Damien Allen at PVC has released a 2021 Video Workstation Buyer’s Guide with both Mac and PC options.
As with all PVC Articles well worth a read if you are looking for a new machine this year.
The Mac world is really in so much flux with only consumer oriented Apple Silicon M1 chips released so far. Personally I am so looking forward to what pro Apple Silicon will do, but will certainly have to wait for that.
Maxon has updated most of it’s apps, Cinema 4D to 25, Redshift, Trapcode to 17, he VFX Suite to 2 and included new plug-in Bang!, Magic Bullet to 15 and Universe to 5.
Trapcode 17 is updated.
Features the long-requested ability to work with Particular and Form in the same 3D space by bringing Form behaviors to Particular. The release also sees upgrades to the Flocking simulation with the addition of On Predator/Prey Contact and Team designations as well as improvements to system organizational capabilities in the Designer. Form also includes many quality-of-life updates and all Trapcode tools now support Adobe’s multi-frame rendering.
Includes the newly acquired Bang plugin, a fully procedural 3D muzzle flare generator that enables the quick and easy addition of muzzle flashes to your footage. Bang gives full creative control over the look of muzzle flares, including position, shape, color, decay and duration. Recent enhancements include more realistic Glows, Heat Blurs and Age Control refinements. VFX 2 also introduces compatibility with Apple’s Metal Graphics API for Primatte Keyer for optimal performance on supported systems.
Incorporates compatibility and optimization for Apple Silicon-powered Macs, as well as support for Multi-Frame Rendering (MFR) in Adobe After Effects. In addition, Cosmo, Mojo, Film, Renoiser now take advantage of Apple’s Metal Graphics API for optimal GPU performance on Mac.
Both Magic Bullet and Universe 5
now support Multi-Frame Rendering (MFR) in Adobe After Effects. *Denoiser has not been updated in this release.
The most intuitive 3D application interface just got even better with a new modern skin, user interface enhancements and an expansive preset system for optimizing your workflow. All-new Spline Import options allow users to easily use Illustrator, PDF and SVG vector artwork in their 3D scenes. Capsules allow anyone to tap into the power and flexibility of Cinema 4D’s Scene Node system, with plug-in-like features directly in the Classic Object Manager. And the New Spline and Data Integration functionality can be used to build powerful Capsule Assets.
A new rendering mode that provides near real-time rendering performance while using the same shaders, lights, and efficiently co-existing with the standard Redshift render engine in the same DCC and scene. Perfect for artists to use during the development process of a project or even final render if the project does not need the same amount of fidelity as standard Redshift.
II have been using Red Giant for years, still hate that you only get 1 install vs 2 you had before Maxon bought them, but there suite is still something I use almost every day.
Chris Zwar at the ProVideoCoalition has an awesome and in depth article on the Fractal Noise Plug In in After Effects. This is such a versatile plug in and this article should really help you understand and use it better than before. As it is a plug in that can be used for so many things.
FilmEditingPro has an article on how to install LUTs in Adobe Premiere Pro, Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve, Avid Media Encoder, and Final Cut Pro. Again useful for those of who are constantly moving between machines and systems.
FilmEditingPro has a good article on how and where to install Keyboard shortcuts on all the major editing platforms. Most useful for those of us who are constantly on different machines.
The Better Editor YouTube Channel has this very interesting video on Mixing Audio with the Loudness Meter in Premiere Pro. I have to admit as an editor I certainly need to get better at my Audio Mixing, as so many places aren’t even doing a proper mix before going on the air, which is insane to me. A mixer can do it quickly and so well, but it is certainly a skill that as an editor you will have to use more and more, so this is certainly something you should learning about.
Logan BaKker at PremiumBeat by Shutterstock’s blog on Things to Check When Adobe Premiere pro Is Lagging. Honestly I wish I had written this, and have written about some of it previously, especially not working with compressed formats. And it cracks me up that people don’t render in to out when necessary, not only does it speed up playback but also exports significantly!
This is a must read!
Randi Altman at his postPerspective site has an article on Digital Anarchy’s Text-to-Video Conforming Tool for Adobe Premiere Pro. Digital Anarchy has expanded it’s Premiere Pro transcription tool to add Rough Cutter. And it can use a transcription from any source including the free Adobe Sensei captions, and it will literally make a paper cut. And for only $199.
