The next step is to set the horizontal offset, or convergence.  This is much more complicated than the vertical alignment, because the difference in the images that causes the depth effect also prevent the separate angles from ever matching perfectly.  The part of the image that is desired to be viewed at screen depth should be aligned, while anything that should be in front of or behind the screen will appear offset, if it was shot correctly.  This offset is what gives the view the illusion of depth.  By altering the convergence, one can change how “close” the image appears to the viewer, so this is a creative decision, and should take into account the depth of the other shots in the sequence.  By changing the convergence over the course of a shot, the illusion of motion can be created as well.

Another issue that may need to be dealt with, especially if the content was shot with a beam splitting rig, is a color difference between the left and right images.  This is usually handled the same way as color correction is in the standard post production process, but once again, can be somewhat automated in newer high end software.

There are a few other more advanced processing steps that can be taken to further refine a stereoscopic image for natural and easy viewing by the audience.  These include ghostbusting, which attempts to eliminate crosstalk between the left and right images in high contrast areas, and floating windows, which make objects that cross the edges of the screen seem less jarring to the viewer.  Over the past few years, I have used many of these techniques to manually process stereoscopic video, using standard 2D video tools, like Adobe After Effects.  We are finally beginning to see dedicated stereoscopic features being developed for these applications, that help streamline that process, without requiring extremely expensive dedicated stereoscopic software toolsets.

Cineform’s big news was their acquisition by GoPro, and a reduction of their prices.  Neo (Previously “Neo4K”) is now $300 and the full Neo3D is $1000.  There is also a new free utility called the GoPro Cineform Studio posted on the GoPro site, designed to help users easily process their footage from the new GoPro3D.  That download effectively makes the basic Cineform codec freely available to anyone who needs it.  I highly recommend having the Cineform codec available on any system you do video work on, since it is a useful cross-platform compression format.

Adobe announced the next step for the Creative Suite line, which is a .5 update for most of the products.  Premiere 5.5 adds merged clips for better sync sound support, and some improvements to exports and Media Encoder.  After Effects 5.5 has a new Warb stabilizer, that should help fix rolling shutter artifacts in DSLR footage, among other uses, and it also has new options and presets for stereoscopic work, primarily focused on motion graphics.  Soundbooth has been totally replaced by the return of Audition as a standard part of the suite, which should improve support for multitrack editing and surround sound.  There are a variety of new features in the update, but nothing totally revolutionary.

AJA has a few new things to show.  The Kona 3G now supports outputting 3G SDI signal on all four ports at once, allowing preview of 4K media at full resolution, provided that you have a 4K display available.  They have updated their frame convertor with the FS2, adding support for HDMI and 3G SDI.  I am still trying to figure out if their implementation of 3G includes support for 2K over SDI, which could make it a useful tool in DCI theater systems.  They also showed off a new piece of hardware under development that they are calling Riker.  It is an external box connnected via 8x PCIe, that could support stereoscopic 4K at some point in the future.

Blackmagic has a variety of new products on display.  The Hyperdeck Shuttle allows uncompressed recording of SDI or HDMI to a SATA based SSD.  At $345 it is a bargain, until you count in the price of an SSD that supports uncompressed HD capture.  They will also have a rack mount version with two drive slots called the Hyperdeck Studio.  Among other things, they have a new Decklink 4K I/O card with 4 channels of SDI for $600, and some more live video switching products as a result of their acquisition of ATEM last year.  A stripped down version of DaVinci Resolve was announced, that will be available as a free download, which should further bring advanced color correction to the masses.

Sony has a variety of new products available.  Their OLED based displays look amazing, but are still quite expensive.  With the lack of HDCam-SR tapes available from Japan, Sony’s new SRMaster series of solid-state media products are probably going to get a big external boost into the market.  The new SRMaster devices replace tapes with 1TB SRMemory modules that use the same MPEG4 codec as HDCam-SR tapes, but with many benefits, including direct access to the compressed file format, and faster transfer options.  In the camera world, the F65 is Sony’s first 4K camcorder, writing 16bit 4K files to SRMemory, captured from what Sony describes as an 8K CMOS sensor.  On a more practical front, the PMW-F3 looks like a great camera for many applications.  While I don’t like the formfactor, the large single-sensor CMOS should produce an image similar to the look and feel that DSLRs have made popular.  That fact that it can output 4:4:4 RGB over the dual SDI outputs on the back is an impressize option.  Sony also has a small stereoscopic 3D camera coming out, that records to the same MVC format that 3D BluRays use.  There will also be an update released for Vegas 10 that will allow encoding of 3D BluRays, and that feature alone could make it worth purchasing, if you expect to need that capability anytime soon.

