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!!

digitalfilms on FCP X Roadblocks

digitalfilms has an excellent article on FCP X roadblocks. I agree with all of them, but one particularly as it is my favorite tool in FCP.

Track tool. This plays a huge part in how I edit and something I really loved in FCP over Media Composer. I use it to move clips downstream to open a space on the timeline to work. If I want to do the same in FCP X, I either have to insert a placeholder (essentially the OLD Avid way of working) or select a number of clips (also the OLD Avid way). Not very effective when you have an hour-long timeline. Another reason to use the track tool is to select all the clips to the right in order to apply common effects.



I really don’t get these people that are fervently defending FCP X.

I know I have said this before, but to me it is not just incomplete, and you can’t call it a beta( because if it was a beta they would still be supporting FCP 7, while they worked out the kinks of FCP X), it is actually broken. The basic paradigm of the timeline that you cannot organize is broken. Some of the new features could be interesting and powerful, but as additional features, not as the only features. And I never want a timeline that I cannot organize unless it is has zero graphics or overlays, and even then I like to organize my tracks.

And while I could see a usefulness to being able to scrub where the mouse head is, like the AVID timeline, it should be able to turn off and on (I know you can turn it off in FCP X, but then you can’t scrub in clips in the viewer either, which doesn’t work).

And what exactly does Apple want us to do on jobs where we need a FCP 7 license? I am on one right now? How do we get one? E-bay, they are going for much more than $1000, and you don’t even know how legal they are?!?!

Free Invites to Google+

So if anyone wants an invite to Google Plus, just follow this link and it will get you signed up.

So far I am digging Google+, the ability to share with who you want to makes a huge amount of sense and it something that Facebook should have done long ago.

I just can’t believe that there is no Google Reader integration, as the Buzz feed just doesn’t connect (though you can see it in your profile). They need to add one entry that adds to google buzz, google plus and facebook all at once. And not just a Chrome extension, as I personally use Firefox.

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!