@Mark.
Mark, this definitely seems to be what I am looking for, only my specific footage / codec does not seem to be supported yet for this feature. My Canon EOS 5D Mark III saves its video files in the MOV format, using MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 encoding. Thereby I set the compression methods to ALL-I. But quoting from the article you linked the supported codecs for the smart rendering feature are:
http://blogs.adobe.com/kevinmonahan/2012/10/11/smart-rendering-in-premiere-pro-cs6-6-0-1-a nd-later/
“ Smart Rendering Formats updated in Premiere Pro CC
In Premiere Pro CC, the following formats are accelerated:
- AVC-Intra in MXF (Format > MXF OP1a)
- AVC-Intra Class50
- AVC-Intra Class100
- DNxHD in MXF (Format > DNxHD MXF OP1a)
- DNxHD (QuickTime)
- ProRes (QuickTime)
- ProRes Proxy
- ProRes LT
- ProRes 422
- ProRes 422 (HQ)
- ProRes4444
- Animation (QuickTime) ”
So as far as I can see my Canon EOS 5DMIII format/codec is not included in this list?
But this is the feature I was looking for, especially since the blog article states that one of the results, next to faster output render times, is the avoidance of recompression. From the same blog article quote:
“ Smart rendering in Premiere Pro has been available for DV and DVCPro formats for years, but since Premiere Pro CS6 (6.0.1), many more formats have been added.
In Premiere Pro CS6 (6.0.1, and later), smart rendering capability has been added for Long GOP MPEG2 OP1a exports, where the original material is a matching long GOP MPEG2 OP1a or XDCAM EX file. The intention is that smart rendering creates better quality output by avoiding recompression when possible.”
“The feature is specifically for accelerating render times for long GOP MPEG2 and essences and certain QuickTime codecs (in Premiere Pro CC), while avoiding recompression.”
“Which new formats are now accelerated?
Source media that is either XDCAM HD in an MXF wrapper (ie 4:2:0 XDCAM HD @ 18/25/35 mbits/second, or 4:2:2 XDCAM HD @ 50 mbits/sec.), or XDCAM EX (.mp4 wrapper within a BPAV folder structure, 18/35 mbits/second).”
“What do I have to do for it to work?
Nothing for DV or DVCPro formats, smart rendering automatically engages. For XDCAM formats, check the checkbox for smart rendering in the XDCAM exporter plug-in. If you have these types of clips in your timeline in a sequence with matching settings, are exporting out to MXF OP1a with a matching preset, and the checkbox is checked in the XDCAM exporter plug-in, it’ll engage. It’ll also figure out if there’s any effects applied and fall back to regular rendering if needed.”
“What kind of acceleration are we talking about exactly?
Well, the idea is that for untouched clips, recompressing frames is probably going to take longer than simply copying the data directly from the source clip. Now, it’s not quite as simple as that, as if you have edit points that don’t land on I frame boundaries, then there’s some partial GOP ’healing’ that needs to happen, but we don’t need to get into the nitty gritty here. Anyway, provided you have good disk i/o, the render numbers are a fair bit better.”
So although it seemed my camera’s codec is not supported, I decided to try it anyway. Especially because in the recommended video on this Adobe Blog site by reTooled.net it said you just have to try, because sometimes other codecs not mentioned do work as well.
Video link reTooled.net = http://vimeo.com/62438789
But when checking the “Match Sequence Settings” checkbox on the Export Settings dialogue box, it for some reason or other changes my output quality to 50. See at the screenshot under “Summary/Output ….. Progressive, Quality 50”.
And comparing at 200% I could see some quality loss, although not too much even. And the scope showed a small difference as well.
So it seems I get stuck here, but it anyway already became much more tech than I am able to handle.
So for now I think my solution for uploading slices of my original content without audio will be: import into Premiere Pro; Select the portion I want; mute audio; export high quality PhotoJPEG MOV file without audio.
I hope this will do the trick too!
Thank you for responding, and also maybe for reading this long post!
Greetz Sebastiaan