Quick Tip: Fixing (Some) FCP to Premiere Problems

Quick Tip: Fixing (Some) FCP to Premiere Problems
Here’s a quick tip I encountered a few hours ago: I was moving an old FCP7 project to Premiere Pro CS6 through XML, and the import kept freezing/crashing Premiere. It was a large project with 500+ clip of P2 DVCPro HD footage transcoded to .mov in FCP. I did a little research and found this post.

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10 Reliable HTML5 Video Players for Your Website

10 Reliable HTML5 Video Players for Your Website
HTML5 will probably be the new standard to show videos on the web. Recently Flash players were extremely popular, but now they are going with the times. More often users choose HTML5 solutions. It happens because new players are flexible, compatible with major browsers (their older and newer versions) and well displayed on mobile devices. If you want to know more about your browser and HTML5/CSS3 compatibility then view this comparison table.

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Premiere Pro gets Lumetri Deep Color Engine and a boost from Speedgrade

Premiere Pro gets Lumetri Deep Color Engine and a boost from Speedgrade
Adobe introduces Lumetri Deep Color Engine, a new tool to help editors get GPU optimized color control right inside Premiere. You can apply one of the existing presets, LUTs, or saved Looks from Speedgrade.

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Color Correction

Color Correction
This short article began with the rather dry title, "Tracking CDL Through Post." As I began to write, my thoughts started to meander into the obvious and maybe not so obvious ancillary aspects of this topic. I now feel the more gestalt title, "Color Correction", actually seems appropriate. And please forgive me if this post comes off as very "101".

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MAXON CINEMA 4D Integration in After Effects CC by Chris and Trish Meyer

MAXON CINEMA 4D Integration in After Effects CC by Chris and Trish Meyer:
As we noted in the preview referenced above, with After Effects CC you will be able to import a .C4D project file directly into After Effects, which will treat it as a footage item. Once you add this .C4D footage item to a composition, a new CINEWARE plug-in will automatically be added to that layer, which will render requested frames from the .C4D project on demand inside After Effects, without the need to render the whole project ahead of time in CINEMA. This process is laid out in the following movie:

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Delivering on the promise of HTML5 video

Delivering on the promise of HTML5 video | Videonet:
While ideal for basic video playback, HTML5 has a way to go before it becomes a fully-fledged solution for the most demanding use cases of online video delivery. In the interim, workaround tools, and online video platforms have emerged to help content producers and developers deliver on the multi-platform promise.

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More Handy Free Apps for Creatives

More Handy Free Apps for Creatives | GLJ Media Group:
I find these days that most of us do more than one thing. That is, as creatives we have to be multi-hyphenates: we write, we direct, we shoot, we edit, we blog, we launch web sites… and with few exceptions, most of these creative pursuits are aided by software. While I’m usually working in Adobe or Apple’s pro applications, there are always some free applications in the toolkit as well. So I thought I’d share some free cross-platform applications that I’ve found handy, in case any of them are new to you. Here are several free programs useful for creatives:

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Canon 5D RAW vs BMCC vs Bolex vs Ikonoskop vs Scarlet vs Kinefinity

Canon 5D RAW vs BMCC vs Bolex vs Ikonoskop vs Scarlet vs Kinefinity | wolfcrow:
This article will compare cameras that cost less than $10,000 that claim to shoot RAW video. The goal is to compare features to price, to estimate true value for money. This will give us a better understanding of what we’re getting into before we make that decisive purchase.

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Importing a Final Cut Pro Project to Adobe Premiere Pro

Importing a Final Cut Pro Project to Adobe Premiere Pro: 

Video editing is often a collaborative process. You may need to work with someone else’s editing project that was started using Final Cut Pro. Adobe Premiere Pro is a very flexible editing solution. You can easily import projects and media started on other edit systems. For example, moving a project over from Apple Final Cut Pro is a snap.


