Final Cut | Glenn Ward

Adobe Premiere Pro – The difference between Track Volume and Clip Volume

If you are used to using Final Cut Pro you will no doubt prefer to control your audio channels in the timeline rather than on the effects tab. At first this appear difficult if you use the button to the left of the timeline depicted here you shall reveal further controls in Adobe Premiere Pro.

This will allow you to control the levels from the timeline over time which is very handy if you have a soundtrack or voice over that needs to be taken in and out during your edit. Often these level changes will be clip dependent, meaning that if you move the clip around the point at which the levels need to change will remain the same. Sometime these changes in sound level will be relevant to the edit and if you move certain clips you will still require the levels to change at that point. Using the drop down here you have access to show clip toggles or show timeline toggles. Remember that clip levels works on that clips audio independent of the timeline and the timeline audio works on the timeline audio independently of the clips.

Add keyframes at the playhead using the black diamond next to the track or by using the Pen Tool.

Basic Chroma Key / Blue Screen in Premiere Pro and After Effects

The fundamentals to producing good chroma key are choice of background colour and flat lighting. You will save time and effort at edit if you spend an extra 10 minutes on this before a shoot. I often bounce light of a wall or flag the lights so as not to produce harsh changes in colour, I then monitor the colour through the camera display to ensure I produce a flat and even blue or green.

I shall talk about the controls I use in Adobe Premiere Pro as it is my current edit suite environment but controls the the video effects are much the same in Final Cut. For greater detail I would use Adobe After Effects to produce perfect results.

If you have produced an even background and once you get used to the controls you will be able to knock out the background in seconds. Apart from the Key Color / Eye Dropper used to select the colour you wish to remove, the three main controls are Color Tolerance, Edge Thin and Edge Feather. Select the tone roughly in the middle of the range of colour you wish to remove, I have often placed my new background in the video timeline under my clip so as I can see what I am doing. Adjust the Color Tolerance until the majority of the chroma has been removed. There will usually be a thin line left around the subject. Use the Edge Thin to remove most of this by increasing the value. The line is still pretty harsh so now tidy the effect up using the feather tool again by increasing the value, this will soften the change in color.

If you didn’t manage to achieve an even flat light you can use the Colour Key effect more than once in order to remove the rest of the colour but be sure to keep an eye on the shades on the subject to make sure nothing is removed. If you have chosen the background colour wisely this shouldn’t be a problem.

For Chroma Key in more detail using Adobe After Effects see this tutorial, very simple but great results.

Installed Quicktime Plug ins and Components for video production

After recently having my first issues playing certain video codecs in Quicktime since the installation of Mac OSX Snow Leopard I thought I’d look at my installed Quicktime Components that in the past have allowed me to play most files. Obviously, Quicktime Pro facilitates many options that are grayed out in the regular Quicktime Player. I also have Premiere Pro which now facilitates many HDD camera files, Final Cut which also supports many mpeg formats and VLC Player which seems to open most files.

Flip4Mac Pro WMV
I have the Flip4Mac Studio Pro for WMV playback and export. There is Flip4Mac Player for WMV Playback, Flip4MacPlayer Pro allows you to import WMV’s for conversion to Quicktime formats although this version is not free, Flip4Mac Studio allows you to export WMV’s in the Quicktime environment but using the presets and Flip4Mac Studio Pro which allows you to create you own custom export settings. I would advise purchasing Studio Pro if you support a company that uses Video in Powerpoint as it provides the most versatility.

Visit The Flip4Mac download page here

Perian
Perian, they say is the Swiss army knife for Quicktime Codecs. I’ll be honest, I installed it and as I can play most formats I guess it helps but couldn’t evaluate it completely. Here is the list of codecs Perian supports.

File formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
Video types: MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture
Audio types: Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer I & II Audio, True Audio, DTS Coherent Acoustics, Nellymoser ASAO
AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
Subtitle support for SSA/ASS and SR

Download the Perian Plugin here

REDcode
I have REDcode installed but to be honest I have know hardware that would require using this as yet.

Visit the REDcode website here

DIVX 7 Codec
I have the DIVX 7 Component installed which adds playback of .divx videos and .avi files, there is also a DIVX 7 Pro version which allows you to create your own DIVX files but I have not yet had the need to do so so I don’t have this installed

Visit DIVX here

TechSmith EnSharpen
Since I have installed Camtasia on the Edit suites at work I have installed the TechSmith Ensharpen Codec to reduce the problems I might come across saving out screen capture video created in Camtasia and saving them to Quicktime to then import for edit into Adobe Premiere Pro.

