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Richardcavell
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How to force Premiere to render previews?

Jul 25, 2012 6:09 AM

Hi, everyone.  I have a clip that's high definition.  It's been video denoised and colour corrected and vignetted, and to preserve quality it's rendered in QuickTime Animation codec with quality of 100 (lossless).  It's 37 gigabytes for 3 and a half minutes, and my humble MacBook Pro can't play it in real time.  That's no problem, as long as I can use previews to do my editing.

 

But it looks like Premiere Pro CS 6.0.1 is trying to use the original file instead of creating previews.  If I delete all preview files, the line above the clip stays yellow/green (I'm colour blind, sorry I can't tell the difference).  If I drop the sequence preview resolution, it stays yellow/green.

 

I want the original footage for quality, but I want to edit using something lossy.  How do I force Premiere to make a low-bitrate version of the file for preview purposes?

 

Richard

1862 Views   15 Replies   Latest reply: ComputerNovice25, Jul 25, 2012 5:27 PM
 
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  • ExactImage
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    1. ExactImage,
    Jul 25, 2012 6:34 AM   in reply to Richardcavell
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    Set the work area to the sart and finish and then

     

    (Menu) Sequences -> Render Entire Work Area

     

    The codec used for the render is chosen in the Sequence --> Sequence settings (though this could now be grayed) and is usually i-Frame MPEG.

     
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  • Richardcavell
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    2. Richardcavell,
    Jul 25, 2012 7:09 AM   in reply to ExactImage
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    Thank you, that's the correct answer.  I'm used to pressing "Enter", but that's not enough to force it to render previews if the line's yellow.

     

    Richard

     
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  • ExactImage
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    3. ExactImage,
    Jul 25, 2012 7:14 AM   in reply to Richardcavell
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    We created a short cut as Shift-Enter which helps

     
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  • Cavemandude
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    4. Cavemandude,
    Jul 25, 2012 4:26 PM   in reply to ExactImage
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    I always thoougt Preview files were in the DV format so that you could use Firewire Out for previews on a video monitor. How do you change the Preview format anyways?

     

    Randy

     
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  • ComputerNovice25
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    5. ComputerNovice25,
    Jul 25, 2012 4:38 PM   in reply to Cavemandude
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    The preview format changes depending on your sequence settings. If you edit in DV-NTSC it is DV-NTSC;s codec if you edit in AVCHD and tons of other HD formats it uses i-frame only mpeg if you edit in DVCPRO50 it uses DVCPRO50 NTSC for preview codec and so on.

     
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  • ExactImage
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    6. ExactImage,
    Jul 25, 2012 4:36 PM   in reply to Cavemandude
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    If you create a custom preset for the sequence type you can pretty much choose what you want as the preview codec.  If you choose a preset then you get what is there already and it's grayed (can't be changed).

     
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  • ComputerNovice25
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    7. ComputerNovice25,
    Jul 25, 2012 4:41 PM   in reply to Richardcavell
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    Honestly I'd recommend looking into chosing a different option other than animation, I'd recommend using DNxHD or UT. It won't be such a big file. With UT it will be lossless and with DNxHD it will be visually lossless.

     
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  • Cavemandude
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    8. Cavemandude,
    Jul 25, 2012 4:43 PM   in reply to ExactImage
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    You have to start and select a preset so there is no way to control what format the Preview files are within a Preset. IF you pick Custom, there are no options to move forward.

     

    Randy

     
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  • Richardcavell
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    9. Richardcavell,
    Jul 25, 2012 4:45 PM   in reply to ComputerNovice25
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    The Animation format is only for the highest-quality render of it, and it's necessary in order to make sure there's no loss of quality.  But when I'm editing, I don't need the highest quality.  Intraframe compression is fine.

     
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  • ExactImage
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    10. ExactImage,
    Jul 25, 2012 4:48 PM   in reply to Cavemandude
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    Cavemandude wrote:

     

    You have to start and select a preset so there is no way to control what format the Preview files are within a Preset. IF you pick Custom, there are no options to move forward.

     

    Randy

     

    That's about 100% opposite to what I have found.   If I create a custom preset I can choose my own (e.g. ProRes) but if I pick a preset then it's grayed and I can't change it.

     
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  • Cavemandude
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    11. Cavemandude,
    Jul 25, 2012 4:57 PM   in reply to ExactImage
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    Found it under Editing Mode and then you pick Custom from there. I was talking about the first Custom selection.

     

    Randy

     
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  • needles27
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    12. needles27,
    Jul 25, 2012 5:10 PM   in reply to Richardcavell
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    If you don't have a red bar, you can trick it by adding a non-accelerated effect (such as channel blur) and keep it set to 0 so it has no effect. But it will change to a red bar and allow you to create a preview file.

     
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  • ComputerNovice25
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    13. ComputerNovice25,
    Jul 25, 2012 5:19 PM   in reply to Richardcavell
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    UT doesn't lose any quality and niether does Lagarith. Both of these codecs are 100% lossless. DNxHD is  visually lossless which I have done many many test with and I haven't ever seen any loss with it. But honestly I was just trying to recommend you consider using one of the codecs I mentioned instead of Animation beause Animation takes forever to render and also produces HUGE files and it doesn't produce any better results than UT or Lagarith, and for all intensive purposes doesn't look any better than DNxHD either (since it's visually lossless).

     

    Also with Lagarith and UT and DNxHD you probably wouldn't need to render to begin with. (depending on what you're doing) but since you've been using animation already I understand if that's what you'd continue to like using I actually used to use Animation and PNG back before I found out about the options I have listed.

     
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  • Richardcavell
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    14. Richardcavell,
    Jul 25, 2012 5:20 PM   in reply to ComputerNovice25
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    Well, QuickTime Animation codec works out of the box on all Macs.  So I can use it to transfer files between myself and my friend without any co-ordination of codec.  Again, I don't care if the file is big for the sake of a final render, as long as I can edit in a lossy, smaller version of it.

     

    Richard

     
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  • ComputerNovice25
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    15. ComputerNovice25,
    Jul 25, 2012 5:27 PM   in reply to Richardcavell
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    Understood, I was just trying to save you the problem of needing to render in order to edit. Sorry if it came across poorly.

     
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