Laptop screens and Vegas 10 / Premiere Pro 5

[Outtasight]

Hi,

I'm trying out new alternatives to Premiere Pro 1.5. I've just got a Canon 5Dmk2 and have a new laptop for mainly editing the photos but would like to edit video as well.

The new laptop has Win7 x64 on it and PP1.5 won't install on it (so I've read, not actually tried it - mostly as PP1.5 doesn't support the Canon HD format).

As I have PP1.5, I have an upgrade route to PP5 but after getting the laptop I discovered that PP5 has a minimum spec requirement of a 1280x900 display (weird resolution...). Sad to say that the laptop I bought only has a 1366x768 display.

Question is: What actually happens if you try to install / run PP5 on a machine with a nnnn x 768 display? Does it spit the dummy or does the display just look a bit cramped?

I've got a trial of Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD 10 Platinum installed on the machine at the moment and it runs fine on this display size (I'm not going to really be a multi-track freak and the 2 video tracks, audio and a caption track seem to fit ok on the screen with the usual preview and cutting windows).

I've got an external monitor that I can plug into the laptop to use as either a preview monitor or just for a bigger desktop but it would be a bit of a bind if PP5 flat refused to run on the small display. On another palmbook I have (like a netbook but smaller!), a photo editing prog refuses to even start on the PSP-like 1024x600 display - exiting with a sarcastic message like "Use a bigger monitor, fool!" (in a "Mr T" type voice).

The only reason I'm considering PP5 is that Vegas 10 is painfully s l o o w when rendering. It doesn't even use all the cores and bumps along at 20% overall CPU utilisation when rendering. The Canon RAW processing engine for still images by comparison maxes out all 8 vCPUs on the i7 processor (for about 10 seconds!).

I know there's a big difference in price between Vegas 10 and PP5 but I don't mind shelling out for the upgrade from PP1.5 if PP5 will actually run on my display and if it's actually any faster than Vegas.

[edDV]

Hi,

I'm trying out new alternatives to Premiere Pro 1.5. I've just got a Canon 5Dmk2 and have a new laptop for mainly editing the photos but would like to edit video as well.

The new laptop has Win7 x64 on it and PP1.5 won't install on it (so I've read, not actually tried it - mostly as PP1.5 doesn't support the Canon HD format).

As I have PP1.5, I have an upgrade route to PP5 but after getting the laptop I discovered that PP5 has a minimum spec requirement of a 1280x900 display (weird resolution...). Sad to say that the laptop I bought only has a 1366x768 display.

PP v1.5 is a 32 bit app. Adobe didn't support 64 bit until CS4 (with many bugs). CS5 is said to work with 64 bit. Check out that upgrade route from PP 1.5 to CS5. Last I looked Adobe cuts off upgrades higher than that.

Return the laptop if that is an option. PP CS5 has too much detail in the desktop. You will hate it in a 1366x768 display. That isn't to say it won't work but it will be crippled for usability.

If you only want to do simple things you could make a custom desktop workspace but then why bother with PP CS5 if you only want to do simple things? You really a need a 1920x1080 screen if only for stills.

Question is: What actually happens if you try to install / run PP5 on a machine with a nnnn x 768 display? Does it spit the dummy or does the display just look a bit cramped?

I've got a trial of Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD 10 Platinum installed on the machine at the moment and it runs fine on this display size (I'm not going to really be a multi-track freak and the 2 video tracks, audio and a caption track seem to fit ok on the screen with the usual preview and cutting windows).

I've got an external monitor that I can plug into the laptop to use as either a preview monitor or just for a bigger desktop but it would be a bit of a bind if PP5 flat refused to run on the small display. On another palmbook I have (like a netbook but smaller!), a photo editing prog refuses to even start on the PSP-like 1024x600 display - exiting with a sarcastic message like "Use a bigger monitor, fool!" (in a "Mr T" type voice).

re: CS5, I'd expect the stock screens wouldn't fit. You would need to adapt them to the short display (i.e. custom workspace) using a larger external monitor.

The only reason I'm considering PP5 is that Vegas 10 is painfully s l o o w when rendering. It doesn't even use all the cores and bumps along at 20% overall CPU utilisation when rendering. The Canon RAW processing engine for still images by comparison maxes out all 8 vCPUs on the i7 processor (for about 10 seconds!).

