track as a single track, to save space.  The same thing happened with the DVCPRO HD clip…one track only.  But that is odd, because when I made a DVCPRO HD sequence…I see THREE channels of audio.

I was pointed to Premiere CS5 articles on how to set up audio preferences and deal with this, and I did set my default Audio track format to MONO.  That DID allow me to bring in all 3 channels of DVCPRO HD p2.  BUT, again, when I tried to drag onto the timeline, it relegated the audio to lower tracks.  5-8.  And I cannot move them up to 1-4 to be with the AVCIntra footage.  None of this is an issue with media of the same type…this is all about mixing media types as far as I can tell.  Even though all the media is 48khz and 16bit, and told to come in as Mono…they won’t mix.

This puts a SERIOUS hamper on my editing workflow.  Because I assign audio to specific tracks.  1-2 is narration or VO, 3-6 is Sound on Tape (SOT), 7-10 is Sound Effects, and 11-14 is music.  I keep this uniform for most of my projects.  FCP does this…Avid does this.  Premiere seems to be very resistant to doing this.  And I have spoken to a few people who have said, “Yeah, that’s an OLD issue…been that way forever.”

OK…how do you all deal with this…Premiere editing peoples?  I’m used to delivering for broadcast, and with working with multiple editors so we need a uniform way to organized audio track assignments.  This behavior puts a serious hamper on my workflow…and is throwing me for a loop.  I love the ability to instantly add media, with zero transcode time.  I love the ability to mix media on the timeline and edit.  But this audio thing is really tripping me up.  Small thing, I know.  But still big enough to put me off to the application.  Small things matter.  Demo the Avid MC ability to add footage and preserve the transition and we all go NUTS!  It’s small, but at the same time huge.  Just like this…small audio thing, yet huge.

OH, and another thing.  Avid has DNxHD as it’s main codec.  FCP has ProRes.  Adobe Premiere has…??  What?  There doesn’t appear to be an Adobe format used for mastering.  I posed this on Twitter, and got a variety of responses. From “Adobe likes to work natively, and then you render out to what you are delivering…DVD, BluRay.  Output to tape.” Other said they use ProRes, or DNxHD as final masters.  Well, with ProRes, you need FCP installed.  No encoder for that without FCP on the system.  And DNxHD…that codec and encoder is provided free of charge from Avid.com  And that is cool.  So now I can encode to a finishing format.  But why doesn’t Adobe have one?  Just curious.

So…I like the interface, love the  ability to instantly import and access my footage, edit mixed formats.  But audio mapping issues have me stymied.  But, I’m still learning…still playing around and figuring things out.  If anyone has solutions, feel free to post them in the comments.  OK, back to digging into Premiere.

EDIT: (With mixed media and using my MBP 2.4Ghz laptop, I am dropping frames like crazy.  Something that my Octo 3.0 MacPro does not do. So the computer does mater quite a bit.)

YET ANOTHER EDIT: Kevin Monahan, who is a professional editor who used FCP extensively but now works for Adobe, pointed out this great video to me. It explains all about the audio tracks and how to get the audio into them. Explained from the point of view of an editor switching from FCP to Premiere. Which I am doing. http://tv.adobe.com/watch/switching-to-adobe-premiere-pro-cs5/audio-/

The thirty-fourth episode of THE EDIT BAY is now available for download.

Do you have clients that work you to death, for little or no pay? Then you are working for a Grinder…

To play in your browser or download direct, click here.

To subscribe to this podcast in iTunes, CLICK HERE.

And here is the video I talk about in the podcast. Watch it FIRST!

The thirty-third episode of THE EDIT BAY is now available for download.

This one is all about credits…or rather, the lack of them.

To play in your browser or download direct, click here.

To subscribe to this podcast in iTunes, CLICK HERE.

The thirty-second episode of THE EDIT BAY is now available for download.

This one is all about how how every frame in short form projects matter.  Oh, and how a friend fixed an issue where a car was in PARK.

To play in your browser or download direct, click here.

To subscribe to this podcast in iTunes, CLICK HERE.

This last NAB (NAB 2011), I had a mission. Well, other than working as a demo artist for Matrox that is. My mission was to search for a reasonably priced archiving solution of tapeless media that all of us not-so-big production and post production people could afford. There are plenty of options for the places that can afford to drop $10,000 – $20,000…and need to back up footage for a dozen or more projects each month. The majority of places I am hired at are small shops…five to twenty or so people. Or I myself am hired with my system to work on a project. IN those cases, $10,000 is a bit out of reach. Which is why I use a cheaper method of archiving tapeless masters…hard drives.