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Tips for Workflow & Encoding AVCHD Video

Tips for Workflow & Encoding AVCHD Video:
In this post, we've rounded up the bestFREE apps and workflow tips for transcoding your AVCHD (.mts) files for video editing.

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The Adobe Prelude Workflow (Part Two): Ingest and Logging

The Adobe Prelude Workflow (Part Two): Ingest and Logging:
Here are some limitations:

Prelude doesn’t do stills/images or pure audio codecs.

There is no support for logging RAW formats on set, including CinemaDNG.

There is no OnLocation (but it supports opening OnLocation projects)!

There is no support for logging raw MTS streams.

Some of these limitations are quite serious, and in my opinion, undermine its utility. The positives:

Prelude can playback all formats supported by Premiere Pro*, so you’re not totally left in the dark.

Support for AVCHD and H.264.

Support for Canon XF (MXF) and XDCAM (MXF and MP4).

Support for P2 media.

Support for DPX, TIFF and JPEG.

Support for AVI and MOV wrappers.

Support for ingesting R3D only*.

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Adobe Premiere Pro CC tutorial - Lumetri Deep Color Engine and SpeedGrade!

Adobe Premiere Pro CC tutorial - Lumetri Deep Color Engine and SpeedGrade!:
Adobe Premiere Pro CC has a lot of new tasty features and the Lumetri Deep Color Engine is one of them. It allows you to apply color grades and sophisticated looks within Adobe Premiere Pro, thanks to the new Lumetri Deep Color Engine integration. Of course its not as extended as many 3rd party plugins or SpeedGrade, but it can be more than enough for many filmmakers and editors. In Premiere Pro CC you can use the new Lumetri Looks folder in the Effects panel to apply preset color grading effects, so it works exactly like any other effect in the previous versions of Adobe's product. You can also use the Lumetri effect to locate exported .looks from SpeedGrade or LUTs from other systems. Andrew Devis of Creative Cow did a very nice video tutorial in which he shows the new option and how it may be used with SpeedGrade CS_Next to create, save and apply your own custom looks.

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Clipping Magic Removes Image Backgrounds in Seconds

Clipping Magic Removes Image Backgrounds in Seconds:
Cropping an object out of an photo in an image editor can be a tricky task, but Clipping Magic is a new webapp that does it for you in seconds. All you have to do is paint the foreground object one color, the background object another, and the app does the work for you.

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The Smoke 2013 Extension brings support for Blackmagic video IO devices!

The Smoke 2013 Extension brings support for Blackmagic video IO devices! - motionVFX Blog:
At NAB 2013 Autodesk and Blackmagic Design announced an electrifying news - that both company will begin a technology collaboration, and many were wondering what to expect from it. Now we know a little bit more as only a few weeks later, the first result of this collaboration is here - The Smoke 2013 Extension 1 release will introduce support for Blackmagic video IO devices: DeckLink (PCIe video boards); UltraStudio (Thunderbolt boxes) and the Intensity product line. According to Chris Bradshaw, senior vice president at Autodesk, the feedback of the community was tremendous, and with this new extension Smoke will now include two highly requested features – Blackmagic video card support and a powerful new set of trim tools.

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High Frame Rate White Paper

High Frame Rate White Paper | 3Droundabout:
This white paper reveals reports on the aesthetic experiments conducted by the S3D team at Emilly Carr with a focus on High Frame Rate (HFR) and Variable High Frame Rate (VFR) to provide a basis for discussing best practices in Stereoscopic 3D production with High Frame Rate technology.

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Simple post processing of 5D Mark III RAW footage in OSX

Workflow video: Simple post processing of 5D Mark III RAW footage in OSX « cinema5D:
You have probably seen our extensive written guide on how to get Magic Lantern’s 24p working on the 5D Mark III, which also includes a step-by-step instruction on how to end up with usable ProRes 4444 files.

