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Premiere Pro CC 2014 Possable Smooth Playback Solution

Cuda setting in premier pro
Hi All,

Happy holidays.  So I just updated my PPro to the lasted version as I saw a news blast they had released an update this week to build 8.2.0.  I tried an earlier v8.1 pre build 65 version and it had really bad playback – very choppy.  All excited, I launched the new version… and……. CRAP!!!!!  same thing.  However, I did catch something that I maybe didn’t see before:  Once you have updated to the latest version it appears the playback engine defaults to OpenCL instead of CUDA for accelerated playback and rendering.

I created a new project and switched the settings at startup and voila… the new project was playing back perfectly.  I then closed that new project and re-opened my older project that was stuttering and now it was playing back nicely too.  

I also did a quick export with matching sequence settings and it went about 3x speed.  Conversion to H264 was pretty slow taking roughly 16 minutes for a 2 minute piece.  1920 x 1080 30p  5D/GoPro mixed footage.


Well, I hope this helps a little.  I was searching for a while for this and got close but never saw anything about the playback engine.  I did the rollback to 8.0.1 once last time but now I’ll stick with the newest version as it seems to be working =)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,

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The Big Small Rigs…

Canon 5D2 in cine configuration with teleprompter
So here is a cool version of my 5D3 rig with my iPad Prompter on it.  It’s pretty tight.  The prompter is driven by my Macbook Pro using a display mirroring software over WiFi.  The system is pretty light weight all things considered and I can take it handheld if needed.  I am using an ATOMOS Samurai Blade to record in ProRes straight out of the camera’s HDMI. It also records the final audio in sync with the picture.

Here is another version of the rig using a SmallHD AC-7 monitor for the field.  I like the size of the AC-7 and how bright it is.  This is the rig when clients want to record right to CF and not deal with the ATOMOS. 

With the focus on new cameras looking toward 4K this year it will be interesting to see how the world of the 5D fairs.  I am intrigued by the GH4…  I have clients still asking for the 5D3 and the 5D2.  they like the look of the full frame sensor and want to go with a known camera.  I think I’ll get another year or two out of this rig. 


Until next time, Good shooting

TDTrey
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Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is Here!!! And it’s CHEAPER – YAY!!!

I just received word from BMD that the BMPC 4K is shipping as of today.  I checked B&H and a few other sites and they are still showing it as a pre-order item but the press release just hit a few hours ago.  Along with the terrific news of official shipping it is also making it’s debut at a lower price point $2995.  Down $1K from the original MSRP.  It is still shipping with a full copy of Resolve  and appears not to have lost anything in the process.  First thing I checked was the BMD site for the specs and everything still appears to be there so it’s all good.  Hopefully as the units start making their way into the market a few review units will drift into bloggers hands =)  I’ll keep you posted.  For now please see the full press release below and let me know your thoughts.

Fremont, CA – February 10, 2014 – Blackmagic Design today announced the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is now shipping and with a new low price of US$2,995. This new low price will be available for all customers, including existing pre-orders. Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is available now from Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide for only US$2,995.

“The support from the creative community for the Blackmagic Cinema Camera and Production Camera 4K has been amazing,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “As with all of our products, we work hard in production to reduce costs so we can pass along the savings, even to our first Blackmagic Production Camera 4K customers. The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is a perfect companion for ATEM Production 4K switchers and we hope the new low price will help more customers to expand their Ultra HD live production set ups with even more camera angles!”

Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is a super high resolution 4K digital production camera for Ultra HD television production. Featuring a large Super 35 sensor, professional global shutter as well as EF and ZE compatible lens mount, the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K captures high quality ProRes™ files, giving customers a complete solution to shoot amazing high resolution music videos, episodic television productions, television commercials, sport and documentaries.