Visit the TechSmith EnSharpen Codec page here

I’m pretty sure I have the XVID Component installed too but again am not sure whether this ever needs pulling out of the bag and if it does it probably runs nicely in the background.

For more Qucktime Components visit Apple

Comparison DV Footage captured using Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro and iMovie

I had presumed that Premiere Pro would capture video from a device in much the same way as Final Cut Pro or iMovie. After having a lot of trouble with the quality of exports using Adobe Media Encoder, I had a look into videos captured by different programs to see if this could be effecting the final output. I decided to look at the same piece of footage from the same DV tape recorded from a Sony HVRDR60. I recorded the video and placed them side by side on the desktop. Below you can see the Premiere Pro Clip (Mov) on the Left and the iMovie clip (DV) on the Right. If I’m honest, I could not see much in it to the naked eye. The contrast might possibly be slightly better on the iMovie clip but even zoomed right in. As there was no differences to see I had a look at the figures, the DV clip captured at a much higher bit rate and produced a higher file size. This would suggest that if there was more movement in the footage then the DV capture would handle this far better than the MOV, although the file size would be almost double.

I am drawing no conclusions from this test apart from, if my premiere pro captured footage are ever not up to scratch then I shall turn back to Final Cut Pro or iMovie to capture my footage. Take from this what you will!

Comparing the .Mov footage and the .Dv

Premiere Pro / iMovie

Adobe Premiere Pro Captured Footage

Format: DV, 720 x 576 (768 x 576), Millions 16-bit Integer (Little Endian), Stereo, 48.000 kHz
FPS: 24.37
Data Size: 45.4 MB
Data Rate: 30.34 Mbit/s

Ireland 09

iMovie Captured Footage

Format: DV, 720 x 576 (768 x 576), MillionsDV, Stereo, 48.000 kHz
FPS: 25
Data Size: 97.1 MB
Data Rate: 57.60 Mbit/s

Ireland 09

Understanding the difference between Interlaced and Progressive scan video

When purchasing a video camera or choosing your project settings in your editing software you may come across the dimensions followed by an i or a p for example 1080i or 1080p. This stands for interlaced and progressive scan.

The difference between the two are as follows. If you imagine you video is built like a brick wall, in layers known as fields. In an interlaced video each field is offset not dissimilar to the brick wall. You have probably noticed this during moments of fast motion where you see lines like a comb at the edge of the moving subject.

Interlaced video should be deinterlaced for your final product. In Final Cut this is done by applying a deinterlace effect, in premiere pro it can be done as your send your media to Adobe Media Encoder.

Progressive scan video already has the fields aligned resulting in a much crisper image and less things to think about at edit. Be sure if you are working with progressive video not to deinterlace your video when you export it. It will reduce the quality.

If you wish your final video to be displayed on a computer monitor then always deinterlace your video or use Progressive.

You can also De interlace video in Quicktime Pro, Window > Show Movie Properties > Video Track > Deinterlace

Adobe Premiere Pro – Controlling Sound and Volume Level over time

There are two main ways to control the sound levels in Adobe Premiere Pro over time outside of a simple constant gain, expositional fade transition.

Firstly, it is not straight away that obvious that this can be done in the timeline in much the same way as in Final Cut Pro and the use of pushpins.

Locate the button to the left of the timeline and highlight it. You should now be able to place pushpins along the levels line.

Place the playhead where you would like your fade or gain to begin and then click the grey diamond where you see the text “Audio” to the left of the timeline. You will notice a pushpin / keyframe appear on the audio track and the grey diamond turn black.

Move the playhead and the diamond will turn grey again, place the playhead where you would like your fade to finish and add another pushpin / keyframe in the same way. Grab the level beyond your second pushpin / keyframe and drag it down.

You have created a gradual fade over time.

The second way is much the same as creating motion with images and takes place in the effects tab. If you have the Show Clip Keyframes drop down selected, you will notice this in the timeline to. With your clip selected place your playhead where you would like the fade to begin.

Expand the levels controls under effects and locate the stopwatch symbol. Press this and a small black diamond (keyframe) will appear in the clip timeline. Drag the playhead to the end of the fade and repeat. You should now be able to reduce the levels beyond your second keyframe without affecting the sound before the first. The diagonal fall between the two signifies the fade over time.