StudioDaily on using Premiere Pro CS6 on SNL

StudioDaily has an awesome article on how they are using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 on SNL. They were in Final Cut Pro and decided to move to Premiere Pro, especially because of the workflow with After Effects.Still I am surprised it is all Mac, but they obviously had Macs for Final Cut. So far I am impressed with CS6, but there have been some stability issues for me, especially with CUDA, though hopefully that last NVIDIA update fixed that. I would think PC's would be faster and more stable, though I do still love my Mac. They had just better make a really kick ass MacPro really damn soon!

Stock Footage Pond 5 Plug In for Premiere Pro

Pond 5 has released a new plug in to search for stock footage from within Premiere Pro. You can browse their library, and automatically import free watermarked clips into your project, and if you purchase the clips, you can automatically conform to replace the clips with full versions! A very cool idea!

Adobe releases webinar on Speedgrade

Adobe has released a webinar on "Speedgrade for Aspiring Colorists." It is done by editor and colorist Jeff August, and includes Lin Kayser the inventor of Speedgrade in the questions. They also have an earlier Webinar on using Speedgrade by Patrick Palmer.

Adobe adds updates to the Creative Cloud

Richard Harrington has the article on the new updates only for Creative Cloud users. • Adobe Illustrator has three new features — available only to Creative Cloud members — that give you the ability to package files, un-embed images, and do more with the Links panel. To access these features, update Illustrator from its main menu by choosing Help > Updates. • Adobe Muse – now includes built-in support for contact forms and many other new exclusive features. • Adobe Edge Animate preview – now has resizable layouts, rulers and guides, and a more precise timeline. If you used Edge in the past, you’ll notice we’ve also updated the name.Glad they are finally doing some new features to the cloud, but I want them for Premiere, After Effects and Photoshop more, though any are of course welcome.

Some quick likes and dislikes of editing a recent project with Premiere Pro CS6

Over the last 2 days I cut a short film on Premiere Pro CS6. It was shot on a Canon 5D and I had no time to convert the footage, so I figured Premiere Pro was the way to go because I wouldn't need to re-compress the footage.I used Plural Eyes to sync the footage to the external microphone, and it worked, though took some finessing, and some manual syncing and I would say it got about 75% of it.Then I started cutting and had all the crash issues from my earlier post on the NVIDIA GTX 285, but was able to switch to my NVIDIA QUADRO FX 48000 and mostly cleared up the issues. No more serious Error messages, and no more screen going black. Still some random crashes, but nothing too bad, that a quick restart wouldn't get running again.I was running the footage out of premiere pro through my DV deck to an external NTSC monitor, and it looked great.Now I edit in Apple Final Cut Pro 7 and AVID Media Composer, but have always preferred some things of Final Cut Pro. And there are some things about Premiere Pro that I like and some I don't.I don't like how you can only set a duration for your default transition in Premiere Pro, and you can't set up a favorites bin of effects either per project or within the system. I would always make a bin of favorites in Final Cut Pro with various lengths, and was quickly able to apply any transition I wanted.I also don't like how on a clip in the timeline that is not butted up to another clip, all transitions start at it's cut and can't be put center on the cut or ending at the cut. You have to extend the clip to make the transition go further than the cut. Now it is pretty easy if you select the cut first as you can just hit E to extend the clip to the playhead, even if a transition is already on it. And I have set command-D to apply the default transition, so I can easily extend clips and apply the default transition with one hand (awesome), but I still want a bin of my favorite effects, and if not in the effects browser, let me do them in the project like I can do with AVID.The integration with Adobe After Effects is a thing of beauty. Just being able to make changes so quickly is totally awesome. Once you have either imported a After Effects Sequence or sent files to one from Premiere, you just save changes in AE and they show up in Premiere, and you render in Premiere. AWESOME! This makes Premiere the best program for graphics intensive stuff bar none. I think Premiere Pro should become the premiere program for Direct Response because of this alone!When Snapping is turned on, why does the cut tool not snap to the playhead. Now it seems to still cut…

Premiere Pro CS6 having some serious issues with NVIDIA GTX 285

I started on a job today shot on a 5D and didn't have time to convert to ProRES, so I decided to cut it in Premiere Pro CS6 to save conversion time, plus since I have a compatible PluralEyes to sync off camera audio. It took a bit of time to do the sync, but after I watched my footage and then began cutting, but Premiere Pro could not have been more unstable. I crashed over and over, and was losing time and work. So much that I tried exporting to quicktime, but it was just going to take too long to render the timeline so I could edit.I found this thread on the Adobe Forums, and found my exact problem. I'm on a MacPro 4,1, Lion 10.7.4, CS6.0.1, 32GB RAM, GTX 285 with the latest nVidia and CUDA drivers.  I am seeing 2 primary issues: Lots of Serious Error crashes.  This happens without any noticeable pattern - sometimes with the title tool, trim monitor, or simply just scrubbing the timeline.  It seems to happen more frequently with Dynamic Links in the timeline.  Also, I believe it is happening more often (or maybe exclusively)  with the MPE GPU option enabled.  I think in Software Only mode, it may not be present, although further testing required. Also, I am having an issue where Pr will display black only in the source and program monitors, unless I click around the timeline and will get flashes of images.  This is remedied by changing over to Software Only for the MPE.  It seems to be worse if Safari is running.I was having the same issues exactly, and have the same system setup, but with only 24 GB of RAM, and am running Mountain Lion 10.8.0. I kept having to trash my prefs which worked for about 5 minutes before I crashed again.So I decided to remove the GTC285 and put in my QUADRO FX 4800. It is old and slow, but still pretty decent. I installed it about 2 hours ago, and Premiere Pro has been rock solid afterwards.This shows it is either an NVIDIA driver or CUDA issue, or something in the Premiere Code with the GTX 285, as with the QUADRO FX 4800 it is running like a dream.Adobe and NVIDIA need to fix this fast, because this is a major issue. If it was not for me having a spare video card I would have been SOL, as I have to finish this project and fast!UPDATE: Had one crash after 3 and a half hours, but I have been saving now, back to the old paranoid saving all the time. Still unbelievable the difference with the different video card!UPDATE AGAIN: And crashed again! OK, so not rock solid, but still much better than it was with the GTX 285.

Biscardi Creative FCP to CS6 Part 3

Biscardi Creative has posted part 3 of it's switch to CS6 from Final Cut Pro 7. A good read with interesting points.•Because of Native editing, they their render time is basically down to realtime render, so a 30 minute show has around a 30 minute render! That is a huge change!•It requires more setup before hand, and it is smart to organize everything before import.•Still using FCP 7 for videotape ingest!•Use Davinci Resolve for grading, though it does not support all the files that Premiere Pro does, so a flattened ProRes Quicktime file is created from final timeline and use resolve's scene detect tool!There is of course more, and this is a must read for switchers!

Had issues with CUDA and After Effects CS6 11.0.1 Update but FIXED THEM

After updating to After Effects CS6 11.01 I started getting an error message about CUDA not working.Strangely CUDA was still working fine in Premiere Pro CS6, so it had to be the AE Update.And I am running the latest CUDA.The thing is it just wasn't showing up in After Effects and was using CPU instead of CPU for CUDA.I tried trashing After Effects preferences, but that didn't work, so I found and downloaded the standalone 11.01 update installer and that fixed the issue for now.