Convergent Design has a new recorder on display, the Gemini 444, which records uncompressed SDI at 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 to SSD drives.  I am still a bigger fan of their original MPEG2 based NanoFlash devices, since that is a more efficient use of space.  On the other hand, the dual link recording option is nice for stereoscopic 3D work, or VFX plates and greenscreen shots, especially if you have a new PMW-F3 with full RGB SDI output.

There are a variety of video I/O devices on display that use the new Thunderbolt connectivity technology, but they are all probably a ways off from being released as finished products.  They will be faster than USB3, but besides the daisy chain option, I see no immediate advantage over ExpressCard based I/O products.  AJA, Blackmagic, and Matrox all had their own flavor of external device hooked up to new Macbook Pro  laptops under glass.  Combining these devices with Thunderbolt based storage solutions will greatly enhance the expandability of laptop systems, especially for onset media management and review work.

AJA released a variety of new products, most of them adding 3D related features to previously existing offerings.  The Kona3G is a revision to the existing Kona3/Xena2Ke that adds stereoscopic support through HDMI 1.4 output and dual stream SDI-3G I/O, while also dropping in price about 30%.  Their Hi5-3D replaces the Hi5-3G and adds HDMI 1.4 output as well as a variety of options for processing dual stream and muxed stereo inputs.  The Ki Pro Mini is a smaller version of the Ki Pro that can now be mounted directly to camcorders, and record ProRes files directly to CompactFlash cards from HDMI or SDI inputs.

Blackmagic Design had their own selection of new products to announce.  Their line of SDI routers must have really taken off, because they are really scaling their offerings upwards, with new models that offer up to 288 Channels of input and output, and options for coaxial or fiber based connections.  I am just now upgrading to a 16×16 3G Micro VideoHub, but maybe someday.  Their other big news comes from their DaVinci line, with previously announced Resolve 7.0 for OSX finally being released.  It will be interesting to see what effect that new option has on the marketplace and the price of existing products.  My company will definitely be looking into setting up a Resolve system, and our primary colorist is very interested in the new capabilities it would give us.

NVidia released their new line of Fermi based Quadro graphics cards at Siggraph.  The Quadro 4000, 5000, and 6000 will be the successors to the current QuadroFX 3800, 4800, and 5800, with similar form factors and interfaces.  I have not had a chance to test them myself yet, but everything I hear has been positive.  Adobe has announced that the Quadro 4000 and 5000 will be officially supported for CUDA acceleration by the Mercury engine in Premiere Pro CS5.  This support came in the form of the Premiere Pro 5.0.2 update last week, which also adds the GeForce GTX 470 as a fully supported GPU option.  More significantly from a technology standpoint, they added 10bit Displayport support for Quadro cards, and also support for RedRocket acceleration, RMD files and newer Red camera updates, as well as better support for Broadcast Wave and certain XDCam-HD files.  There is also a 6 page list of smaller fixes in the new release, many of which fill significant holes in certain workflows.  I haven’t had much time recently to test out the new features, but getting 10bit color to my Dreamcolor is at the top of my list.

Avid Media Composer 5 was released three months ago, and they are now on the 5.0.3 revision.  I have had a chance to test it out at work, and while the ability to import any Quicktime via AMA can totally change the workflow for certain tasks, I wouldn’t use it as a primary way to edit large projects.  The performance and stability is not up to the same level as MXF based editing is.  You also need a very fast system for that to work.  Most of our Avids are HP XW8600s, while we have been dedicating our newer Z800 systems to CS5, but AMA playback requires more computing power than DNxHD editing, which is to be expected.  We also found Version 5 to be less stabile and less responsive on our large feature length DNxHD project, even without AMA based media.  The fact that it fully supports Windows 7 will be the factor that motivates our facility wide upgrade in the near future.

I was also able to test Media Composer 5 with my Matrox MXO2-Mini, for hardware HDMI out, and while it worked great at first, I once again saw a major hit in stability, with an escalating number of system crashes.  It is so close, but not quite there yet.  Hopefully we will see many of those issues worked out in intermediate dot releases, since most of these features are brand new.  Stay tuned, since I have a few other new toys that I will review in my next post.

FTC Disclosure: Many of the companies I refer to above have made their products available to me or my company in the past, but none of the new items discussed above were provided to me without independently purchasing them.

