I’ve been staring at this timeline for six hours and I’m honestly just about to lose it with the smart features in Premiere lately. I’m working on this big corporate brand film for a tech firm here in Chicago and the deadline is breathing down my neck—three weeks left and I’m still stuck doing tedious manual masking because the auto-rotoscope keeps losing the subject every time they walk behind a chair. It’s supposed to be AI powered but it feels like I’m fighting the software more than I’m actually editing.
I tried using some of those web-based AI tools that everyone keeps talking about on social media but they just turn the footage into mush. The resolution drops or it looks like a weird oil painting when I try to remove a stray power line in the background. I have a decent budget—willing to drop maybe 80 or 100 bucks a month on a specialized tool if it actually saves me the headache—but I need something that integrates into a professional workflow without making me export and re-import ten different times.
The audio is another nightmare. Adobe’s podcast tool is okay but it makes everyone sound like a robot if there’s even a little bit of echo in the room. I just want something that can handle:
I’m really looking for tools that people are actually using in their day-to-day paid work, not just some cool demo you saw on Twitter. Is anyone actually using Runway for real client work or is that still just for experimental stuff? What about Topaz? I’ve heard mixed things about their upscaling speed and whether it’s worth the price tag for a single-use case.
Honestly just fed up with the hype vs the reality of these tools and I need to get this project wrapped before I lose my mind. Which AI tools are actually reliable for high-end video work right now?
man i feel your pain with those premiere glitches... it's basically a coin toss whether the auto-masking actually follows the subject or just gives up halfway. honestly if you want to save money in the long run i might suggest jumping over to Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio 19 for the heavy lifting. the magic mask is way more reliable and its just a one-time fee so you arent bleeding cash every month. be careful with those browser-based ai tools tho... they usually kill the bit depth and make things look like a blurry mess. for the audio junk i would suggest Waves Clarity Vx Pro Noise Reduction. it is usually on sale and does a much better job than adobes podcast tool without those weird robotic artifacts. if you do try Topaz Video AI 5.0 Upscaling Software just make sure to test a small clip first. it works wonders on power lines but it will absolutely cook your gpu if you aren't careful with the settings.
Saw this and had to warn ya... be careful with the AI hype, most of it still needs a human touch.
I was hesitant about spending more on plugins, but honestly, I am so satisfied with the tracking tools from Boris FX. I used them on a similar tech firm project recently and the masks stayed glued to the subjects perfectly. Its a much more professional workflow than fighting with Premiere all day. You really cant go wrong with their suite for high-end cleanup work.
> Adobe’s podcast tool is okay but it makes everyone sound like a robot if there’s even a little bit of echo in the room. Late to the party here but I totally get why you are frustrated with the robot voices lol. I’m usually pretty careful about spending money on new tools unless I know they work but I found this amazing deep-dive video on YouTube that fixed everything for me. Honestly just search for professional ai audio restoration comparison and look for the one with the most views from this year. It explains exactly how to tweak the settings so it sounds natural instead of like a computer talking. I also spent some time browsing the editors subreddit and found a whole thread about those masking issues you mentioned. It’s way better to just see what the pros are actually using there before dropping 100 bucks on a random site. I’m super happy with the results I got just by following those free guides... definitely saved me some cash.
Ive tried many tools over the years and honestly some cloud apps are finally viable for paid work. In my experience, you need tools that handle spectral data properly. Here is what I use:
> Adobe’s podcast tool is okay but it makes everyone sound like a robot if there’s even a little bit of echo in the room. To add to the point above, I totally agree... that Adobe tool is basically just a toy for social clips, not professional corporate work. In my experience over the years, the AI noise removal in Premiere just eats the frequencies you actually need. I've switched to using Supertone Clear Real-time De-noise Plugin for my cleanup. It’s way more transparent and you can dial back the processing so it doesn't sound processed or phasey. For the masking and object removal, if you're tired of the auto-roto failing, you really gotta try Mocha Pro 2024 Planar Tracking. Its not a magic delete button, but the tracking is rock solid for those tech firm office shots. It doesn't get confused by people walking behind chairs because it tracks the plane, not just the pixels. Its been the industry standard for a reason way before the AI hype train started. Lastly, for those captions, Descript Video Editor has been a lifesaver for me. It uses better speech-to-text models than Adobe. It actually understands technical jargon, which is huge for those Chicago tech clients. It costs a bit monthly but it’s worth it just to avoid manual typing.
In my experience over the years, hardware architecture plays a massive role in how these neural engines actually perform under load, so I have to ask: what kind of workstation specs are you running on? Are you on a multi-GPU PC setup or a Silicon-based Mac? Also, what kind of drive throughput are you seeing when the masking starts to fail? This whole situation actually reminds me of a nightmare project I saw a few years back with a production house in London. They were doing a similar high-stakes brand film and the lead editor was convinced the software was just broken. It turned out to be this bizarre thermal throttling issue where the AI inference would literally lose its mind once the machine hit a certain temperature. They spent about five days just swapping out power supplies and trying to figure out why the metadata was corrupting mid-render. It turned into a massive ordeal where they had to bring in a specialist just to salvage the project files from a failing RAID array before they could even think about the rotoscoping. It was one of those projects where every single automated feature just cascaded into a bigger mess because the underlying infrastructure wasnt stable enough for the processing demands.
Yep been there done that. Can confirm everything said above is spot on.