I know there's a big difference in price between Vegas 10 and PP5 but I don't mind shelling out for the upgrade from PP1.5 if PP5 will actually run on my display and if it's actually any faster than Vegas.

What are you rendering exactly? Can you point me to a sample source file? What is your output format?

Vegas Movie Studio Platimum 10 has limited consumer format support. It does allow 1920x1080i or 1440x1080i AVCHD projects but I suspect you are operating outside that spec. It does use multi cores for supported formats. Vegas Pro has more flexible format support especially for 24p but I don't know if 5DMkII video is directly supported. Version 10 has just been announced.

[budwzr]

Yes, VegasPro10 does support your Canon 5D Mk2, and what a lovely camera that is.

[Outtasight]

CS5 is said to work with 64 bit. Check out that upgrade route from PP 1.5 to CS5. Last I looked Adobe cuts off upgrades higher than that.

Return the laptop if that is an option. PP CS5 has too much detail in the desktop. You will hate it in a 1366x768 display. That isn't to say it won't work but it will be crippled for usability.

If you only want to do simple things you could make a custom desktop workspace but then why bother with PP CS5 if you only want to do simple things? You really a need a 1920x1080 screen if only for stills.
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re: CS5, I'd expect the stock screens wouldn't fit. You would need to adapt them to the short display (i.e. custom workspace) using a larger external monitor.
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What are you rendering exactly? Can you point me to a sample source file? What is your output format?

Vegas Movie Studio Platimum 10 has limited consumer format support. It does allow 1920x1080i or 1440x1080i AVCHD projects but I suspect you are operating outside that spec. It does use multi cores for supported formats. Vegas Pro has more flexible format support especially for 24p but I don't know if 5DMkII video is directly supported. Version 10 has just been announced.

Vegas 10 opens the Canon files no problem and Ijust trimmed them and stuck them on the timeline in a simple assemble with no effects at all as a test. When I said render, I just meant simple output to a file from the timeline. I haven't experimented with too many different profiles yet. I tried the Sony AVC MP4 file format as output with the "internet 1920x1080 25p" preset (16Mbit). I had two clips on the timeline with no effects and 31 seconds in total. This took 2 mins 48s to render into the output file of some 68Mb (so it's not taxing the disk systems).

The Canon source files are in Quicktime MOV files with H.264 encoding 1920x1080 25p.

I wouldn't bother upgrading PP1.5 were it not for the fact that at some point in the future I may need the bells and whistles and probably soon Adobe will cut me off as being too far behind to upgrade (they already did for Photoshop, which I had to buy new as PS6 was too old to allow an upgrade).

Vegas did render much faster (only 50s for the same clip) using the Video for Windows AVI format with the "HD 1080-50p YUV" preset template but created an output file that was 3.05GB for 31s of video and was too big to play smoothly.

I guess I'll just have to download the trial version of PP5 and "suck it and see". I just wanted to see if it was worth the wait for the download and install to find that it refuses at the first jump.

[edDV]

Vegas 10 opens the Canon files no problem and Ijust trimmed them and stuck them on the timeline in a simple assemble with no effects at all as a test. When I said render, I just meant simple output to a file from the timeline. I haven't experimented with too many different profiles yet. I tried the Sony AVC MP4 file format as output with the "internet 1920x1080 25p" preset (16Mbit). I had two clips on the timeline with no effects and 31 seconds in total. This took 2 mins 48s to render into the output file of some 68Mb (so it's not taxing the disk systems).

The Canon source files are in Quicktime MOV files with H.264 encoding 1920x1080 25p.
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Vegas did render much faster (only 50s for the same clip) using the Video for Windows AVI format with the "HD 1080-50p YUV" preset template but created an output file that was 3.05GB for 31s of video and was too big to play smoothly.

I tested some AVCHD 1920x1080i 50i files in Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 10. First make sure the project is set right.




Then output as Sony AVCHD 50i



or to Blu-Ray MPeg2 1920x1080i 50i



In all cases both of my cores were used. You must have a settings issue. I see no problem outputting to these formats.

Both PP CS5 and Vegas use Mainconcept for MPeg2.

They will differ for AVCHD m2ts out. The CS5 demo may not allow AVCHD output.

Note that Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 10 lacks 24p project templates. You would need to experiment with "Match media settings" or upgrade to Vegas Pro 10.