Photoshop is probably Adobe’s most popular media creation application.  It should really be called ImageShop at this point, since photo editing is a small slice of Photoshop’s feature set.  It also has extensive tools for digital painting and art, graphical interface design, 3D image manipulation, video effects editing, medical imaging organization, and hundreds of other features.  My primary uses for it at work include titles and graphics for video, and interface development for DVD menus, but I use it for all sorts of other things as well.

Since I am not an artist, I primarily use Illustrator for converting existing AI files into layered PSDs, but I have used it to make overhead blueprints to exact scale for wiring schematics of production and editing facilities that I have designed.  Illustrator’s vector based imaging offers more precision and scalability for my needs in those instances, but my use definitely falls outside of the application’s original design.  I am basically using it as a substitute for AutoCAD at that point, but I can hardly scratch the surface of its artistic capabilities, since that is not where the strength of my talent lies.

InDesign is a program that I rarely use, but may explore more in the future, as new features are added that fit my workflow needs.  InDesign was originally developed as a print design and layout program, but is now also used to create digital media that can be exported to Flash or the web, and even imbed media such as videos.  This capability ties in well with another Adobe application that has been moving far beyond the printed page over the last few releases.  Adobe Acrobat is an incredible product with more features and uses than I can fully comprehend, but as long as I can print static documents to PDFs, my needs are covered.  Editable fields, tracked changes, online collaboration, and all of the other features that Acrobat includes are great, but I have not had the opportunity to utilize them in my current workflow.  Clipnotes was a feature in Premiere that embedded video into PDFs for enhanced annotation and collaboration, but that feature has been removed from recent versions, and integrated into Adobe’s CS Review feature, on its recently launched CS Live collection of web services.  I am sure we will see more of these cloud based services developed for other applications, but I am not sure how I feel about losing certain aspects of user control through these types of changes.  Maybe that is just because I spent time developing tools to leverage the previous features, with a level of customization that can’t be replicated with the new automated services.  But that previous level of control does admittedly come at the cost of ease-of-use, and raises the accessibility threshold above many entry level users’ reach.

Adobe has faced the same issue of usability versus capability with its Flash based development tools, and has taken a different approach in addressing the issue there.  The CS5 release includes three separate dedicated Flash development applications, in the form of Flash Catalyst, Flash Builder, and Flash Professional.  Catalyst is aimed at designers creating interactive interfaces, which can be powered by assets created in Flash Builder by coders writing the backend support, while Flash Professional remains the full featured development tool that experienced web designers are already familiar with.  Flash output options have been added directly into many of Adobe’s other applications, including After Effects, Encore, InDesign, and Fireworks, but these are mostly geared towards creating Flash assets to be viewed on standard web browsers.  Much of the content being generated by these newer dedicated tools will end up on cell phones and other mobile devices.  Adobe facilitates the testing of these applications through Device Central, and Apple’s recent decision to permit Flash based authoring of iPhone apps will allow developers to use CS5′s AIR Packager for iPhone, to create content for that platform as well.  This preview capability ties in well with Fireworks, which Adobe has aimed at interface design for web and mobile devices, since Photoshop can handle most other imaging requirements.

Dreamweaver has been my website editor of choice since back when it was owned by Macromedia.  Like most Adobe apps, Dreamweaver has far more capabilities and functionality than the average user will ever need, or even be aware of, but at its core it gives immediate visual feedback to changes in web code.  Originally this was via an HTML render engine, to which basic server side code execution was integrated via the testing server feature, and now this has been extended to support PHP based content management systems (CMS) which are usually far too complicated for their own good.  Since my website is powered by WordPress, I am looking forward to leveraging these new capabilities in CS5 to further develop the site in new ways.  To this point I have done all custom modification of this site in Notepad, but that will no longer be necessary now with Dreamweaver’s new functionality.  Besides being able to preview changes to complex dynamic web pages in real time, through another feature of the new CS Live services, Adobe BrowserLab allows designers to compare the way different browsers will interpret and render the code that they have written.  I suspect Dreamweaver will begin to retake ground from the Flash generating applications as the primary web development tool, if HTML5 begins to replace Flash as the medium of choice for dynamic interactivity on the web.  My only complaint about Dreamweaver is that it takes forever to open, leading me to use Windows Notepad instead for my simple changes, but all Adobe apps seem to suffer from that issue.

