Adobe Media Encoder

I got in video encoding years back, before I became a professional editor, when I was working at Warner Bros. Online, and have always kept up with it, though for a long time I have used Compressor as my program of choice, mainly because I already had it and it worked really well.

After using Adobe Media Encoder I wonder how I stayed with Compressor so long. Media Encoder has one feature that makes it so much better than any other media encoder out there. To encode a sequence from either Premiere Pro or After Effects, you just open the Project and select the sequences you want in Media Encoder, no exporting a quicktime or giving up your program to edit. You can let Media Encoder do it from the Project! THIS IS HUGE! How did I ever live without out? I have no idea, but I won’t in the future!

THANK YOU ADOBE!!

Adobe and Nvidia Ray Trace in AE

The Pro Video Coalition has an article on a joint NVIDIA Adobe research project on doing ray traced 3D within After Effects, and it looks amazing. I just hope it will work with my GeForce GTX 285, or that NVIDIA will come out with a new better CUDA card available in Mac. I would consider a 4000, but it barely work with Lion or Apple products at this point, and is already a generation behind.

Let’s hope this gets integrated into After Effects soon! Realtime 3D would be amazing.

Biscardi Creative switches to Premiere Pro

Biscardi Creative has an excellent article on why they are not waiting for Final Cut Pro X to become this amazing Paradigm of editing in the future, when they can do everything they need in Premiere Pro right now. The article really mirrors what I am feeling about Premiere Pro right now. I love not having to re-compress to Pro Res, and edit in realtime in my timeline.

There’s been so much talk about a “new paradigm” and “a new beginning” lately courtesy of Apple.  Defenders of the “new paradigm” are quick to point out that this is an entirely new application, nothing like it has ever been done, therefore, Apple had to break with all convention to create Final Cut Pro X.   It’s stripped down now, like Final Cut Pro 1, but give it time and the things we “need” will be added back over time.  It has so much “potential for the future.”


The more I work with Adobe Premiere Pro the more I just don’t understand that mentality.   Why wait?  Premiere Pro already includes the “missing elements” of FCP X and so much more it can’t do.



He goes on to say that despite all the protesting in forums he transferred over a large project to Premiere Pro final Cut Pro 7 and it all worked perfectly, he loves all the realtime effects, and also how Adobe Media Encoder can look into Premiere Pro and After Effects projects and render individual sequences without having to open the host apps, which for him, and for me is huge! You don’t have to export a quicktime movie and you don’t have to give up the host app to to the compression. THAT IS SO COOL, AND SO USEFUL! TALK ABOUT A TIME SAVER!

Karl Soulé at The Video Road shows how to do a ProRes Setup in Premier Pro

Karl Soulé at the Video Road has an excellent article on how to setup a ProRes workflow in PremierePro. This can be used for ProRes sequences from Final Cut Pro, or for projects shot in ProRes which is happening more often. It is too bad, you have to at the least Purchase the new Apple Motion to get ProRes codecs on your mac, but you need them (you have them if you have FCS 3.0) and with these setup settings you can easily work end to end in ProRes in Premiere Pro on your Mac.

Premiere Pro Annoyance

Mostly I am really enjoying working with Premiere Pro. Sure I have not tried it with external video as of yet, but just working with my GeForce I am fairly impressed, but there is one thing I don’t like, and that is how premiere pro deals with audio tracks. You must pick your audio setup before hand, and it is a choice between, mono, stereo and 5.1 tracks. Well honestly I really never know how I am going to get audio, some stuff can be stereo and some mono (never get any 5.1), and it is nice to be able to just put stereo tacks on two tracks (as in AVID or Final Cut), versus their own single stereo tracks in premiere. Honestly the way Premier handles audio tracks is a bit strange and a bit frustrating to my workflow. Sure I can work with it, but am not sure that I like it.

Premiere Pro with Client in the Room Article

The great Pro Video Coalition and Scott Simmons has a must read article on using Premiere Pro with a client in the room. ppro-real-world-edit-main

It is a must read for an Final Cut Pro 7 switcher. And has some great stuff on using it with an external monitor with either a Kona or a Matrox (seems Kona works better, but still has issues, especially with a long sequence).

Check it out if you get a chance. I am already making the switch to Premiere Pro CS5.5, though I am having issues with Lion, and this points out some issues I had not realized that you have to think about.

I hadn’t realized Premier Pro doesn’t have any sort of Auto Media Relinking, that each clip must be manually found. Of course with how slow Final Cut Pro 7’s could be, this might actually be faster.

No timecode window, which is a must, though was not added all that long ago to FInal Cut Pro.

Reveal in Project from Source Window! A no brainer since you can do it from the sequence!

Check out the whole article. It is worth checking out.

Adobe just blew me away! Wow!

So I have been learning Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and liking it a lot as an alternative to Final Cut Pro, but there are some things I think are missing, and have been adding Feature Requests.

Well for my request to add a duplicate clip showing in the timeline, I got a response! And one that points out all the features in the program that are similar. I am so impressed by this!

Hi Jonah,


Thanks for your request and feedback. I’ll add your name to the list of requestors for this feature request.


Premiere has clip usage indicators, which isn’t quite what you’re looking for (indicators in the Timeline), but can be very useful and is a feature that neither FCP nor Avid have.


You can turn on the Video Usage and Audio Usage data columns in the Project panel (list view mode). In the flyout menu (accessed via the widget in the upper right of each panel), choose Metadata Preferences. Then either do a search for “usage”, or twirl open the Premiere Pro Project Metadata section and put a check in the Video and Audio Usage properties so they’ll show up in the List View of the Project panel. You can rearrange the data columns in the Project panel so you can see these usage indicator columns while you’re editing. Now each time a clip is used, the usage count indicates the number of uses across all sequences in the project. For example, this is great for monitoring which clips have been used in cutaways already and which clips are unused and available.


If you need more specific usage information, here’s another tip: in the Preview Area (the top of the Project panel with the thumbnail previewer and clip info), when a clip is used in any sequence, “video used x times” or “audio used x times” appears next to the video and audio type description. And if you click on the small drop-down arrow next to the usage info, a popup menu reveals a list of the sequences the selected clip is used in, with its timecode location in each sequence usage. PLUS, if you select one of these locations in the usage popup menu, that sequence is opened and the playhead is parked at the timecode where the clip is actually used. This is one of Premiere’s “best kept secrets” and we’re working on making the feature much more discoverable.


David Kuspa | Adobe | Sr. Experience Designer, Dynamic Media

AWESOME! Adobe you are doing something right and winning a convert. My only complaint is your level 1 tech support in India is not good at all, and doesn’t really help until you get to tier 2 for the most part.

Premiere Pro in Lion Update 2

  1. OK, so NVIDIA has been able to re-create the problem, and there is a workaround. You must force the Mac into 64 Bit mode (If it can handle it). This Apple Tech Support Document gives how you can do it permanently or for a single boot.

If your Mac uses the 32-bit kernel by default, but supports the 64-bit kernel, you can start up using the 64-bit kernel by holding the 6 and 4 keys during startup.



To select the 64-bit kernel for the current startup disk, use the following command in Terminal:

sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture x86_64

To select the 32-bit kernel for the current startup disk, use the following command in Terminal:
sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture i386