New in July 2020: Playback Improvements for H.264 and HEVC on Windows
Collaborating with technology partners to drive quality and performance for our video applications.
Roto Brush 2, a new feature in development, is available in the After Effects Beta.
As part of our ongoing commitment to enhancing the quality and performance of our applications, today’s updates to Premiere Pro and After Effects offer improved playback for H.264 and H.265/HEVC formats on Windows Intel systems. Providing up to 2X playback performance improvements for H.264 and H.265/HEVC, the latest optimizations build on our existing Intel QuickSync hardware acceleration.
Today’s updates also offer new support for exporting ProRes 4444 XQ on macOS. Improved multi-cam performance for ProRes is available now in Beta and will be coming soon in Premiere Pro.
The QuickSync optimizations for Windows are the result of ongoing collaboration between the Adobe and Intel engineering teams, as described in this article posted by Intel in April. Working closely with our partners is a cornerstone of our commitment to improving performance across our applications. In May we announced hardware acceleration for AMD and NVIDIA GPUs on Windows, also the result of engineering collaborations between our teams.
Just as we do, our hardware partners test the Adobe applications on an ongoing basis. HP recently published performance data for Premiere Pro, Premiere Rush, and Adobe Media Encoder and NVIDIA has been busy testing GPU acceleration. And today, AMD posted a detailed article showing CPU and GPU test results with Premiere Pro across a range of mobile platforms.
Export Apple ProRes 4444 XQ on macOS
With the July update, we now offer ProRes 4444 XQ export on macOS in both QuickTime and MXF formats. The feature requires macOS Catalina (10.15). Previously, ProRes 4444 XQ export was only available on Windows 10 systems. With this update, users can now export Apple’s high-quality codec on both Windows and macOS platforms.
In public Beta: Improved multi-cam playback for ProRes
We are making improvements to multi-cam playback for Apple ProRes footage. Available now in public Beta, these improvements will be coming to Premiere Pro soon.
In public Beta: Roto Brush 2, powered by Adobe Sensei
First announced in June, Roto Brush 2 is currently available in After Effects Beta. As part of our larger initiative to improve performance and accelerate workflows, Roto Brush 2 uses Adobe Sensei machine learning to generate mattes that follow objects frame-by-frame, making rotoscoping simpler and faster for video editors and visual effects artists. The feature is already getting positive attention from users, including this recent interview with VFX artist Nick Khoo, posted by Josh Olufemii (@madebyolufemii) on YouTube.
“It’s remarkable how accurate this thing is,” says Nick Khoo about Roto Brush 2.
If you’re using the release versions of Premiere Pro and After Effects for your production work, you can still use Beta builds to access features like Roto Brush 2 within your larger workflow. Beta builds install separately from the release versions of the applications and have their own preferences, so you can run them side-by-side with your production tools.
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