Need to pick your brains about NLE

[lou4uandme]

Hi,
I have been changing my work flow over the past 6 months due to software changes. In the past, I was sending my scenes (shots) (clips) to After effects via Dynamic Link.

I find myself scratching my head tryingto think of the "best" ways to render out my clips to a Targa sequence.
Am I suppose to create a work area for every clip, and render them out 1 clip at a time? This seems insane.

So my question is:
What are the methods to render of your shots to a sequence using your NLE system?
is there the "Mother-load" of NLE's that do just that?

I would love to hear from you guys,
Thanks,

[mike beckman]

I've been trying to find a sweet spot in this workflow as well. Dynamic link is a great concept, but in reality it's proven (to me) that it's not ready for prime-time.
Using dynamic link as designed (send timeline, or timeline section to AE) is certain to grind your performance to a halt. I prefer to select the clips in the Premiere timeline, copy them and paste into an AE comp. Sometimes I'll select the whole timeline (if it's a video that's primarily greenscreen clips; ie corporate video), copy to AE....this has proven to be problematic with longer sequences, and/or a large number of clips. AE definitely slows WAY down when you have a lot of media in the project. For this reason, I like to select single clips, and or smaller chunks of clips to copy from premiere to AE. The good thing is that when they are pasted into AE their placement in the timeline matches that of the Premiere timeline: certainly useful.
I'm not certain of your need to go out to a file-based workflow before bringing into AE. I'd probably convert to files before going to premiere, that way both packages are referencing the exact same media. -I will say that even if I am working on QT files, when it comes time to render in AE, I am ALWAYS going out to TIFF, or some other file-based output.

*Here's my caveat:
Dynamic link is Excellent for short form projects. I've done spot work with it and had a pretty good go of importing the AE comp into the Premiere timeline and dynamically making changes on the fly with clients in the room. HOWEVER, the deeper you get into a project the more and more things slow down (not a phenomenon unique to the CS suite to be sure).

My main concern with all of the Adobe stuff is their commitment to tightening up their existing features. At their price point, new versions have to have NEW features, which only need to be "good enough".


to get back to some of your issues.... How many clips are we talking? if you're looking to render out individual shots in one pass, you can either create a bunch of output files in the render que, or set up a master sequence which strings all of your individual comps into one sequence (not a great idea though, especially when you want to make changes).

[lou4uandme]

Well since my post, I found out that the software we're using, takes your tga sequence and breaks it up (via Scene breaks) in many short clips. So, I answered it myself.
As for Dynamic link, Yes ABSOLUTELY, it sucks.
I meant copy & paste.
I have never had an error-free project when i use Dynamic link.
Thanks, again,