It has been a busy busy BUSY time for us since I wrote that “Anatomy of an iMac” article and it occurred to me I have not provided any updates on all the Mac / PC goings on at our shop. Let’s get to it.
We’ve found one little achilles heel using the PC vs. the Mac. One client delivers all their raw footage to us in XDCAM Quicktime files. This is pretty much the one file format the PC will not read natively with Adobe Premiere Pro. So we purchased the Calibrated Software XD Decode software. It sort of works, but the PC really chugs once we start using the footage with that plug-in.
Talking to some other folks, they seem to have this plug-in on an ingest machine to convert the footage over to something else before editing. We don’t really want to do that because the footage was shot XDCAM MXF by the client and converted once to the QT versions for their offline edits. So we don’t want to convert the footage again before we start the final edit. Our solution has been to move the XDCAM QT projects over to one of our Macs since it doesn’t slow them down at all.
Now the editor who was cutting on the PC every day, has cut for the past two weeks on that brand new 27″ iMac we’ve been running in Edit 2 since he had a bunch of XDCAM QTs in his project. He let me know in no uncertain terms that he LOVES the iMac and if we got another one, he wouldn’t mind putting that in place of his PC. He was truly amazed at the speed of it, despite the fact that it has less RAM and less processor power than the PC.
Well, that second iMac is on order and we’re going to re-designate the Edit 5 PC as our Davinci Resolve color grading system. The 12 Core Mac Pro that is currently designated as the Resolve will move into another edit suite that needs its Mac Pro updated. That PC has dual nVidia cards, 48GB of RAM and plenty of processing power so it will fit well into its new home.
So while we have not cooled on the PC necessarily, we’re finding that with our workflow, the Mac is still a better choice for the moment. I would really love to get away from Quicktime altogether and go fully MXF native for everything, including the ability to work in Avid DNxHD MXF within Premiere Pro. That would solve a lot of cross platform issues. But being an independent post house, we do not control the formats that come in the door. We must simply respond to the client delivered materials and ensure that we have a system capable of reliably editing their footage. At the moment, the Mac still gives more codec flexibility than PC to respond to their needs, but the PC is not going anywhere. It works brilliantly with the codecs it can handle and that’s why it’s moving into the Resolve suite.
Today AJA Video Systems released new drivers for Adobe Premiere Pro 6.0.2 that will hopefully allow us to finally start laying to tape from our AJA based edit systems. We’ve yet to try this but will in the next week or so for sure and I’ll report back here.
Overall Adobe Premiere Pro CS 6 has performed amazingly well under both documentary and episodic editorial production. We’ve been at it for quite some time now and the editors have really grown quite fond of the tool and while Avid seems to have made some nice improvements in v6.5, we’re not in any hurry to update our Symphonies just yet. Premiere Pro has its quirks to be sure, but we’re finding out how to deal with them just as we had to deal with a lot of quirks in FCP 7.
Such as a huge dropped frame issue that was plaguing all of our systems. We knew it wasn’t the SAN because that same SAN had zero issues with FCP 7 and Avid 6.0. But Premiere Pro CS 6.0 could not play any of our timelines without dropping frames. And not just a couple of frames, but several hundred over 5 minutes. That’s one of the beauties of PPro vs. FCP 7. It will play through dropped frames and then give you a counter when you stop of how many frames were dropped.
The solution to the dropped frames was ridiculously simple, but took an accident to find it. We work in dual screens in our all our edit suites. To get smooth playback with no dropped frames, we have to bring the PPro interface onto a single screen. This is true of Mac, PC, ATI, nVidia, Dual nVidia, 8 Core, 12 core, etc…… in our shop.
At my wits end, I said to one of our editors, “for the heck of it what if we just put the interface on one screen? Stupid I know, but let’s try it.” So I went up to Windows > Workspace > Editing which brings the entire interface to a single window on a single screen. Voíla. Smooth playback. On every system. Silly solution but it solves the problem and we move on.
Every system has its quirks and WTF? moments, but you learn, adapt and move on. As I said recently on Twitter, we’re missing what we had in FCP less and less and enjoying what we now have in PPro more and more. Everything is a tool and this particularly tool suits our workflow quite well.
I will update y’all on our AJA Tape Layback tests after we have a chance to run them.
