OMG - Premiere CS4 RED Workflow is SWEET!

[michael zaletel]

Just playing around today. Shot about 10 random 4K R3D files of my son around the house, plugged my RED RAID into my MBP and opened Premiere and set up 1K sequence. Using file browser I previewed each R3D and set in and out points and dragged each clip to the timeline setting simple dissolves between each clip. Threw in a nice unsharp mask filter at 100,3,4 and a fast color corrector with a few minor adjustments, imported a few mp3's from my iTunes library, rendered work area fairly quickly and exported to Apple TV 720p which only took about an hour and I was watching a 7-minute edited movie on my Apple TV lickety split.

Goodbye Redcine and Red Alert. It's been fun but I've met someone new.

:)

-shooter

[Tom Lowe]

Do you need to download a plugin or anything for CS4?

[Roberto Lequeux]

What hardware were you running it on?

[michael zaletel]

What hardware were you running it on?

New MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.8Ghz 7200rpm 320GB drive.

...and yes you have to download a plug-in.


To successfully use the Adobe apps to load R3D files, you must download the following updates: Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 4.0.1 update and Adobe After Effects CS4 9.0.1 update from http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/.

Plug-in at.
http://www.red.com/support

-shooter

[Roberto Lequeux]

How long was your final render's running time?

[michael zaletel]

Final Render's Run Time was about 7 or 8 minutes. I didn't even copy the R3D files to my hard drive which probably would have sped things up, just had the RED RAID plugged into FW 800 port and Premiere and Media Encoder were both actively accessing the original R3D files on the RED RAID for render and encoding.

KEEP IN MIND. I did not at any time access or use the QT proxies.

At first Premier estimated like 3 hours for the render of the unsharp mask and color correction filters but after about 5 minutes that estimate dropped to I think 25 minutes. Same thing happened with Media Encoder but I think that might have taken 40 minutes total to encode the H264 720P for Apple TV from the native R3D files off external drive.

I need to install Premiere CS4 on my Mac Pro 8-core 16GB Ram with Hardware RAID as I'm sure everything would be much faster. The reason I started with my MBP was because this is how I will actively work on the road and I wanted to see if this workflow could work in the middle of nowhere with battery power. :)

"Okay, so you're stranded on a desert island and you can only MAKE one film, which one would you make". :)

(might need a solar battery recharger)

Seriously guys and gals, this is the coolest thing since sliced bread.

-shooter

[Roberto Lequeux]

Very cool shooter. Good for you that you have both computers already. Are you cutting in CS4 in your Mac Pro?

[michael zaletel]

Very cool shooter. Good for you that you have both computers already. Are you cutting in CS4 in your Mac Pro?

I've always cut with Final Cut Studio on my Mac Pro. I just bought Adobe Master Collection CS4 Upgrade so this is my first time using Premiere ever.

-shooter

[Roberto Lequeux]

Are you planning to use both? Is there anything reason for having both?

[michael zaletel]

Are you planning to use both? Is there anything reason for having both?

I am assuming you mean both as in FCP and Premiere and not both as in MacBookPro and MacPro.

Yes. I am planning to use both. I do a lot of things with Shake and Motion and it's easier to integrate that with FCP. Premiere gives me better integration with Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash. Also, FCP let's me render over network using all computers on network. For example, I may use Premiere workflow to edit and get into Apple Pro Res and then move over to FCP for grading, special effects and distributed rendering if multiple output formats needed.

-shooter

[Roberto Lequeux]

whoa... remind me to hire you when I can afford you

:)

[michael zaletel]

whoa... remind me to hire you when I can afford you

:)

Hah. Sorry. I guess that came across wrong. It's just that I've been using Macs for nearly 20 years in a variety of fields and had to master about 30 applications for different reasons at different times.

I hear Steven Soderbergh can do more with an old Krasnogorsk and an exacto blade than I can do with all this fancy hardware and my software skills. I would guess when it comes to shooting a film or telling a story, you've got me beat as well.

