Is After Effect Ready for HD? HD hard drive storage units? Render farm computers

hello cows

I have heard rumors .... from a very bad source..... that after effects is not truely HD ready. From what I can understand all of the effect that are built into after effect are designed for NTSC standard def broadcast. So when you made a HD comp and then use AE normal effect the effect will look bad because they are not high def? I have also seen a lot of companies making effect that are custom for HD. So what is the difference between these?

I also have some Hardware question. We are a medium size company and are moving up fast. So what kind of storage units would any one suggest for us. Currently we have 3 tera of storage on a unity system for avid but we need more for the graphics department. We are thinking of going to a SAN Drive with fiber optic connections.

Finaly what kind of computers would be best for a render farm and how many. We mostly do after effects and Maya renders on these computers Currently we have 4 Dual Zion processor computers. please post links to websites if at all possible.

Thanks Cows

I'll just chime in and agree with Rick here.

Somehow there's an ongoing 'rumor' that After Effects isn't a professional tool, or not up to high-end film work. And thats far from the truth.

Some people prefer a node-based compositor like Shake or Digital Fusion (not DFX+, because it's 8-bit). But After Effects has a very clean high-quality renderer. And the suggestion that After Effects effects aren't capable of working at HD resolution is utter and complete crap. Nonsense. There's a couple of 3rd party plugins that are limited to NTSC or PAL comps, so the developer can make some more money off of HD licenses. But that's all.

A main advantage of Shake is that it works in floating point color space, but eLin is a workable workaround. I'd prefer the option to work in float in AE, but eLin works for now.

Just know that After Effects is the compositing tool of choice for The Orphanage (Hellboy, The Day After Tomorrow...) and many at Tippett Studio's prefer it over Shake.

Thought you might like to know.

And fibre SAN seems to be the choice at the higher end facilities...

Bar3nd

Forum COWmunity leader for:
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If it was a bad source, and only a rumor, why did you believe it?

Elvis is dead?

Ummm NOT.

We've used AE to create moving clips at 4160 x 1792 to fill an 80 foot by 50 foot projection screen made by blending 8 XGA projectors. This is somewhere north of film res. Sharp, beautiful, and nary an artifact to be found. The highest of the high end post houses use AE alongside every other tool... Inferno.... Saber.... Smoke.... Shake... You'll find AE working right alongside.

AE has ALWAYS been resolution independent.

Use with confidence.

Best,
Bob


Creative Director
Mode Studios / Monarch Designs
http://www.monarchdesigns.com
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

i've been using AE for 10 years now, and of course the mind tends to wander...
so what's so great about shake?
what's this 'floating point color' thing?
does 'node based' compositing achieve a better result?
does shake produce better composites?

thanks!
b