Wow, that is a little scary. I have worked at many places where you literally cut a rough cut in a day, then did b-roll coverage on day 2 and clean up and music on day 3 and shipped behind the scenes pieces.
Of course as an editor I have always felt that just letting an editor edit will give better more organic material as it is based on not just what they are saying, but how they are saying it, but there are certainly places to start with a paper cut and if you can do a paper cut this easily the $199 is literally nothing.
Now I love that there is an Adobe User Voice forum and that you can request new features for Premiere Pro, and if you get enough hopefully Adobe will notice and consider adding your feature in a new version.
What blows my mind is how some of these posts have so few votes, while others have so many. And maybe if anyone is reading my posts they can give some votes to some of the things I care about.
Honestly I wish there was a way to merge some of these into one so that Adobe might take a look at the issue.
MERGE CLIPS
Let’s start with Merge Clips. Merge clips in Premiere has some serious issues that need to be dealt with, and so there are a lot of posts about Merge Clips. And I know you can use Multi-cam instead of merge clips to fix many issues, but it also adds some. Merge clips really needs to deal with the fact that you can’t go back to the original files, and it actually renames the audio files, and changes there timecode so that you can’t export AAF or OMF correctly to a mixer.
Exporting AAF with Merged Clip renames AudioFiles with only 18 Votes.
Batch Autosync and Merge clips with 3 votes.
STOP MERGE CLIPS FROM OBLITERATING METADATA with only 11 Votes.
PLEASE FIX: Merge clips functionality destroys audio metadata with only 9 votes.
Merge Clips Across Multiple Bin Windows with 2 and 5 votes.
Proxies with Merged Clips? with 8 Votes.
Merged clips, effects & OMF with 18 votes.
Attach / create prdoxies to / from merged clips.
Two issues with Merging Clips.
Merged clips/replace form source.
Break down merged clips back to components.
Jesus Christ, let us unmerge audio already for merge clips! with 6 votes.
Project manager doesn’t work with Merged Clips with 2 votes.
Fix Merged Clips AUdio Metada and feature to unmerge for audio-post production with 9 votes.
Automatically Sync Media to Merged Clips with 7 votes.
Please fix, update, or replace Merged clips with something that works with 2 votes.
EXPORT PER PROJECT
So currently Premiere Pro when you go to export a file it defaults to the last place you exported to across whatever projects you have opened, instead of being per project or at least relative to the project file.
Relative Export Paths PLEASE with 105 votes.
Add a ‘set deault export location” option with 33 votes.
Set Default Export Location Per Project with 3 votes.
Option Button: Export to Last Location OR .prproj Location with 3 votes.
Export pathway savrd to project file.
Maintan export filepaths based on last export per projet with 2 votes, but Under Review.
PROJECT TEMPLATE
Now there already the free app Post Haste from Digital Rebellion which I have talked about before, and it allows you to create both folder templates on your hard drive, but also include a project with a template set up within it. The thing is most people don’t know about it, and from getting projects from other editors, they could use some organization as well, and I think including project and hopefully hard drive folder templates within Premiere would make a huge difference and improvement on many workflows.
Add Project Bin Set-up template with 4 votes, though under review.
Add a “New Project Template” for PP like what exists for AE with 3 votes.
Ability to use a saved File as “New Porject Template” with 2 votes.
A Quick Start “Saved Template” For Project Bin Set Up with 3 votes.
New Project Template with bins and ability to make folders on hard drive as well with 1 vote.
AUDIO METADATA
Premiere does not deal with Audio Metadata at all, though does pass it on as long as you don’t merge clips, but there is data that could be displayed like which audio track is what.
Allow iXML metadata to display as part of audio clip name with 5 votes.
Show sound metadat info in clip with 2 votes.
OTHER
Make Premiere, Audition, and AE Icons different colors again with 321 votes.
Ability to see audio waveform and video in source window with a whopping 561 votes.
Deselect all tracks shortcut with 15 votes.
One shortcut key to turn all tracks off in the timeline with 5 votes.
Change multiple transition durations at once with 27 votes.
Copy Lumetri color from After Effects to Premiere Pro with 13 votes.
X-Rite ColorChecker Plug-in for Premiere Pro CC? with 636 votes is under review.
Well that is it for me today. Took a lot longer than I thought, but these are all things that really could use some help in Premiere Pro. Sorry that the links don’t always do the whole line, I have no idea why wordpress is doing that, but whatever.