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Rec.ommendations for Display Gamma

Rec.ommendations for Display Gamma - NegativeSpaces - Ben Cain:
Old news really as this white paper from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) standardizing gamma for reference monitors in HDTV was released in March 2011! But the topic of Gamma Correction as it pertains to Display Gamma is one that comes up constantly in conversation with colleagues in both post and acquisition. So much so that as I was combing through old NegativeSpaces articles detailing monitor calibration, I felt that a post on Gamma for broadcast monitors is one well warranted.

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DuctTake: Spatiotemporal Video Compositing

DuctTake: Spatiotemporal Video Compositing
DuctTake is a system designed to enable practical compositing of multiple takes of a scene into a single video. Current industry solutions are based around object segmentation, a hard problem that requires extensive manual input and cleanup, making compositing an expensive part of the film-making process. Our method instead compos- ites shots together by finding optimal spatiotemporal seams using motion-compensated 3D graph cuts through the video volume. We describe in detail the required components, decisions, and new techniques that together make a usable, interactive tool for compositing HD video, paying special attention to running time and performance of each section. We validate our approach by presenting a wide variety of examples and by comparing result quality and creation time to composites made by professional artists using current state-of-the-art tools.

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Handbrake 0.9.9 Supports OpenCL Offloading

[Phoronix] Handbrake 0.9.9 Supports OpenCL Offloading:
The Handbrake open-source video transcoder program now supports using OpenCL for accelerating certain operations along with introducing other new features to its brand new 0.9.9 release.

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תהליך העבודה עם קובצי 5D שעברה שינוי חומרה

תהליך העבודה עם קובצי 5D שעברה שינוי חומרה:
ברשת מדברים בשבוע האחרון רבות על שינוי החומרה של מצלמות 5D (גרסה 2 או 3) שמאפשרות היום הקלטה של 1080p, 24 ביט ב-RAW. הבעייה היא שלא ניתן להעביר את הקבצים ישירות למערכות עריכה, אלא יש קודם להמירם מ-RAW ל-DNG. הוויידאו המצורף מתאר בצורה מהירה את תהליך ההמרה.

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Will the Google-Supported WebM Open-Source V9 Video Codec Surpass H.265?

Will the Google-Supported WebM Open-Source V9 Video Codec Surpass H.265? « nofilmschool:
Let the next-gen online video compression wars begin. H.265, the codec that was approved earlier this year as an ITU-T standard and claims to be 50% more efficient than its predecessor H.264, now looks to have some competition in the Google-partnered WebM open-source V9 format, a step up from the highly adopted V8. Read on to watch some side by side comparisons and find out what this codec might do for you.

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The Production Costs of 4K: From Acquisition to Archiving

The Production Costs of 4K: From Acquisition to Archiving | CineTechnica:
4K was the definitive buzzword at NAB this year, as well as CES, with a number of manufacturers releasing 4K televisions, 4K game systems, and 4K cameras. With the consumer demand for 4K content just around the corner, one of the most often asked questions is “How much is this gonna cost us?!” After polling a number of industry sources, I decided to try and break down the production costs of shooting, data management, dailies creation and archiving in 4K to show that it isn’t as intimidating as you might think.

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ButtleOFX | an Open Source Compositing software

ButtleOFX | an Open Source Compositing software:
During the past months, we have been working on the communication of ButtleOFX. Today, we are revealing the video presentation of our project. It explains how compositing works with ButtleOFX. Thanks to a few animations and a demonstration we want to get people to know the user interface. You can watch it on vimeo.

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WebM and OGG QuickTime export

I was recently asked to create HTML5 video content for a client to upload to their fancy new website. They asked for a WebM and an OGG version, alongside the usual MP4 file.
I played around with a bunch of free software but they all lacked professional settings to fine tune the output.
I've found that the encoding can be done using QuickTime Pro on a Mac machine using this WebM and this OGG QuickTime components.
The WebM is a regular Mac installer. The OGG component need to be copied to your local (machine and/or user) Library/Component folder.
Now I have an OGG and a WebM setting dialog when I hit Command E in QuickTime and in any QuickTime supported application.

