Premiere Pro CS5.5 & Blackmagic Design

Well we are testing Premiere Pro CS 5.5 for a few weeks now. Yes, we tried that in the past and it did not work out well. But with the release of the 9.2 Version of the Blackmagic Design drivers (Blackmagic Design Desktop Video 9.2 – a while ago now) for the BMD Video-Cards we use  something changed and now it actually works quite well.

Now, we still use FCP7 for older or “special” projects. But with CS6 in the very near future things are looking good … well bad for FCP and Apple. The whole AVID MC 6 thing did not work that good for the stuff we do… even though it’s a great NLE … it’s just not for how we things rock over here, lets just leave it at that. I will not talk about FCPX … u know how I feel about it … for some work its great …for most stuff not tho’ (a matter of “taste” anyway) … it will take a loooooooong time till that App will be 100% ready … end of story (for FCPX).

Anyway… here are some settings  that worked quite well for us and our “old” MacPro’s with Blackmagic Cards. One note: We are in PAL-Land so we work with 1080p25 or 50i … u might try other frame rates for your footage!

BTW we are on “older” MacPros with 12 GB Ram, MacOS 10.6.8 and BlackMagic Design Decklink HD Extreme 2 cards. (We did not test this in LION  / 10.7.x)

All starts with a “New Project” … select “Blackmagic Capture” … just to be safe. ( at this point I’m not 100% sure if that is Essential or not)… and choose a project name and make sure you did choose a (the right) project folder / location …

You might choose your Video “Settings” … (that is for capture only… if u want to do that)

Now comes the essential part: After you hit OK … You have to choose the Blackmagic Design HD1080 preset (8 bit or 10 bit with the Frame-rate your footage is in) Don’t use the DSLR Preset, that doesn’t work well at all for most Machines (using ProRes footage / with external Playback) One side-note if you use an external Monitor (via HDMI for example) that can not play/show progressive footage (25p in our case) you have to choose an Interlaced Preset (50i in our case) … you will be able to work with progressive  footage (25p in our case) just as good in that Interlaced Timeline it will NOT change it to interlaced or something …. at least in our case.

Now, before you start to work on anything you have to select your playback engine (Player Settings) so that your are able to see anything on your external monitor.

Select “Blackmagic Design Playback” (that is essential!)

After that select your current Timeline / Sequence and go to the “Sequence Settings” ( that only works if you have your Sequence selected … trust me)

Here you might select the codec of your footage. You can “play” with that setting … test out what works better on your system / with your footage.

… and that’s it … all should work well now … if not, let me know … we will keep testing stuff out further on and pretty much look forward to what happens at NAB this year with CS6 🙂 if you have questions, use the commends section below.

On side note … for FCP7 users i highly recommend using the FCP keyboard shortcuts in PPro (even map your own shortcuts to keys).

The only thing we are really missing so far is coping and removing of attributes from clips (that works differently) and moving clips arround in the timeline with the keyboard (up and down) doesn’t work like in FCP7 … and of course other smaller stuff here and there but in the end it kinda is ok coming from FCP7 … if you don’t see it that way … try AVID MC6 and you will see what I mean 😉

FinalCutPro8 or PremiereProCS6 as some call it

So folks, with todays Vimeo-Post from the Editing-Crew at Conan some might say we finally will get the FCP8 we all want …desperately.

http://vimeo.com/38593381

Some say (THAT POST SHOW) that we will finally see PPro CS6 at NAB this year with lost of cool stuff and (a bit) more FCP feel to it (i’ll be there…for that).

Now, we all should not make the (same) mistake some did last year with FCPX – getting too excited too quickly – but it sure looks promising!
Fact is there are not that much options left … FCP7 will get really “old school” at some point … FCPX still is pretty much a toy app (even with “all” these updates) … and AVID MC6 sure is an awesome & solid NLE but it’s really made mostly for that: Online/Offline for TV & Movies (thats why Hollywood loves it … i guess) there is no AfterEffects or Motion and stuff like that… even through its an awesome Application (don’t get me wrong!)

…so in the end the only real FCP7 replacement is / might be PremierePro.

Well we should wait and we shall see.

On a side note: I actually just started a real work project in Premiere Pro CS 5.5 … yes i know i did test that app several times and i said “it doesn’t work well on our machines” but now with the latest Blackmagic Design drivers it finally runs kinda smoothly even with 1080p25 ProRes footage … well not finished yet … but it’s looking good 😉

so anyway … as for now …

KEEP CALM AND EDIT ON!

BBC’s switch to Premiere (Adobe loyalists, get your throwing stones ready) (via The Final Rewrite)

man that is bad news for FCP & Apple, isn’t it?
…

This is quite shocking to me: http://ke-we.net/398I know I haven’t been in the post-production realm as long as others have but this is a huge deal, correct? I’m going to be frank here and probably piss-off a lot of Adobe loyalists, but I’ve never taken Premiere seriously. I’ve always considered it a joke. While I was a freshman in film school (2005) and one of the students was complaining about Avid being confusing, my Editing 101 professor … Read More

via The Final Rewrite

my comment on that:

well i’m a FCP user and i felt / and still feel (a bit) the same way about premiere pro … i know in the end its just another system & workflow and “just” another way doing things … but i tried Premiere CS5 and i don’t fell comfortable with that app ( no Pro feeling for me) … yes you can open up DSLR, RED and HDV footage right away and you can play it even with some fx on it … but they (fx / plugins ar not the same as you can find in FCP … (quality and quantity) … and well maybe is did something wrong but the export took a lot longer as i’m use to in FCP … a lot … (there goes the time advantage (a lil bit) … and many other “lil” things like interface and keyframes and keyboard-layouts ….

so Premiere certainly has a lot to offer but honestly we have no time – with your workload and “well oiled” FCP workflow (we know what we get & deliver for our clients) – to change that workflow “just” for 64bit and a “playback engine” even we have the whole CS5 pack (for AE and stuff) … its easier for me to go in our AVID room 😉

just saying

btw thanks Nate for that blogpost