BISCARDI CREATIVE MEDIA is a full service digital media production company near Atlanta, Georgia with services that include Video Production, Sound Production, Sound Mixing, Graphic Design, Animation, Post Production, Video Editing, Color Grading, Finishing, Digital Asset Transfer, Digitizing and Archiving. Quite simply we’re the people who make video and media production easy for you. No technobabble. Just clear, concise and creative content delivered where and how you need it, on time and on budget. Office and production space is also available for short and long term projects. www.biscardicreative.com | 770-271-3427
thnx for the update. looking forward for the next installment.
The major issue I’m having with premiere is the audio… the ability to switch between mono and stereo in FCP seemed like a no brainer and i really hope adobe make that an option soon….
that and the media management…. moving media from one raid to another and relinking is a pain! unless the original camera clips have been labelled IN-CAmera, lots of relink errors are happening.
so far these are the only 2 issues i’m having with the software…..
We use adaptive tracks for a lot of our audio. In FCP you had dual tracks of audio so it was easy to switch between mono and stereo. With Adobe everyone is on a single track so that creates more difficulty to just break stereo to mono. With FCP we could be pushing 30 or more tracks of audio on a documentary. With Adobe we rarely go over 15 so that’s a pleasant change for us.
For Media Management we follow the plan set in An Editors Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro and we have very little issues moving projects when we need to. Generally relink the first file and we’re done. The software finds everything else.
Good God Walter – you just solved a problem that’s been driving me nuts for weeks. I’ve got an IO XT and a MacBook Pro that I’m using with Premiere. Sure enough collapsing all the windows into one gets rid of the dropped frames. Wow!
Not really a long term solution. Hopefully Aja will get this working. Please let us know if you get things working with dual monitors. GREAT blog by the way!
Bob Pierce
It’s Adobe’s issue to fix. Happens on our Blackmagic system too.
Hi Walter,
Great blog post!
One question…
Before moving to Premier and Resolve my self i used your technique for achieving broadcast safe through Apple Color – using one of your tutorials!
I have not once had a rejection from a broadcaster using that workflow, works great!
I was just curious if you still use Apple Color for broadcast safe or if you have another method now?
I have been using the option in Resolve that renders in “Normally scaled video” but it seems to not fix all Chroma and Gamut issues.
Do you find “Broadcast safe colors” in Premier does the trick or do you have a new method?
Thanks in advance for any tips on this subject!
Cheers,
Tim.
Getting everything perfectly legal is not as easy in Resolve, especially on the blacks. Things can slip through. Resolve doesn’t have the nice easy settings of Floor and Ceiling to help control. “Normally Scaled Video” does not clamp everything down as you would expect.
There are some track based settings you can make in Resolve to help but as one long time Resolve user has told me, you really want a hardware legalizer on your Resolve output to ensure zero gamut issues. So while we don’t have a hardware legalizer yet (will soon) we send anything from Resolve out to be legalized prior to broadcast. If things change or I find a foolproof way, I’ll definitely post it!
Thanks for the reply Walter,
That helps clear things up for me – i wasn’t sure if i was just doing something wrong in Resolve!
cheers,
Tim
Hi, Walter,
I just found your excellent, informative blog. As a just-starting videographer, I can use all the expertise of guys like you. As a matter of fact, if you allow me, I would like to ask a question related to using Macs in video production (I have always used Macs, but only for my photography needs). The question is: how do you deal with the fact that Apple does not provide support for 10-bit video?
Regards,
Rob
10 bit video has been supported on the Mac for years now. You use third party products like those from AJA Video Systems and Blackmagic Design. You need to makes sure your media array can handle the speeds required for 10bit, especially uncompressed 10bit video.
Thanks for your response, Walter,
Well, according to NEC and BlackMagic websites, Apple only supports 8-bit video natively (I do not know what the situation is on the PC side, but I’m only interested in Macs). NEC website states that Apple NO LONGER supports 10-bit video in new Macs.
But, I guess, AJA and BlackMagic devices bypass the Apple’s video output by tapping into the original source video signal?
Video cards have always bypassed Apple’s video signal and gone to the original source video. It’s possible the whole Thunderbolt connections have changed the output from the Mac to 8 bit limited, but all of the hardware is 10 bit and certainly the video cards for the Mac Pros still do 10 bit I/O. Input is still 10 bit so you’re still working with 10 bit originated materials.
Hi, Walter,
Yes, thanks for confirmation. I was aware of the video cards existence ( ☺ ). My original question was caused by the fact, that I am now using a MacBook Pro and I wanted to get an external device rather than an expansion card. I guess something like AJA T-Tap or BlackMagic Ultra Studio Express?
We have the AJA IoXT, the T-Tap and the Ultra Studio 3D. All work great with the iMacs.