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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Adobe Premiere CS6 Nightmare. Deja Vu from a FCP 7 user

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Sergio Perez

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I write this post in frustration, because I switched almost a decade ago from Premiere to Final Cut Pro and never looked back. With the recent FCPX interface change and certain fundamental omissions in terms of integration with other post processes, and since I purchased an Epic, I decided to switch back to Premiere since it Is allegedly the most Red friendly software ( and people have posted great thugs about it here). I Decided to Put the software through its paces in a serious project. Call it bad luck, but the thing is the software failed miserably in a crucial moment. This is me venting, will post details later since I'm on my way to a post house with a hard disk that Premiere corrupted after it crashed on import of some MXF media. I tell you: when Final Cut Pro gets its act together I'm going back. Frustrating. MacBook pro retina. This never happened to me when working with FCP for almost 10 years!
 
I feel ya, Sergio. Premiere CS6 is currently completely unstable on the Mac platform. I have a feature that I'm struggling to finish since working with CS6. There's a whole thread about it on Adobe's website- http://forums.adobe.com/message/4462469
If only FCPX or AVID would offer native R3D editing with no transcoding I would switch in a heartbeat.
 
I have to tell you guys... and I know you probably don't want to hear it... but I haven't had a lick of trouble with CS6 on my PC. I guess it's an OS issue? I'm not sure. I've switched to CS6, and on a laptop, I can cut 5K footage with ease...
 
Curt, but 3rd party SDI output still not smooth. It's not any better than CS 5.5

What is your experience ?

Rivai
 
Yea but if you use PC then the OS is unstable even if the NLE works lmfao!
 
I have flawless CS6 performance on my Mac and my Hac.

I don't have an SDI out card though, and my rocket is in for repair.
 
Hi Jeremy,

Many people are editing RED on the mac with great success (including myself)

The best (only) approach is to break things down and approach the issues systematically.

I've spent months editing 5k RED on a 2 year old Mac and a more current MBP and I have had a great experience. Great stability, and great export times as well.

I realize there can be problems, however. They can be related to many things. It could besomething as simple as the wrong driver, some video cards are better than others when crunching 5k frames (some versions of the GTX285 have seemed to be problematic for example) There have been OS issues, etc etc. Even something like SDI. Is it using an Nvidia card or a 3rd party card? There are answers and I'm willing to help people if they are willing to provide detailed descriptions of their problems, hardware configs and ideally some solid bug reports. I help people resolve issues and spend most of my time in the Adobe workflow section of this forum.

Happy to help out.

Best,
Wes Howell
Adobe Systems
 
I'm curious...

I'm curious...

Sergio Perez said:
I write this post in frustration, because I switched almost a decade ago from Premiere to Final Cut Pro and never looked back. With the recent FCPX interface change and certain fundamental omissions in terms of integration with other post processes, and since I purchased an Epic, I decided to switch back to Premiere since it Is allegedly the most Red friendly software ( and people have posted great thugs about it here). I Decided to Put the software through its paces in a serious project. Call it bad luck, but the thing is the software failed miserably in a crucial moment. This is me venting, will post details later since I'm on my way to a post house with a hard disk that Premiere corrupted after it crashed on import of some MXF media. I tell you: when Final Cut Pro gets its act together I'm going back. Frustrating. MacBook pro retina. This never happened to me when working with FCP for almost 10 years!
Click to expand...

How did you pinpoint it down to the Software corrupting the drive?
Instead of the other way around, where the Harddrive was dying, and thus crashed when you tried to import MXF media?

I guess, if I had to test it, I would import the exact same files, on a different harddrive, and see if the software still glitches it.
 
Richard Tran said:
How did you pinpoint it down to the Software corrupting the drive?
Instead of the other way around, where the Harddrive was dying, and thus crashed when you tried to import MXF media?

I guess, if I had to test it, I would import the exact same files, on a different harddrive, and see if the software still glitches it.
Click to expand...