Additionally, There's a great free and open source software for Mac called Media Converter which allows a very quick and simple export to WebM, OGG, DNxHD, ProRes and pretty much whatever FFMPEG supports. The software is also extensible with many presets.

A Quick Guide to the 5 Best Open-Source Video Editing Software

A Quick Guide to the 5 Best Open-Source Video Editing Software | wolfcrow:
This article introduces the concept of open-source video editing, gives you a head’s up on what to expect down that road, and lists 5 open source video editing software that can be used for professional applications.

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An Overview of Video Backup and Checksum Verification Software (Part Two): Software

An Overview of Video Backup and Checksum Verification Software (Part Two): Software | wolfcrow:
This part will cover a typical on-set data wrangling workflow. Then, we’ll look at the software available today that performs these functions. By the end, you should be in a strong position to decide on the right tools for your workflow.

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An Overview of Video Backup and Checksum Verification Software (Part One): The Basics

An Overview of Video Backup and Checksum Verification Software (Part One): The Basics | wolfcrow:
If you’ve read the Chapter on Data Management in the Comprehensive Rigging Guide you’ll know that a Data Management Technician (DMT) or Digital Imaging Technician (DIT) – choose your title – is responsible for some or all of these tasks:

• Inspecting footage
• Create backups
• Inspect, change and/or input metadata
• Create dailies, transcode
• On-set color grading
• Asset management
• Assuring data integrity

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Film & Video Fundamentals: Understanding Color Temperature

Film & Video Fundamentals: Understanding Color Temperature | Premiumbeat.com:
Use color deliberately to reinforce the overall mood or feeling of your film or video. In this video tutorial you’ll learn the basics of color temperature, including lighting sources and white balance.

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Starting a Project in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6

Starting a Project in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 - Production Apprentice:
FCP 7 is starting to show it’s age. You’re boss/company/client is making you change to something else. Which NLE will it be? Final Cut X? Avid? Perhaps, Adobe Premiere Pro? Well, I’m not here to tell you which one I think is best. Instead, I’m going to show you how all of them work and I’ll let you make the decision. This week, we’ll start with Adobe Premiere Pro CS6.

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Free Plugins and Stuff for Final Cut Pro

Free Plugins and Stuff for Final Cut Pro! | GLJ Media Group:
Below some little utilities by spherico.com which make use of Final Cut Pro’s XML features. They all are big time savers, or allow you to get access to data of your Final Cut Pro project that normally are hard to get or to change.

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Color grading

Color grading | Animation & Graphics content from Broadcast Engineering:
There are two things that are at the core of doing good color grading for video:

• Ensuring that the image on the screen looks great and is graded to best tell the story; and 
• Making sure that the image can be properly reproduced and delivered to a variety of media and screens. 

This article will focus on the latter. Understanding the importance of legal and valid gamut and determining the color balance are critical to maintaining proper color reproduction across a variety of media and broadcast methods. Before we examine the concepts of color balance, let’s quickly review the concepts of color space.

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Understanding the limits of Data Rates and Transmission

Understanding the limits of Data Rates and Transmission | wolfcrow:
This article tries to show what the limits of each distribution technology is, and why we are forced to compromise with our data rates. For simplicity, let’s divide this article into the following distribution groups:

• Cinema
• Digital
• Broadcast television
• Internet
• Mobile and Wireless
• Production
• Disks

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Shotgun Releases Complete UI Overhaul with Shotgun 5.0

Shotgun Releases Complete UI Overhaul with Shotgun 5.0 | Below the Line:
Shotgun Software has completely overhauled its Shotgun production management system with the release of version 5.0. Shotgun encompasses production tracking, scheduling, review and approval, helping visual effects and animation artists collaborate as efficiently as possible. Version 5.0 includes a new UI and toolset designed specifically for artists and supervisors. Shotgun 5.0 also adds new tools for task tracking, review and approval, collaboration and search.