Soundbooth was initially released with CS3, and I was never very impressed with its feature set.  I found it easier to edit audio in Premiere, and the only thing I ever used it for was simplified background noise reduction.  Newer versions have added multi-track support, but still no surround sound, which was my primary use for Audition back when it was included in the suite instead, and I still used the old version for processing my surround tracks until recently.  I am not sure why Master Collection doesn’t include Audition or Lightroom, but I have also started playing with Lightroom to process the RAW stills from my new Canon Rebel T2i, and that program can do some cool stuff.  Its features are more geared toward organizing and archiving your photos than actually editing them.

The Adobe CS5 Master Collection provides users with an amazing array of tools for content creation.  While it is not perfect, it should meet nearly every possible need of most users.  There are far more features and functions available than any individual person could ever fully master, but the similarities in design and function of the different applications makes it easier for users to figure things out once they are familiar with the basic Adobe toolset.  The integration between the applications makes it easier to develop a consistent look and feel for a project across many different mediums of output.  It is far to imagine what features they will add to the next release, but I am hoping we will see more tools for stereoscopic 3D content creation, as more 3D displays become available on the market.

FTC Disclosure: I have been on Adobe’s beta team for many years, and Adobe has provided me a copy of CS5 for this review.  My only admitted personal bias is my preference of Windows over OSX, because I like full control over every aspect of my computing experience.  If that bothers anyone, there are plenty of other sources of information on the internet, but I try to provide unique insight on how each of these tools fits into the larger picture based on my real world experience using them.  I invite comment or correction.

Speaking of DSLR files, Adobe has totally reinvented the way they are handled in CS5.  Most applications, including the CS3 and CS4 versions of both Premiere and After Effects, use QuickTime importers to access the content of Canon DSLR files.  This makes sense, since they are stored in an MOV wrapper, but leads to two issues.  One is that is specific to Adobe is that on a PC, QuickTime files go through a few extra steps before they are accessed by the application, so there is a performance hit, and with lots of files accessed at once, there are usually stability issues as well.  The other issue effects all applications that use QuickTime to access DSLR files, and that is that ever since QuickTime 7.6.2 was released, Canon DSLR files have been decoded in a much more flat and washed out color space than they were designed to be viewed in.  Prior to version 7.6.2, they were decoded in a way that clipped the highlights and shadows, which was even worse.  In CS5, Adobe worked with Mainconcept to create an importer that reads the DSLR source files without involving QuickTime at all.  This alleviates both the performance hit on PC systems, and the color space issues of QuickTime’s default decoding.  A lot of work was put into getting the decode matrix and color space exactly correct based on the processing that Canon’s hardware does to the file in the camera.  This should allow CS5 to decode the files more correctly than any other application that I am aware of, and give more options for color processing at later stages in the workflow pipeline, since more of the original color data is preserved.

The Mercury playback engine has a significant impact on the user experience, with most frequently used tools being available in real time.  Supposedly most of the decode and playback improvements are based on the new code written for native 64bit execution, with the GPU offload limited to effects processing.  While many editors don’t use very many discrete effects in their work, there are some intrinsic playback functions like scaling frame sizes and adapting frame rates that are considered effects and offloaded to the GPU.  This allows content of different frame rates and resolutions to be intercut seamlessly on the timeline, and it is truly seamless.

I have occasionally found myself editing in the wrong sequence frame rate without even noticing it, since the software makes the conversion on the fly.  Even more frequently I have found a clip shot in the wrong frame rate on a tapeless camera almost escaping detection because gone are the red render bars and playback glitches that used to stand out.  This allows editors to import media from many different sources without prerendering everything to a normalized format.  I used to spend about a quarter of my time at work converting strange source footage into 1080p24 intermediate files, because any footage not matching the timeline format would cause previous versions of Premiere to glitch during playback and occasionally crash.  Now I would recommend carefully converting any footage used in a final piece to the correct format for maximum control, but this step can now be put off until the online stage, since it is no longer required for playback and stability.  Since 90% of footage usually ends up on the cutting room floor, putting off these time consuming conversions until after the creative edit is finished, will drastically reduce the amount of footage you end up needing to process.

So this clear increase in performance leads to the question of: how far can you push it?  A few months back I processed an ISO noise test in After Effects CS4 for Shane Hurlbut.  We were comparing the image noise produced at twelve different ISO levels on the Canon 5D, and the project involved twelve streams of video with masks, levels, and position adjustments for a tiled view.  I was getting about two frames per second when rendering previews, which seemed reasonable considering the amount of processing involved.  When I saw the list of GPU accelerated effects in Premiere Pro CS5, and was asked to create torture test for Adobe to show off at NAB, this jumped to mind.  I recreated the entire project, using twelve layers of native DSLR footage, each layer having a motion effect and a 4-point garbage matte to create the tiling, and a color correction applied to exaggerate the noise to a clearly viewable level.  The same basic setup that was getting 2fps in AE CS4 played back in real-time in Premiere Pro CS5.  (Dual Xeon X5365 CPUs and 16GB RAM with a QuadroFX 4800) Needless to say I was quite impressed with the outcome, since it was deliberately beyond Adobe’s ten-layer playback claim, and using a complex format to decode and playback.  Clearly GPU acceleration can have a dramatic impact on application performance.

