IBC is just around the corner, and with that comes what seems to be Adobe’s bi-yearly tradition of major updates to the video applications.
There is so much to cover in this update to Premiere CC 2014, so let’s dive right in. Remember to read to the end because I will definitely save some of the best for last.
1. New Redesigned User Interface
This new flatter design, reminiscent of changes being made to OSX in the upcoming Yosemite release, can be found in all of the Adobe digital video application updates announced today. The goal is simple, to reduce clutter, improve readability and keep the user-interface current.
2. Search Bins
If you are an Avid user, or former Avid user, you are probably getting really exciting seeing those words and rightfully so! Premiere’s new search bins gives you the equivalent of OSX’s smart folders. Type in a search term in your Project panel and save it out as a metadata based bin. Let’s say for instance you want to have a bin of all of your footage that is an mp4 or a bin that contains all clips with the comment, wide shot. You can save out a search bin that will automatically update as you add and remove content, tags, and metadata to your project. It will reference all of your other bins and create essentially an alias to your clips for better tagging and organization. You can even modify your search parameter after the fact.
3. Find in Timeline Dialogue
We finally have a way to search our timeline. With the timeline selected, evoke the command, cmd-F. It will open a dialogue box that gives us and/or style searches of our timeline. If you hit Find, it will find the first clip that matches that criteria. If you hit Find All, it will select all matching clips, making it easier to do things like move them all to another track or merely change their label color. Probably a lesser discovered part of this feature will be to set a keyboard shortcut for the command, Find Next, which if you use the find command will find the next matching clip without having to bring up the Dialogue box again.
4. Masking and Tracking Improvements
As someone who does a lot of online editorial, this one is huge for me. Enhancing the masking tools that were introduced in the 2014 release, we not have a Pen Tool! That means we can draw custom shapes to either cut out or footage, or control what part of the clip effects get applied to. We can draw Bezier masks, and even use a custom widget to control feathering and mask expansion right on the program or source monitor. Also amazing, is that just like the circular and 4 point polygon masks introduced in 2014, the masks are fully trackable.
5. Option for Label Colors to be Persistent Across a Project
Up until now, the label colors between the project panel and the timeline were not one and the same. If you changed a label color before putting a clip in your timeline, it would of course be the same, but if you changed the label after in either place, it would not be updated in the other. Now, of course, there are some advantages to this, but people coming from Final Cut 7 might find that behavior odd. So, now you get the best of both worlds. In your project settings, just check “Display the project items name and label color for all instances” and you are good to go. Once you set it on one project, your next project will keep the same setting.
6. Adjustable Font Size in Project Panel
The user can choose between the default of medium, small or large text in the project panel.
7. Select Multiple Markers to Move or Delete
Shift select the markers in question to either delete or move them all together.
8. Timeline View for the Source Monitor
You can now open a timeline view for items in the source monitor. That allows you to make things like selects sequences, and have a ganged timeline view of that sequence in the source monitor while you use it to edit into your new timeline. The timeline tab will display as “timeline name” (Source Monitor) to let you know you are viewing the timeline for what is in the source monitor.
9. Project Manager now includes a Consolidate and Transcode Function
It’s always been a great thing that Premiere can handle nearly any file type that you throw at it. However, the big downside is that not every other program can! You have a timeline where you threw in some web proxies, mp4s, r3ds, mts, you name it, and now it’s time to get it over to your colorist in resolve. That used to be a bit of a panic moment, but now with Consolidate and Transcode, you can take only the clips that appear in your edit, transcode with handles to a file type like DNxHD MXF OP1a, MXF OP1a, or a quicktime file like Prores. Your clip resolution and frame rate will be passed through, or can be matched to your sequence if you prefer. Other notable features include the ability to transcode image sequences to clips and convert After Effects dynamic links to clips.
10. Render and Replace
Now, anyone who has used dynamic link between After Effects and Premiere is probably jumping up and down. It’s great to have a live link between the two applications, but for some really render-intensive compositions, it would be great to have the ability to render and replace the clip in your timeline. Well, we now have that ability! But it doesn’t stop there. You can also right click, and hit Restore Unrendered, to bring your dynamically linked composition back.
Just as interesting is that this isn’t limited to dynamic link. You can do this with any type of footage as well. Meaning that if you create your rough cut with .R3D files, then want to take the edit home and work on your laptop, you can render to something like prores LT and render with those clips, then when you are ready for the originals again, you can simply select all of your clips, right click, and hit Restore Unrendered. There you go, back to the originals!
11. All of the little things
- Hi DPI support for windows
- Export still frame now includes a frame reference number by default
- Alpha premultiplication settings for clips can now be user-corrected.
- GPU whitelist settings removed
- Display field information in project panel
- Sequence timecode overlay added to the overlay panel dialogue
- Codec information added to project panel
- Preference to show or hide end of sequence indicator
- Option to separate A/V streams on export
- Changed default 5.1 Layout, L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs
- Multiple Marker Colors
- Browse other projects in the media browser, and multiple projects with multiple media browser tabs
- Support for AJA CION Raw, GPU optimizations for Phantome Cine RAW
- GoPro Cineform Codec
Remember as always to check out Color reTooled, our set of color presets for Premiere and SpeedGrade and our relinking tool, reLink reTooled.
And many more things. So check with Adobe’s official documentation.
And another announcement at Vashi Visuals: http://vashivisuals.com/adobe-premiere-pro-cc-2014-1-8-1-update/
Adobe’s official announcement here:
http://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/ibc-2014-whats-coming-next-to-creative-cloud-for-video/?scid=social31198526