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Technicolor Color Assist 1.5 adds support for Adobe After Effects

Technicolor Color Assist 1.5 adds support for Adobe After Effects - IT Enquirer:
Technicolor, a worldwide technology leader in the media and entertainment sector, announced the latest version of Technicolor Color Assist, its video colour correction and grading software package. Key improvements of version 1.5 include compatibility with Adobe After Effects and support for AVCHD video and still images.

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Mac vs PC: A Price Comparison

Mac vs PC: A Price Comparison | wolfcrow:
I’ve always heard an Apple computer (Mac) is more expensive than a PC. I needed a general computer for my new office and decided to test this ‘fact’ for myself. The options I had were:

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Can clouds help the surge in post?

Post Magazine - Can clouds help the surge in post?:
Web based tools and storage are enabling new capabilities for long range collaborative work which works well for proxy viewing and other lower-resolution download-based services, however the high latency can be an issue for more real-time high resolution, high frame rate work since coast to coast communication latency can be about 100ms.

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Which is the Best Archive File Format for Video?

Which is the Best Archive File Format for Video? | wolfcrow:
This article will try to compare different file formats, in the hope of discovering the best archive file format for video. Before you start thinking of archival, you need to know the answer to two critical questions:

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Ethernet and IP

Ethernet and IP | Distribution content from Broadcast Engineering:
Ethernet and IP are terms broadcast engineers use many times every day. But what, exactly, is the difference between the two?

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Adobe - Creative Cloud for Teams

Adobe - Creative Cloud for Teams • SAM JOHNSON:
May 6th, 2013 and Adobe announce that their boxed software is to be no more and that all future releases of their Creative Suite applications are to be via the Creative Cloud (CC). Now a lot of focus has been on individual subscriber, but not a lot has been mentioned for the enterprise market. Heres what we know thus far;

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Southpaw Technology Launches TACTIC 4.0

News: Southpaw Technology Launches TACTIC 4.0:
TACTIC 4.0 adds more advanced data connection technology and greater configurability to help organizations design their own unique digital workflows.

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The Advantages of using OpenEXR

The Advantages of using OpenEXR | wolfcrow:
This article explains what OpenEXR is, in simple terms, and why it was necessary for ILM to create a file format. We will also look at the advantages unique to OpenEXR, and learn how these advantages help the VFX or special effects industry.

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Codec double agents and compression helper apps

Codec double agents and compression helper apps:
It’s video compression month on Splice Vine and in pt. 1 of this Friday Fundamental podcast, I and Clay Asbury, video editor and writer for DVInfo, talk about compression fundamentals. Namely, the importance of understanding the differences between wrappers and codecs. We also talk about codec double-agents and the compression helper apps we use the most.

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HELMER Renderfarm

HELMER Renderfarm | First Image:
So we have started to buy the Ikea Helmer cabinet first to make all the planning for the Renderfarm. After a bit measuring here and there, it was clear that it can be a really compact solution if you need renderpower at your desktop. So we give it a try.

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Understanding metadata in Digital Asset Management

Understanding metadata in Digital Asset Management - IT Enquirer: publishing:
Digital Asset Management or DAM for short is not as easy to understand as many people think it is. Understanding a DAM project starts with understanding the difference between asset and metadata. The assets are easily understood: a PDF, a video clip, an image. Those are assets. It's the metadata that makes people's eyes glaze.

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Adobe SpeedGrade Creative Cloud Overview

Adobe SpeedGrade Creative Cloud Overview: : Cinescopophilia:
We’ve got some exciting updates to the user interface which now will look much more familiar to Premiere Pro users. That includes an all new media browser and a new look manager as well as a lot of details. We also have great new features such as a continuity checker and a new snapshot browser. Finally, we also have new control surface support for the Tangent Element series.