There has been much discussion and debate on tech forums and blogs about the specifics of Premiere Pro’s hardware support for CUDA acceleration.  Adobe has severely restricted the number of cards for which they officially support CUDA based GPU acceleration, to maintain control over the hardware environments upon which their accelerated code is tested, supposedly for stability reasons.  The official list is limited to QuadroFX 3800, 4800, and 5800, as well of the discontinued GeForce 285 GTX, with certain limitations, for those on a lower budget.  There are currently no officially supported mobile GPUs, even though notebook CPUs are usually more in need of a performance boost than desktop chips.  This may be due to the fact that even the newest mobile QuadroFX 3800M is still based on the G92 core from the GeForce 8000 series, but I don’t like seeing software artificially limited in regards to performance or hardware support, and this is an example of both.  Don’t confuse legitimate limitations and artificial limitations, since clearly a powerful GPU is necessary for optimal performance in CS5, but there are cards of equal capability that are specifically excluded from the list, supposedly for stability reasons.  Luckily Adobe has left an option for knowledgeable users to override some of those artificial limitations, and I anticipate seeing them being dropped completely in a future update.  I anticipate a more reasonable requirement of any NVidia card supporting CUDA 1.1 or 1.3, with at least 785MB of video memory, at some point in the future.

While Premiere Pro CS5 is not perfect, it is a complete reversal from the previous fiasco that was CS4.  It clearly demonstrates the possibilities provided by GPU acceleration, resting solidly on 64bit code with proper multithreaded programming, it scales to take advantage of whatever hardware is made available for it.  Since Adobe has made a practice of introducing significant improvements in incremental dot releases, I am looking forward to seeing how else they refine it in the coming months.

FTC Disclosure: I have been on Adobe’s beta team for many years, and Adobe has provided me a copy of CS5 for this review.  NVidia has provided me with graphics hardware in the past, which I utilized in this review.  My only admitted personal bias is my preference of Windows over OSX, because I like full control over every aspect of my computing experience.  If for some reason that bothers anyone, there are plenty of other sources of information on the internet, but I try to provide unique insight on how each of these tools fits into the larger post-production picture.  Any relevant critique or response is welcomed.

The other major new feature for this release of After Effects is the Rotobrush.  Based on Photoshop image processing functionality, extended to account for the information made available from multiple frames, this is the closest thing you are going to find to magic in a current generation compositing application.  It allows you to automatically separate foreground and background objects in a video image, otherwise known as rotoscoping.  Of course it is not perfect, but it is a huge advance, compared to previous tools.  Automated tools like this are usually much more impressive if you aren’t expecting a miracle going into the process, but as long as you have reasonable expectations, Rotobrush can give you usable results in a rush, or a good starting point when more precise work is required.  Much of the “magic” of the new tool is in the processing of the automatically defined edges, and this capability is available without using the Rotobrush, in the form of the “Refine Matte” effect.  This effect can be used to polish the edges of standard keys, or manually rotoscoped footage.  Most of the other major feature enhancements for this release come in the form of integrated third party plug-ins, including Color Finesse for grading, Mocha for tracking, and DigiEffects Freeform for 3D simulation.  Each of these are feature rich plug-ins that include functionality that is beyond the scope of this overview, but are well worth experimenting with if you spend a lot of time working in After Effects.

There are quite a few new features in Premiere Pro CS5 that don’t hinge on the new Mercury Playback Engine.  These relate primarily to metadata and content organization, as opposed to the media itself.  Speech detection tools were introduced in CS4, and now those can be used in conjunction with the features of Adobe Story, to link your actual footage to your original plans, including scripts, storyboards, and shot lists.  Much of this footage processing links to OnLocation CS5′s features, which besides monitoring the technical details of a captured media signal, allow ingest of metadata during the acquisition process.  Building up as much information as possible during production, on a per-shot and per-take basis, will further streamline the organization process during editorial.  All of this information is searchable, with the intent being that an editor will have a much easier time finding what they are looking for, as this metadata is passed down throughout the post production workflow, based on source timecode.  This content logging metadata is not the only way that CS5′s handling of non-media information has improved.