The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K has everything customers need right out of the box including a built in SSD recorder, rechargeable battery and a large 5” LCD touchscreen. In addition to focusing and monitoring shots, the touchscreen also lets customers enter metadata and change camera settings all on a single easy to use interface. Customers also get a full copy of DaVinci Resolve for amazing quality color grading and finishing for Mac OS X and Windows computers.

  • Ultra HD 3840 x 2160 resolution
  • ProRes 422 (HQ)™ recording
  • Super 35 sensor
  • Global shutter
  • EF and ZE compatible lens mount
  • Built-in SSD recorder
  • 5” LCD touchscreen
  • Metadata entry
  • 6G-SDI output for 10-bit HD and Ultra HD
The Blackmagic Production Camera 4K is available now for US$2,995 from Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide.

Until next time, Good shooting

TDTrey

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Blackmagic Design and Mavericks update

I was just notified by BMD that they have updates that now support Mavericks OS X 10.9:

  • The new updates include OS X Mavericks compatibility and interface enhancements for the new operating system and are immediately available for DeckLink, UltraStudio and Intensity Desktop Video products.
  • Customers can now download the Blackmagic Design software updates free of charge from the Blackmagic Design website.

    -Blackmagic Design

If you have been reading any of my recent posts regarding the saga of OS 10.8.5 and the never ending grey screen then you know I am very happy to hear I can move up to Mavericks and still continue using my BMD cards and software.

Please visit their web site to read the full press announcement from earlier this week.

Thanks for stopping by.

Until next time, Good shooting

TDTrey

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Update on Mavericks vs Mountain Lion 10.8.5

UPDATE:  I did the full download and re-install option from the recovery options when you boot in command+R.  It took a little less time than an hour total.

I’m letting my system come all the way up for about 15 minutes and then will try a restart after I back up a few things from today’s project.  The question is still there… Do I want to go to Mavericks as I have already done the big change from 10.6.8 or do I wait until a few weeks have passed and the tree has been shaken a little.  Time will tell I guess =)

Thanks for stopping by.

Until next time – Good shooting

TDTrey

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Mavericks update vs Mountain Lion 10.8.5

Well it looks like we have a new OSX.  And Apple has left the “big cat” naming convention behind…  Ironically I just gave them $20 for the last Mountain Lion version 10.8.5.  I slurped the Cool-aid last week and joined the Adode family with the Creative Cloud solution.  I’m a little ticked that the sales person said “sure, you can run CC in 10.6.8”  and you can – as long as you don’t work in the video or audio business…  So off to the app store I went and upgrade I did.  And, everything was going swimmingly until about an hour ago when I restarted and was met with a big grey screen on all my monitors.  The lovely shade of grey (just one) seem to permanently stick there forever.  

  • I gave it a few minutes and then powered off.  
  • Restart. 
  • Restart….
  • Shutdown….
  • Restart with P+R+command+option – no luck.  
  • Now Restart with command+R and go for a recovery…

I’m now in the last 20 minutes of reloading a whole new OS from the recovery options.  I’m hopeful…  If no joy I have a full back up I did last week and won’t really loose anything important.  I’ll just have to bump back down to 10.6.8 and then find a copy of 10.8.4 or jump to Mavericks…

So I’m open to thoughts and suggestions here.  I’m running most of the usual suspects from Adobe: Ps, Pr, Ae, Au, Ame.  I have been told by someone who was using the developers version of Mavericks that it’s awesome with CC. I have also had the last hour to read on blogs that people are having problems with their CS6 and Mavericks.  So I don’t know if I want to make the leap just yet…

I did have the Adobe Applications Manager auto update this morning on the CPU in question… so maybe that has something to do with it???

Anyway.  Just thought I would put this up as I have a little time to kill (5 minutes remaining)

Hope you all are doing well out there and having a great day.