Quick update: project was saved and am now working on a post house on this edit. It will not erase that embarracing moment of failing during an important presentation, though. I know many variables could have happened here. The thing is, the moment I imported the MXF file in Premiere it crashed. This MXF file was handled to me from our local broadcaster that uses P2 and EDIUS as an editing platform. How they come out with an MXF file I have no idea. The thing is, after this import failure, the drive couldn't mount. I know it's not a drive failure simply because it was, fortunately, saved by my friend's Disk Warrior software after unsuccessful rescue and repair through disk utility. In the post house (one of the best in Hong Kong for handling Red footage-Digital Magic) we reproduced the same MXF import crash bug. Of course I backed up everything after this event, but it was one failure in one crucial moment and on a professional job. This annoyed me and made me remember my old Premiere times. I know I'm wrong at judging this for a single failure. But I had a bad experience before and when one returns and experiences the same on their first serious attempt o using the software, it's hard to trust the software!

One has to make an effort to change some of its FCP habits when switching to premiere. I heard there was a FCP keyboard layout in Premiere? How do I change to that? Again on this project, for whatever reason when I introduced in the beginning a Prores file on the timeline it asked, like FCP, if I would like to change the sequence to the clip's settings. I selected yes and the sequence changed to AVC INTRA? Why? Also why are previews in Mpeg? As a primary Prores and R3d user, how do I optimize a timeline for these 2 codecs? I'm obviously having also some performance issues.for the R3d files I can absolutely understand, but for the Prores material I sincerely cannot, since it's performing worse than old FCP.

All this is annoying and I'm yet to output the edit for grading. Im in fear I'll be losing quality in the process due to my sequence settings... One of the main factors I loved FCP is that I didn't need to be an engineer and could focus on my editing. With premiere I feel like I'm back to becoming not also the racing driver but also the mechanic. And with that, there goes my creativity and my concentration on what should matter which is to create a good audio visual product...

Sorry to Adobe, I see you guys are over here and give excellent support, but I was really annoyed with this happening right during an important presentation of the offline edit to my client. Anyway, some other issues here that I need to solve today. Any suggestions, tips for best results?
 
Sergio Perez said:
One has to make an effort to change some of its FCP habits when switching to premiere. I heard there was a FCP keyboard layout in Premiere? How do I change to that? Again on this project, for whatever reason when I introduced in the beginning a Prores file on the timeline it asked, like FCP, if I would like to change the sequence to the clip's settings. I selected yes and the sequence changed to AVC INTRA? Why? Also why are previews in Mpeg? As a primary Prores and R3d user, how do I optimize a timeline for these 2 codecs? I'm obviously having also some performance issues.for the R3d files I can absolutely understand, but for the Prores material I sincerely cannot, since it's performing worse than old FCP.
Click to expand...

To change Keyboard shortcuts -

CLIICK .... PREMIERE PRO... Keyboard Shortcuts... the select final cut pro 7.0 as a keyboard preset...

VOila, your project now has FCP shortcuts...

The MPEG previews are only for previewing purposes, it is not rendering anything to that sergio... How can I explain this... or wait... let me find somebody who knows better than me...

okay... this is from creative cow. Hope it makes sense...

The i frame only mpeg codec is just for preview on the timeline.
When you export your movie from Premiere do not use Match Sequence Settings as it will use this codec.
Choose a preset or set everything manually.


Adobe Premiere Pro's default is to ignore renders for output - meaning they're only for preview.
I-Frame MPEG2 files are quickly generated and don't need any VBR compression, so it was a perfect fit for adobe, who don't have their own codec.
 
Ivan Kovax said:
To change Keyboard shortcuts -

CLIICK .... PREMIERE PRO... Keyboard Shortcuts... the select final cut pro 7.0 as a keyboard preset...

VOila, your project now has FCP shortcuts...

The MPEG previews are only for previewing purposes, it is not rendering anything to that sergio... How can I explain this... or wait... let me find somebody who knows better than me...

okay... this is from creative cow. Hope it makes sense...

The i frame only mpeg codec is just for preview on the timeline.
When you export your movie from Premiere do not use Match Sequence Settings as it will use this codec.
Choose a preset or set everything manually.


Adobe Premiere Pro's default is to ignore renders for output - meaning they're only for preview.
I-Frame MPEG2 files are quickly generated and don't need any VBR compression, so it was a perfect fit for adobe, who don't have their own codec.
Click to expand...

Hey Ivan! We need to talk :)

Back to this topic. The thing is I do notice a loss in quality o the preview monitor even when I select"Full" vs my Final Cut Pro on preview: it just feels like when I was working with Premiere back then. If I select Prores HQ for preview will this influence performance?