Adobe has also been working hard to streamline the process of exchanging existing projects with Premiere from Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer.  They have further refined the FCP XML import and export functionality that was first introduced in version 4.0.1, which offers some interesting options for Mac based workflows.  Working at a PC based facility, I have had more opportunity to take advantage of Premiere’s support for exchanging timelines with Avid.  My current workflow is to use EDLs to move my sequences from Avid to Premiere, but with CS5′s improved support for AAF import and export, hopefully I will soon be able to leverage the additional functionality offered by AAF exchange.  (One caveat with using EDLs to move sequences, is that occasionally Avid adds spaces to the end of every line, and CS5 will not relink to the source footage automatically, unless you manually remove those spaces)  I have yet to find the optimal settings to switch to AAF files, but I have talked with people who have it up and running.  Combining this sequences exchanging feature with CS5′s support for DNxHD in both MXF and MOV wrappers, offers some interesting possibilities, but the truly revolutionary workflow will finally arrive when Media Composer 5 is released next month, allowing Avid to link to external QuickTime files thru AMA.  Hopefully this will allow Premiere Pro CS5 and Media Composer 5 to exchange sequences that all reference the same source files, without any conversions or transcoding.  Since Canon DSLR files will be supported natively both applications, this should totally streamline my current workflow.

Now why would someone want to move their project between different NLE applications?  An editor’s familiarity with a specific toolset is usually important to them, so certain offline creative editors are not going to switch their primary editorial app no matter what.  To its credit, Avid has a solid reputation for handling extremely large projects with no decrease in performance.  While Premiere Pro has taken a huge step forward in that regard, it is going to take a long time for it to build a stable reputation, since trust usually develops very slowly.  On the other hand, Premiere makes a perfect interactive online conform tool, especially compared to Avid.  It can ingest most digital formats in their native form, supports SDI capture and playback over a number of different hardware solutions, and scales to 2K and 4K resolutions, in RGB color space if desired.  It is compatible with DPXs for color grading, and can playback surround sound for reviewing final mixes.  The fact that Premiere can use Dynamic Link to ingest your visual effects changes from After Effects, and to output to Encore for adding interaction becomes an added bonus for this conform solution.

Dynamic Link is now on its fourth iteration, and has matured into a functional tool, even at HD resolutions.  It is designed exchange media between apps, without having to waste time or disk space by rendering.  While it started as a method for importing AE comps into PPro, it became the backbone of PPro’s export capabilities thru Adobe Media Encoder as well.  While Media Encoder CS5 is a dramatic improvement from the previous version, Adobe also added back in the option to export files directly from within Premiere.  This is much quicker for rendering out small parts of large projects, avoiding the overhead of syncing the entire project with Media Encoder before rendering a couple of frames.  They also brought back the ability to easily export single frames from the timeline, a function that had been removed in CS4, an inexcusable oversight that has now been rectified.  Exporting a Premiere Pro sequence thru Media Encoder, while not transparent, is now a much faster and more stabile process than it was in CS4.  Media Encoder also now supports DPX sequences and AVC-Intra MXF files, for both input and output.  Still sequence support in both Premiere Pro and Media Encoder is still missing crucial options, for relinking footage in PPro and manually overriding the frame rate in AME.  Hopefully we will have more user control of these settings in future versions.

One thing that I would like to see handled differently in Media Encoder, as well as the Premiere exporter, is the default settings for each export plug-in.  Adobe is never going to be able to predict what settings every user is going to want, but it would be nice if it defaulted to whatever I selected last time I used that particular output option.  As it stands, Media Encoder defaults to the same output as the last file queued, but if I choose any other output (AVI, MOV, DPX) it returns all of the individual settings to the original default, which is usually DV based.  Now it is possible to save presets, but I hesitate to do so unless I anticipate using that exact configuration frequently, because sorting through too many presets can become harder than manually defining the individual settings.  On a relate note, be careful where you save your .prproj files, since selecting “Save As” does not default to the current project location as it should.  Instead it defaults to the folder containing the last piece of media that you imported.  I usually follow a strict project organizational pattern, but I have saved projects in the wrong folders daily since switching to CS5 thanks to this “feature.”  Hopefully this can be fixed in a minor update.