Until next time – Good Shooting (and editing or at least computing)

TDTrey

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Blackmagic Design has big announcements from IBC

Some really cool stuff coming from Blackmagic Design at this year’s IBC.  Looks like the new Beta 10 version of DaVinci Resolve is now available for download at Blackmagic Design Support.  This is the all new version that was originally announced at NAB earlier this year.  Some of the cool new features are:
  • Resolve Live-live grading of the incoming video signal from the camera
  • Enhanced editing features
  • Multitrack editing with support for up to 16 tracks of audio per clip
  • Expanded support for more NLE’s via XML and EDL
  • Support for OpenFX plugins
  • Support for mixed frame rates and media types
  • Fantastic updated to limiting, qualifiers and power windows
  • Outstanding workflow features for window burns, file naming overlay and audio syncing of secondary tracks to picture
  • and much more
Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design was quoted saying:

 “We are extremely excited to have this public beta of DaVinci Resolve 10 ready for download from the Blackmagic Design web site,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “This is an important update for all DaVinci Resolve customers and dramatically boosts the ease of workflow in the television industry. This new public beta is available for high end DaVinci Resolve systems as well as the exciting free of charge DaVinci Resolve Lite edition which now includes support for UHD timelines and rendering. This is an exciting moment for DaVinci Resolve because its the biggest update to a DaVinci product line in 30 years!”

Another cool announcement was regarding the new Desktop Video version 10.  With the onset of 4K coming faster and faster BMD felt it was time to completely revamp the Desktop Video architecture from the ground up. Aimed at helping the UltraStudio 4K and the DeckLink 4 products, this upgrade will make the ever changing job of managing signals around the edit bay, design center, paint and color correction rooms a breeze.

Please check out all the new goodies at BlackmagicDesign.com

Until next time, Good Shooting
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ATOMOS Samurai Blade

So, the afternoon that the Samurai Blade was first in stock at B&H, I ordered it.  I had been waiting a while for it to be available and was happy it was finally on it’s way.
At CineGear I was able to check out quite a few recorders including the Atomos Samurai Blade and the Convergent Design Odyssey 7.  Both are excellent recorders.  Both have terrific feature sets.  Both are priced at $1295 USD. 
I went with the Blade.
      • It’s 5.5″ screen makes it a nice tiny recorder to hang on any rig.
      • It has a non proprietary storage media solution. (the Odyssey uses Convergent Design’s own SSDs to ensure compatibility with the recorder)
      • With the Blade, you can use SSDs or spinning 2.5″ hard drives right from your local computer store (as long as they meet the specs required by Atomos)  The fact that you can use spinning drives is one of the main reasons I went with the blade.  I can use a 500 gig laptop drive for tripod shoots and it will only cost me $60 or so and yields almost 5 hours of ProRes HQ.  For “run and gun” I’ll probably want to use SSDs because of the risk of shock to the drives.
      • I can run all day on a couple Sony NP-F970 batteries.
      • The Blade works well with both my EX3’s SDI out and my 5D3’s HDMI out.  For the HDMI from the Canon 5D3 I use the Atomos H2S converter.  It converts HDMI to HD-SDI and does 3:2 pulldown removal in real time.
      • The focus assist features work like my Zacuto EVF and SmallHD AC7 monitor.  I can see the focal plan coming my way as I roll through focus.
      • The waveform feature is very handy and pretty much a necessity these days on DSLR shoots.
        One of the other things I’ve been waiting for in a recorder is the ability to delay the audio coming into the recorder to compensate for the 5 frame LAG the Canon 5D3 has on it’s clean HDMI output.  When feeding the recorder audio directly you’ll end up with your picture behind your audio 5 frames.  Those clips will then need to be slipped back into sync on the timeline during editing.  However, (this was great) I wrote Atomos about the LAG and asked if there was anything in the works at Atomos to help.  The next day (at 3:02 am) Tech support sent me an e-mail saying they had released a new firmware update that morning and added an audio delay function and way better audio meters.  I was stoked as those were really the last 2 minor things that disappointed me about the Blade.