:)

-shooter

[Gunleik Groven]

When you say "distributed rendering", I guess you mean compression with Compressor and SHake through qMaster. AFAIK FCP doesn't do distributed rendering.

AE, has the option for that, though.

[michael zaletel]

When you say "distributed rendering", I guess you mean compression with Compressor and SHake through qMaster. AFAIK FCP doesn't do distributed rendering.

AE, has the option for that, though.


Yes. I just meant more seamless out of FCP to go in and out of Motion and Shake and Color and to utilize distributed processing with Compressor and qMaster in that workflow.

And that's great to know AE supports distributed processing. It's now really easy to import Premiere CS4 projects into AE so I'll go that route. Is it similar to qMaster and Compressor?

-shooter

[Obin Olson]

Don't even try and tell me how hard it was to contain my excitement while blasting away with this plugin...talk about SICK!!!!!!!

god it's great to be RED!





Just playing around today. Shot about 10 random 4K R3D files of my son around the house, plugged my RED RAID into my MBP and opened Premiere and set up 1K sequence. Using file browser I previewed each R3D and set in and out points and dragged each clip to the timeline setting simple dissolves between each clip. Threw in a nice unsharp mask filter at 100,3,4 and a fast color corrector with a few minor adjustments, imported a few mp3's from my iTunes library, rendered work area fairly quickly and exported to Apple TV 720p which only took about an hour and I was watching a 7-minute edited movie on my Apple TV lickety split.

Goodbye Redcine and Red Alert. It's been fun but I've met someone new.

:)

-shooter

[Scott Roberts]

Shooter, you're going to absolutely love the seamless flow between all of the Adobe apps . . . makes things so much easier! Please give Premiere a fair shake, I think you'll like it.

[Rob Lohman]

I didn't even copy the R3D files to my hard drive which probably would have sped things up, just had the RED RAID plugged into FW 800 port

Your internal laptop drive is probably slower actually. In most cases it makes sense to use external storage with a laptop, internal drive just can't keep up.

Glad it works so well and you're having fun! :)

[michael zaletel]

Your internal laptop drive is probably slower actually.

Even the 7200 RPM 320 GB Drive in the new 15" MacBook Pro?

AJA System test says the above internal drive is about 20% faster read/write than my G-RAID Mini 7200 RPM 640GB over FW 800 which really surprised me.

Is there something I'm missing? Is the RED RAID faster than the G-RAID Mini in read/write tests using FW800?

Is there anything faster than the three above? I feel the need...

-shooter

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

It would be nice if one day we have a kind of a big, huge and badass grid-computing network, like SETI@home, but for all kinds of processing.

Say, you leave your computers to render stuff for other people, accumulating "credit" in this network, and then, when you need it, you hook your AfterEffects or Shake and your rendering times shrink to nothing. Would be sweet...

CPUs of the world, unite! :)

[MikeHedge]

did your R3d files have sound?

can you export apple pre res from Premiere or media encoder?

[michael zaletel]

did your R3d files have sound?

can you export apple pre res from Premiere or media encoder?


Hi Mike:

R3D files didn't have sound. I do not yet have the Audio Board Upgrade so I don't use the RED for production audio as of yet.

Yes you can select Apple ProRes 422 as the video codec.

-shooter

[Matthew Verkler]

Hi Mike:

R3D files didn't have sound. I do not yet have the Audio Board Upgrade so I don't use the RED for production audio as of yet.

Yes you can select Apple ProRes 422 as the video codec.

-shooter

BTW, the non-upgraded Red audio is fine, if you feed it a line-level signal from a mixer such as a Sound Devices 302.

I just got my Red One back from the audio upgrade; first tests are good, with phantom power going to the mics from the Red not causing any perceivable noise or distortion. I will still use a mixer in-line most of the time, but it's great to know that the Red can do the job.

Matthew Verkler