Now a subsidiary application to Premiere Pro, Encore CS5 is the next logical step in that application’s evolution as an interactive authoring tool.  The most significant new feature for larger productions would have to be support for DDP output, so that your Encore projects can now be replicated at a professional facility without any special hardware required on the authoring side.  Adobe has also continued to develop the Flash export options, allowing Encore users to output their interactive experiences directly to the web, now with most of the BluRay interactivity features, including the new multipage menus, supported as well.  Encore projects are now completely cross platform compatible, between the Mac and PC versions.  There is also better support for 23.976p and 24p source files, and an easier subtitling process.  AVCHD files can now be authored directly to BluRay discs without any transcoding, decreasing processing time, and increasing output quality.

Previous versions of Encore have used Dynamic Link to import Premiere Pro sequences as source clips, and more significantly in my opinion, to import After Effects compositions as motion menu backgrounds.  I was never really that impressed by Dynamic Link for Encore source clips, because your Premiere Pro sequence is usually finished by the time you make a DVD, and since you are going to have to transcode to MPEG2 at some point anyway, little time is saved.  Motion menu design on the other hand seems like a much better fit for the workflow benefits offered by Dynamic Link, since the menu needs to be edited in both Encore and AE during the authoring process.  Encore now also uses Dynamic Link to offload transcoding of those sequences, or any other incompatible source footage, to Adobe Media Encoder.  This will free up Encore to continue interactive authoring work, while asset transcoding proceeds in the background, and also allows third party accelerated encoding plug-ins that are compatible with Adobe Media Encoder, to be utilized for these internal transcodes.  While I am unaware of any CS5 compatible encoders, this was an issue with the Elemental Accelerator in CS4.  The files it generated at 24p were re-transcoded in Encore anyway, and Encore couldn’t utilize the accelerated plug-in directly.  Anyhow, while no CS5 version of Elemental Accelerator has been announced, Matrox’s CompressHD should be able to accelerate Encore’s BluRay H.264 encodes, once Matrox releases CS5 compatible drivers.

The one thing still missing from the Adobe package is a good intermediate format for exchanging files between other applications, systems, or facilities.  This capability is available from 3rd parties like Cineform or Matrox, but until Adobe integrates support for one directly into the suite, there will not be a single universal standard format, that can be counted on to be compatible everywhere.  It needs to be compatible with both Mac and PC, and store at least 10 bit HD footage with sufficient compression to playback smoothly on a laptop.  Apple and Avid have both recognized this need, and developed ProRes and DNxHD respectively.  AVC-Intra is Adobe’s current recommendation to meet those workflow needs, but that format has a complicated file structure, and is not a codec optimized for smooth playback.  This universal format would tie in well with OnLocation, if Adobe ever added support for HD-SDI capture capabilities.  That would allow ingest, either live or from tape playback, into a compressed format for editorial, with log notes entered in real-time similar to their current tapeless solution options.  And if a professional selection of scopes could be viewed of the SDI input signal, you would have an all-in-one onset workstation solution.  OnLocation CS5 currently offers most of these capabilities, but is limited to HDV, XDCam, and P2 acquisition for most of its features.  Oh, and if it supported my Canon DSLR, that would be pretty cool too; maybe next time.

As a whole the CS5 release is a major turning point for Adobe, especially with the problems their users experienced with CS4.  While I don’t yet fully utilize many of the new features, CS5 has already revolutionized the way I work.  Premiere Pro CS5 has replaced After Effects CS4 as central application from which I manage my projects.  I was lucky enough to be on the beta team, so most of the major issues I encountered with the software in my specific workflow, have already been resolved during the development process.  While CS5 is by no means perfect, it is a huge step forward that will begin to rebuild user confidence in Adobe products.  Once third party hardware and plug-ins have had time to be updated to be compatible with the new 64bit native applications, I see no other disadvantages or caveats to upgrading to CS5, which I highly recommend.

FTC Disclosure: I have been on Adobe’s beta team for many years, and Adobe has provided me a copy of CS5 for this review.  My only admitted personal bias is my preference of Windows over OSX, because I like full control over every aspect of my computing experience.  If for some reason that bothers anyone, there are plenty of other sources of information on the internet, but I try to provide unique insight on how each of these tools fits into the larger post-production picture.  Any relevant critique or response is welcomed.

Adobe announced all of the features of the new highly anticipated Creative Suite CS5, which will include native 64bit, CUDA GPU acceleration, and better support for formats like DPX and DSLR clips.  I will have many more CS5 details in future posts, delving into how that will change the landscape of many workflows.  There are lots more new developments in the post world, but those are the primary things that stick out to me right now.  We still have two more days, and I will be spending a good bit of time demonstration Cineform’s Neo3D features at their booth at the back of the Lower South Hall.  So if anyone wants to catch up with me, feel free to stop by.