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Understanding Premiere Pro’s H.264 Export Encoding Settings

Understanding Premiere Pro’s H.264 Export Encoding Settings | Fallen Empire:
H.264 is the de-facto standard for file based video delivery, a fact we all know and live with. Premiere Pro tries its best to hide some of the more advanced aspects of it’s two h.264 encoding methods but there comes a point where sometimes we need to dig a bit deeper. I remember editing a commercial about 2 years ago where I was given a deliver spec with very specific needs about GOP size, B frame count, and so on. While Premiere allows you to edit keyframe distance (GOP size), it doesn’t let you control the amount of B frames directly. I compressed that video with FFMPEG/x.264 and I’ve been using it ever since for fine control.

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Blog Archive » Linear Workflow in Cinema4D and After Effects

helloluxx » Blog Archive » Linear Workflow in Cinema4D and After Effects:
This article aims to explain the concept behind Linear Workflow (LWF) and in the process look at the correct techniques, file formats and procedures when using LWF in your studio pipeline.

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What is a Signal Generator, and when would you need one for Video?

What is a Signal Generator, and when would you need one for Video? | wolfcrow:
This article explains what a signal generator is and why it is used. If you’re new to video, you’ll also want to know when it is necessary to use a signal generator for video production.

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Corsair release easy SSD upgrade kit

RedShark News - Corsair release easy SSD upgrade kit:
If you are thinking of upgrading the hard disk in your Desktop or Laptop computer to an SSD, this might make things easier for you.

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How do the BBC's on-screen election graphics work?

BBC News - How do the BBC's on-screen election graphics work?:
Jeremy Vine explains how green screen technology is used by the BBC to analyse the results of local elections.

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JPEG 2000 over IP

JPEG 2000 over IP | IP Network content from Broadcast Engineering:
JPEG 2000 (J2K) is one of a number of compression formats that are used by professional media companies every day all over the world. The purpose of this article is not to go into detail about how J2K works — there are many excellent tutorials and books on this subject — but, there still are a few things you should know.

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Intels "Haswell" GPU's offer increased performance

RedShark News - Intels "Haswell" GPU's offer increased performance:
Intel have said their new "Haswell" processors will be arriving in approximately 3,337,200,000,000,000 nanoseconds, which in case you're wondering is the fourth of June, co-incidentally the first day of the Computex trade show in Taipei. This will be the fourth generation of Intel's core processors, following on from the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge models, and they promise increased perfomance especially in terms of graphics and video processing.

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Magic Lantern Team Discovers 2K RAW Video Capability on the 5D Mark II and III

Magic Lantern Team Discovers 2K RAW Video Capability on the 5D Mark II and III:
In what may very well be the most exciting Magic Lantern development ever, the team has discovered a RAW DNG output in live view on the 5D Mark II and 5D Mark III. What this means is that, in the near future, 5D Mark II and III owners may be able to record crystal clear 2K RAW video that blows H.264 output out of the water and then some.

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Working at the Intersection of A/V + IT

Working at the Intersection of A/V + IT | Blog Central | Crews Control:
It's official. Audio/Video (A/V) systems and Information Technology (IT) have collided. Worldwide, A/V professionals are being impacted by the transition to IT components and file-based techniques.

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Build A Monster Computer for Video Editing & Post Production

Build A Monster Computer for Video Editing & Post Production | Premiumbeat.com:
If you’re looking to create your own monster post-production machine for less then you’ll definitely want to check out these links!

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Xsan & Media Composer « 318 Tech Journal

Xsan & Media Composer « 318 Tech Journal:
There’s a product out there called SANFusion that can allow Media Composer to read disk images on Xsan as though each were a separate workspace in AvidFS. This allows environments to leverage existing pools of storage sitting on Xsan as though they were sitting on an Isis or a Terablock. Check it out at SANFusion:

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Lightworks for Linux goes public - Beta download now available

RedShark News - Lightworks for Linux goes public - Beta download now available:
As promised by Editshare, Lightworks for Linux is now available for download as a public Beta test.

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