I know my current archiving solution is flawed. I know that hard drives will fail…it’s just a matter of WHEN they will fail. I cover my bases a little better by archiving to TWO hard drives…a manual RAID 1 if you will (material mirrored on each drive)…so if one drive goes, I have the backup. And I make a practice to spin them up at least once a month. And this is a VERY inexpensive way to archive. I have a $110 eSATA four drive enclosure…then a $60 Sonnet eSATA card…and use 1TB bare SATA drives (bare meaning “not inside an enclosure”) that run about $55 each.  Or you can use a drive dock that costs about $30.  Now that’s cheap!  By both meanings of the word.  Inexpensive, and not THOROUGHLY reliable.  Although I will state for the record that I have only had ONE drive fail in the past two years.

What lead to this search?  Well…in brief, I am working on a show that archived their P2 masters to LTO4 tape, using the setup that existed at the large post facility that they were editing in.  They needed to recover one P2 card that had an interview they wanted to use in their current project…but, there was a problem.  The post facility folded, and while gave the production the tapes, the issue was that they were archived using proprietary software and the ONLY place in Los Angeles…the WHOLE of L.A….that also used this software, was backed up for 8 weeks.  And to even LOOK at the footage you needed to purchase the software and get a 1 year service contract…and buy the drive.  Oh, and a PC to run it.  Over $15,000 just to unarchive one P2 card.

OK, enough back story, now to what I found at NAB 2011.

The one place that EVERYONE pointed me to was CACHE-A.  And they were telling me that they really were reasonably priced, and were standardized…not proprietary.  Standardized…I like the sound of that.  So I went to the booth, got the presentation…and liked what I heard.  CACHE-A is a software solution that also involves a consortium of LTO manufacturers: Quantum, IBM, HP to name a few.  So if one manufacturer leaves and no longer supports CACHE-A…you have alternates. And there is no proprietary software involved…the interface is WEB based.  You use a browser.  Now, there is a LOT of information about these guys, so I suggest you visit the website and dig in.  But one thing I wanted to point out were the products.  They have a couple devices…Prime CACHE-A and Pro CACHE-A... that archives from MULTIPLE tapeless sources…both to tape and to internal hard drives.  Perfect for field backup, or backup at the hotel at the end of a shoot…because they archive to hard drives.  THEN you can archive to the tapes. They work with multiple software types, including HD Log, CatDV, R3D Data Manager, Marquis…MANY options.

Wow…that sounds great!  Amazing.  Non-proprietary, works with many sources, many different LTO manufacturers.  But then comes the price point.  $10,000 for the Pro CACHE-A and $8000 for the Prime CACHE-A.  That was out of the price range I was looking for.  But seriously, for all that it does, I’d expect it to cost that much.  And again, if I was a larger facility, I would have no hesitation in buying it.  It is literally the GOLD STANDARD of archiving. But, the price point is out of the range I was looking for…out of range for the smaller shops. So I needed to look somewhere else.

A couple people recommended something called BRU, by the Tolis Group.  ”They are more in your price range.”  And they were right. As you can see from the link provided, they have several packages, starting from $800 and ending at $7200.  With many great options in between.  Check them out for yourself.

The one that I liked best was the Edit Bay Production Desktop (see the picture above).  It comes with the drive, a tape, a cleaner tape, the software, the ATTO SAS card to connect to the drive (so a Desktop machine is required), a software license and one year of support.  NOTE…support isn’t needed to use the software.  Just needed for you to call and say “HELP ME!  I’m stuck!”  All of this for between $3000 (LTO4) and $4000 (LTO-5).  Very much within the price range of the small companies.  And 1TB tapes run about $120.  Perfect.

I will say this…it is proprietary.  And yes, that is one thing I was hoping to avoid.  But, as I was told by the representative, they won’t leave you stranded.  Their main objective is RESTORING your footage.  Backing it up is one thing, but the reason you back up is so that you can get to it later.  To recover the footage.  And that is one thing they will never stop you from doing.  They know how important it is to recover the data.  When he heard my story of trying to get the one P2 card from the drive, he said “EXACTLY! Why are they doing that to their customers?”  So if you want to recover your footage, all you need to do is have a drive, and the software.  And they offer a 30 day demo of the software, free of charge.  So you can recover everything you need.  And if the demo expires…the RECOVER option STILL WORKS!  And if it doesn’t, call the company and they’ll extend the demo to ensure it works.  So we won’t get stuck with a bunch of tapes full of archives and no ability to unarchive them. That is priceless. Customer support comes first.  That is a BIG selling point.

I know I’m not going into every detail of both options…for that you need to go to the links provided and dive in.  Now, I’m off to try to convince a couple small companies that BRU is the way to go for them.  And tell the BIG company that I know was looking, about CACHE-A.  And start saving up for a BRU system myself.  If I drop a drive, I’m hosed.  Drop a tape?  No problem.