NVidia and Elemental Technologies report that the accelerator can provide up to a 10x increase in encoding speeds, but mileage may vary in real world use.  With my system, I usually found encoding rates to be 50% to 100% faster with real world work, depending on the output settings, which is still a significant improvement if you do a lot of exporting.  The relative increase in encoding performance that you will experience depends on the speed of your system.  Older systems will see a major improvement, while newer high end workstations are already quite fast, so the change will be less dramatic.  My 3Ghz 8-Core workstation can already encode my HD timelines to MPEG2 for DVD faster than realtime, but with the Elemental Accelerator, I was able to cut the time for a two minute export from 1:27 to 30 seconds.  On a two hour clip, that would be a thirty minutes instead of an hour and a half.  My 1080p H.264 encodes for BluRay output only saw a 50% increase in encoding speed.

Exports of more complicated timelines see less of an improvement because render speed is not accelerated by the GPU as much as encoding speed is.  If you coming from a single flat clip, the increase in export speed will be much more apparent.  I don’t use AVCHD footage, but when encoding from those types of source files, the GPU can accelerate the processing intensive AVCHD decode, as well as the MPEG2 or H.264 encode.  This should lead to more dramatic performance improvements, especially on laptops, where available CPUs are not as powerful as their desktop counterparts.  When I first reviewed the accelerator software earlier in the year, I anticipated that laptops would be even better served by a GPU based accelerator than desktops.  If you frequently make these types of exports from a laptop with a Quadro GPU, this plugin will be worth it.  In the desktop world it isn’t as simple, since the CPUs are not so weak by comparison to the GPU. If you make DVDs or BluRays for a living it will be a no brainer, but otherwise it all depends on how much of your day you spend waiting for exports to complete.

There are still a few other issues to be worked out.  The Adobe Media Encoder CS4 is designed to minimize the decrease in system performance during background rendering by pausing exports during timeline playback.  This may be necessary on lower end systems, but eight-core workstations should have power to spare, before we even factor in the GPU.  This prevents Adobe Premiere CS4 from really utilizing the CPU power being freed up by the GPU acceleration, because any time it is called upon, the render gets paused anyway.  Adding the option to disable that functionality would be beneficial to both Elemental Accelerator users, and anyone else with a high-end workstation, so that they could truly multi-task their system.  Until then, its probably best to work outside of Premiere Pro during your accelerated exports, to truly take advantage of your available system power.

With NVIDIA’s Digital Video Pipeline in the works, its easy to see where this could be going.  Once they have SDI video inputs available, we could see realtime capture directly to H.264 and MPEG2 files, among many other things.  With professional I/O, the available GPU power could be used to turn the video card into a full editing accelerator card.  With SLI Mosaic and other new developments with the QuadroPlex, I can see it being scaled up to 4K frame sizes with realtime performance, and I am definitely looking forward to that.

Other new features in Photoshop CS4 that require OpenGL acceleration will benefit work on even regular sized images.  Images viewed at magnification levels that are not even multiples (1/2, 1/4, etc.) are now displayed at much higher quality, as well as being much faster and more fluid, since the preview is being scaled in the graphics card.  You can smoothly zoom to any level instead of the previous default 100%, 50%, 33%, etc. and the image will look perfectly clear.  You can also rotate the previewing plane without permanently effecting the image quality or dimensions, and continue to interact with the image at that angle.  Although it initially seems trivial, after a bit of thought I can conjure up a variety of important but obscure uses for this capability, most of which relate more to art and design than video post-production.  There is also a new pixel grid that is available to clearly dilineating the boundaries between individual pixels at extremely close zoom levels (>600%)  I am honestly not sure why this requires GPU acceleration, but it is unavailable unless you have a supported OpenGL graphics card.  My only complaint about the new functionality and acceleration found in Photoshop CS4 is that Adobe saw fit to specifically skip its implementation in the 64bit version of Windows XP.  Since this is the highest performing version of Windows available, Adobe’s failure to directly support it will cause its users continued frusteration for some time to come.

The only possible relief on the horizon in that regard is that Windows 7 seems to have been fast-tracked by Microsoft due to the Vista issues.  Speaking of future developments, hopefully we will soon be able to display 10bit color from Photoshop onto a Dreamcolor LCD via DisplayPort.  I suspect that this may not be available until CS5, but I am sure it is coming, based on the increasing level of hardware support on products that are now coming to market, with the Quadro CX leading the way.