I don't understand why Adobe, such a big and forward thinking company, doesn't have their own high quality codec. It's good to be able to use native codecs, but its disappointing to have to see your footage looking worse on preview s the original material. Red footage looks great, but my Prores converted Dslr footage looks worse... And how does this affect grading or monitoring grading ?
 
Sergio Perez said:
One has to make an effort to change some of its FCP habits when switching to premiere. I heard there was a FCP keyboard layout in Premiere? How do I change to that? Again on this project, for whatever reason when I introduced in the beginning a Prores file on the timeline it asked, like FCP, if I would like to change the sequence to the clip's settings. I selected yes and the sequence changed to AVC INTRA? Why? Also why are previews in Mpeg? As a primary Prores and R3d user, how do I optimize a timeline for these 2 codecs? I'm obviously having also some performance issues.for the R3d files I can absolutely understand, but for the Prores material I sincerely cannot, since it's performing worse than old FCP.
Click to expand...

You can change keyboard shortcuts in "Keyboard Shortcuts..." under the Premiere menu set. Although they don't all translate so you'll have to customize a bit, for example there's no equilvalent for Ripple (which is probably the tool I use most often).

There is no ProRes sequence preset in Premiere (there are R3D presets), although I did recently see an article on how make a ProRes preset in Premiere: http://blogs.adobe.com/VideoRoad/2011/08/a-prores-workflow-end-to-end.html. However, the way Premiere works, which is really much nicer than FCP, is that you can throw any footage into any timeline and it will just work. As I understand it sequence settings are only used for rendering previews, for the final render it will go directly from the source footage through the effects into the output format. If want to improve performance (I have noticed ProRes can be a bit sluggish), upgrade your graphics card.

I have had issues with crashing and occasional file corruption in both Premiere and FCP 7, not to mention every other professional piece of software I've ever used. Software this complex is just not going to be bug-free (except maybe Resolve, which has miraculously only crashed on me once). I found FCP much worse that Premiere, constant "out of memory" and "general error" messages.
 
Wes Howell said:
I've spent months editing 5k RED on a 2 year old Mac and a more current MBP and I have had a great experience. Great stability, and great export times as well.
Click to expand...

Is 15min export time for a 45sec sequence on the best Retina Display MBP available considered great export time? (without "max quality" checked..)
 
Sergio Perez said:
Hey Ivan! We need to talk :)

Back to this topic. The thing is I do notice a loss in quality o the preview monitor even when I select"Full" vs my Final Cut Pro on preview: it just feels like when I was working with Premiere back then. If I select Prores HQ for preview will this influence performance?

I don't understand why Adobe, such a big and forward thinking company, doesn't have their own high quality codec. It's good to be able to use native codecs, but its disappointing to have to see your footage looking worse on preview s the original material. Red footage looks great, but my Prores converted Dslr footage looks worse... And how does this affect grading or monitoring grading ?
Click to expand...

If you are really looking for pefect playback, there are some render setting on the play back window screen... something like "max render... or max nitrate" something like that... i will have another look when i get home..

Yes lets chat.

ANy dates yet?
 
Robino_J said:
Is 15min export time for a 45sec sequence on the best Retina Display MBP available considered great export time? (without "max quality" checked..)
Click to expand...

No, that's not good. 2x-2.5x realtime is what you should be getting. Have you set the Preference>Memory>Optimize Rendering for: "performance"? That makes a pretty big difference. If it's set to "memory", it's slow as molasses.
 
I would definitely report the MXF import bug to Adobe, if you have not done so already!

Premiere CS6 is good on the Mac, but has some quirks. Definitely a lot more stable on Windows at the moment.

I used to advocate the FCP keyboard shortcut mapping to those switching over, but with all the newer features and abilities in CS6 I really don't anymore. If you're switching to Premiere from another NLE, I would recommend leaving everything as the default Adobe keys. Especially if you're already a regular user of other Adobe apps, namely photoshop. So much is standard across the entire suite and the major ones are still mostly the same between FCP and Adobe anyway. Once you get used to Premiere CS6, it's hard to go back to FCP. So much more power, more flexibility, control, etc..

Of course, I'm still unsure how most "editors" actually function and think. While I do a lot of editing, I don't consider myself an "editor". I could never lock myself into using any single piece of software or solidify myself on a specific NLE. Which seems to be a requirement for someone to be an "editor" these days. Makes no sense at all, IMNSHO...
 
Sergio, Please send me a PM so I can grab the MXF file. Would very much like to try and repro on my end.

Wes
 
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