PrElv8 and PSEv8 Reviews

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

There's also a demo here; click on the link in the first post.

viewtopic.php?f=81&t=6288

[Bob]

There's also one here: http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/explore/. Select the "video editing" tab and view the first guided tour video under What's new.

[Kurt]

Well, there's a demo of it right at the top of the Adobe products page.
http://www.adobe.com/products/premieree ... iew=topnew

That's a big D'oh! Steve! Thanks.

Gee, it's easy to get lazy and stoopid on the Net, eh?

[Kurt]

There's also one here: http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/explore/. Select the "video editing" tab and view the first guided tour video under What's new.

Okay, Bob, so the "motion tracking" in 8 is basically adding an element that will follow a moving part of the scene.

It makes me wonder, if you have a panning shot of, say, a landscape, then the whole landscape is your "moving element" in relation to the frame. In that case, if you introduce another element, such as a jpg of a building, and apply that new feature, would you be able to make that building "follow" the movement of the landscape, in other words, staying attached in place at the point where you placed it, while the landscape (actually the camera),"moved" across the screen?

If so, that would be a great way to add something to a scene and have it look like it's part of the landscape no matter how much the camera moves around.

Am I right?
Kurt.

[Bob]

I do that in After Effects and it works great, but the motion tracking there is far superior to Premiere Elements -- especially with After Effects CS4 which bundles Mocha. I don't have Premiere Elements 8, so I don't know how well that will work.

According to the help file, Premiere Elements 8 can do a manual or an automated tracking. Automated tracking analyses the clip and detects objects that are moving and displays the yellow bounding box for you to attach your object to. In manual tracking, you place the yellow bounding box on an object and size the box and it will track the motion of that object. If you place the tracking box on a still feature, it should track the position as it moves in the frame and what you attach to it should follow the motion. So to that extent, it looks like what you are asking may work. However, Premiere Elements 8 only uses a single trackpoint so you can account for horizontal and vertical motion, but not for rotation. The other thing that would need to be explored is what does it consider "clip art". The help file only talks about attaching clip art to the tracked object. Not having the product, I don't know how you add clip art and whether it can be an arbitrary raster object (i.e. a photo). I assume you couldn't attach a video clip. Those would be a good questions for someone that has the product to try out. Steve? Anyone...?

[Kurt]

Yeah, I've seen demos that use that AE feature, in Video Copilot. To me, that's the Holy Grail of effects.

Maybe I should just go ahead and download the trial and check out that feature.

Thanks, Bob.

[Paul LS]

You can attach anything Bob, one of the clips arts or a photo, a video clip, title...

[Bob]

Thanks, Paul!

[Kurt]

Well, I checked it out. I selected a panning shot, and then clicked on the "Tracking" icon, (the three yellow balls). The app analysed the shot, and when it finished, applied a yellow border around the whole frame. Obviously, the analysis was looking for some element in the frame that moved in relation to the edges of the frame. Since everything inside the frame was in fact so moving, it probably applied a yellow border around the whole frame...again. This second border, (if it in fact had been applied) would be invisible since it was in the same place as the original edge border.

So, the upshot is that there was no yellow-bordered-moving-element in the shot to track, or to glue another image to.

Pity. Would have made the upgrade worth buying. Makes me ask the same question I always ask myself....why is After Effects so expensive?! Sniff! [inconsolable sobbing icon.]

[Bob]

Kurt,

Try using manual tracking instead of analysed tracking. See this help entry page for details: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PremiereElements/8.0/Win/Using/WS2fa0b309bba5bdb1189225de12303a06a78-8000.html

[Kurt]

Thanks for the link, Bob. But Tony Romano over at the Premiere 7 forum did a test and it worked, and he posted a short tutorial there.

So, I'll see how I go.

Cheers,
Kurt.