        The Convergent Design Odyssey 7 and 7Q look like excellent recorders as well.  At the time I needed my recorder the Odyssey units weren’t shipping and did not yet offer ProRes.  They are projected to ship a little later this year.  The 7Q will be able to do up to 4K resolutions  and also record in camera raw formats.
        All in all I think the Atomos Samurai Blade is a great choice for a flexible external field recorder and one that I will be able to use for some time to come.  As we all move ever closer to the 4K world new technology is going to keep sneaking up on us.  But for now HD recorders are a great way to go.

        Until next time – Good shooting

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        Adobe CS6 Production Suite and The Animated Fairytale

        Well, we just finished recording the narration for our new animated short – working title: “The Birthday Princess”.  It’s a cute story about a princess and her mother, the queen.  The princess learns many life lessons during one wonderful afternoon.

        We recorded at Stewart Sound in Santa Ana, California using ProTools as our DAW.  All the files are in straight AIFF.  Dave Myslek, “Wookie”, our engineer was awesome!!!  From there we will move almost completely into the Adobe Production Premium CS6 suite. We are editing the dialog in Adobe Audition for the rough cut.  We’ll also use Audition for the final sound design and mix out at the end of the project.  In the middle we will use a combination of Premiere Pro 6 and After Effects to bring the animation to life.
        Once the dialog is roughed in we will be giving it to our animators.  We’ll continue the sound design during the animation process and give them the final audio locked dialog + M&E tracks in the home stretch for fine tuning.  We’ll then use Premiere to do the final video edit and layback of the mix.  Output will be done with Adobe Media Encoder.
        We are using Smart Sound to create the music. Their product, Sonic Fire, is a fantastic tool to create an “almost” original score.  If you haven’t checked this software out yet, I highly recommend it.  You can create very original sounding pieces of music from their library and tailor the cues to meet and match your project.  Add hits, mood changes and even variations in side of one long piece of music.  We pulled our temp tracks while we were editing the narration selects – Very Cool.
        This is one of the new projects we are starting for 2013 at Polydactyl Pictures.  We hope to have good luck with it at the festivals.  It will also allow us to build “the machine” a little more before jumping into some of the larger projects we have on the horizon.

        I realized this piece sounds a lot like a sales pitch for many of the software companies – but I really just want to show a step by step of the process.  I want indie filmmakers have yet another road map to follow showing different kinds of projects and their workflows.  Indies (including ourselves) need to have resources at our fingertips to help keep us creative and forward thinking =)

        Stay tuned.  I’ll be posting our progress on “The Birthday Princess” as we go.  When we find out something cool (or problematic) I’ll give you an update and suggestions.

        Until next time, good shooting, editing, animating, mixing….

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        My F3 Christmas Wish List

        OK.  So we didn’t all blow up today – YAY!!!  Now it’s time to start thinking about questions for the big man in red ( and I don’t mean Jim Jannard =)

        Here’s my wish list for my Sony F3 from Sony in 2013:
        • Could we get an upgrade for 4:2:2 internal recording with 50 m/bits throughput?
        • Is there enough processing power to give us RAW out of the F3?
        • If the sensor is 4K can it be De-Bayer’d down to 2K to an external recorder?
        • Can we us the new faster SxS cards with an upgrade to the firmware?
        • If not free, could this be done for a purchased upgrade under $2000?
        So,  obviously what I’m aiming for here is a 2K RAW F3 upgrade for under $2000 to extend the life of our cameras as we start to save up for the F5 and F55.  I think we’ll need another year or two for 4K to be requested by clients and this gives us a path to stick with and the ability to use our current configurations a little longer.

        Seems like there is ‘a storm a brewin’ for the 4K market but we won’t know anything until it passes.  If these cameras can be upgraded for a few bucks now and stay relevant until the new crop (no pun intended ) of sensors is released – could be a good thing.
        Just thinking out loud… Santa Sony are you listening???
        Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.  I look forward to hearing from you in 2013 =)
        Until next time, good shooting.

        TDTrey.com