Adobe Premiere Pro & Canopus codec

[Colmino]

Not easy to get a straight answer on this one. I want to use Premiere Pro because it seems to have the best plugin support. But I don't want to use a sub-standard DV codec for rendering (or for encoding, if it comes to that). This means I must bypass whatever Premiere Pro uses by default, and force it to utilize the Canopus codec.

Not sure how one goes about this, although someone in another thread was saying this is precisely his setup. I've been told that deleting the Microsoft DV codec is a bad idea.

Any clues?

[racer-x]

For your information, Premiere Pro uses the Main Concept DV codec, not MS.

[adam]

I think it was me who prompted this post. Sorry, I lost track of the other one.

Yes Premiere defaults to the microsoft dv codec (apparantly Mainconcept DV codec for Premiere Pro), however, I think this is only mandatory for the rendering of the effects and transitions and such for the previews. When you go to do your final render you are free to use whatever DV codec you wish. After installing the Canopus DV codec you will see that it is selectable as your compressor when exporting the timeline.

Also, when installing the Canopus DV codec it gives you the option to also install the Premiere plugin. If you do so, then instead of rendering out to a DV avi, you can select the Procoder Exporter option under Export Timeline. This opens up Procoder and allows you to make all of your necessary settings, and then it renders it using the Canopus DV codec and encodes to mpg all in the same step (slow as hell though.)

[Colmino]

Yes Premiere defaults to the microsoft dv codec (apparantly Mainconcept DV codec for Premiere Pro), however, I think this is only mandatory for the rendering of the effects and transitions and such for the previews. When you go to do your final render you are free to use whatever DV codec you wish. After installing the Canopus DV codec you will see that it is selectable as your compressor when exporting the timeline.

Alright, not positive I have my terminology down, but if I follow you correctly, Premiere Pro uses the Microsoft (or, rather, MainConcept) DV codec for rendering preview footage, but you can use whatever you want for rendering as an export. Correct so far?

I actually do not intend to compress anything with Premiere Pro. I'll be frameserving its output for use in Cinema Craft Encoder (once I figure out how to do that, at least). Will it still let me use the codec of my choice for this? (Besides, the Canopus codec from this site's Tools area is supposedly only a decoder.)

[racer-x]

Colmino wrote:

I actually do not intend to compress anything with Premiere Pro. I'll be frameserving its output for use in Cinema Craft Encoder (once I figure out how to do that, at least). Will it still let me use the codec of my choice for this?

Now you're really spliting hairs. You can use the Pluginpack Frameserver to frameserve out of Premiere Pro. The only frames that are rendered would be the ones you edit, any frames that are unchanged will just be feed as is. It should use the default Main Concept DV codec for that.

I don't know why you would rather use CCE instead of the Very Good built-in Main Concept encoder though. I've frameserved out to the standalone Main Concept encoder v1.4.1 with it. I didn't see any improvement though.

[Colmino]

Now you're really spliting hairs. You can use the Pluginpack Frameserver to frameserve out of Premiere Pro.

Thanks. I hadn't known Premiere Pro would need a 3rd party plugin to perform this task.

The only frames that are rendered would be the ones you edit, any frames that are unchanged will just be feed as is.

This makes sense. However, it seems to introduce a possible problem. Let's say I've got a 30 second clip. I manipulate the middle 10 seconds by way of adding a pointilism effect. What does Premiere Pro do with this when it exports? Send the first 10 seconds as the original, still-encoded DV, then the middle 10 seconds as raw video unencoded (rendered) by the MainConcept DV codec (which would be, apart from a totally different video format, some 5 times more data), and finally the last ten seconds as still-encoded DV? It really sounds like I'm missing a step.

[troyvcd1]

try using avic and disabling the codecs you dont want and see if premiere will default to the codec you want to use. Personally I think there is no way there is going to be any difference in your final video no matter what codec you use.

[racer-x]

Premiere Pro will use the Main Concept DV codec to both read and/or encode your DV video. Any effects that are used will require the video frames effected to be renderd. Basically new frames will be created from the information.

In the case you stated, the 1st 10 sec will be just read and feed to encoder. The 2nd 10 sec will be renderd, then feed to encoder. The last 10 sec will just be read and feed to encoder. * Note that is providing you didn't use any transitions in between, or they too will be renderd.