Specifications

21
A Digital Video Primer
Post-production
What comes out of production is a collection of clips: shots taken in dierent places at dierent
times. To actually develop and deliver your story, you need to edit and assemble your clips and,
perhaps, add visual eects, graphics, titles, and a soundtrack. is part of the process is called
post-production, and this is where Adobe enters the picture, with Adobe Production Studio,
which includes four of the industry’s leading soware applica-
tions specically designed for post-production:
• Adobe Premiere Pro: real-time editing for HD, SD, and DV
• Adobe After Effects: the industry standard for motion graph-
ics and visual eects
• Adobe Audition®: integrated audio recording, mixing, edit-
ing, and mastering
• Adobe Encore® DVD: the essential tool for DVD creation
Production Studio applications work seamlessly with Adobe’s
desktop imaging soware:
• Adobe Photoshop®: the professional standard in desktop digital imaging
• Adobe Illustrator®: vector graphics reinvented
Adobe Production Studio brings new power and eciency to your lm, video, DVD, and web
workows. Part of the Adobe Creative Suite family, Adobe Production Studio Premium soware
is a complete post-production solution that combines Adobe’s video and graphics soware with
the timesaving integration and workow features Adobe Dynamic Link and Adobe Bridge.
In the next sections, you’ll nd useful information about post-production techniques. We have
used our own products to illustrate these techniques because Adobe soware products adhere to,
and in many cases have established, industry standards for digital video post-production. What-
ever soware you choose, the material in this primer will help you learn about what’s involved in
the post-production process.
Acquiring source material
You’ve congured your system. You’ve shot or gathered some video. You are eager to begin post-
production, but rst you need to gather all of your raw material together on your computer.
You oen do not know what le formats you’ll need to handle, or what the media requirements
will be for every project. Adobe Premiere Pro imports and exports all of the leading video and
audio formats natively, and supports almost any codec that the Windows XP® operating system
supports.
You can import and work with these leading formats in Adobe Premiere Pro:
• Video files in MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DV, AVI, Windows Media 9 Series, QuickTime, HDV, and
Open DML
• Audio files in WAV, MP3, and AIFF, as well as audio-only AVI and QuickTime
• Still-image and sequence files in AI, AI sequence, PSD, PSD sequence, JPEG, TGA, TGA
sequence, TIFF, TIFF sequence, PCX, BMP, and BMP sequence
Capturing analog video
You may still need to capture analog footage, so it’s best to choose format-independent soware,
like Adobe Premiere Pro, that is designed to handle a wide variety of video formats, such as
composite, component, S-Video, SDI, and HD. You can digitize analog video directly into Adobe
Premiere Pro by connecting your analog video player or camcorder to your computer through
digitizing hardware, like a video capture card. Digitizing capability is built into some personal
computers, but in most cases, must be added to a system by installing a compatible hardware
capture card. For more information, see “Do you need a video capture card?” on page 18 of this
primer.
Applications included in Adobe Production Studio