Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Jayson Rahmlow on Mar 4, 2008 at 2:52:02 am
Thanks again Dave. I think I'll take your suggestion and use the animation codec. I just found out that ProRes doesn't have an alpha channel.
Also, I didn't realize ae's HDV exports are unusable too. I thought it would only stutter when the source was HDV. I don't get it, it seems like this is a problem for 2006, not 2008.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Dave LaRonde on Mar 4, 2008 at 5:01:35 pm
...or that old Quicktime standby, the Animation codec, which is lossless, supports Alpha Channels, creates smaller file sizes than Uncompressed and is FREE.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Jayson Rahmlow on Mar 4, 2008 at 6:16:34 pm
Thanks Paolo, yeah I looked at the bitjazz website, authors of the sheervideo codec. I was thinking of buying the educational version. Does anyone have any experience with it. Is it better at all than the animation codec.
Also, Dave, I ended up using the animation codec in the end. It works but it still needs to render before it plays on the fcp's hdv timeline. I'd like to find a solution that plays in real time if possible.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Dave LaRonde on Mar 4, 2008 at 7:07:50 pm
[Jayson Rahmlow]"I'd like to find a solution that plays in real time if possible. "
If you don't need an alpha channel, and you're rendering out of AE on the same box where FCP lives, you should have access to Prores.
If you simply want to drop your AE renders into your HDV timeline, you may not every be able to play in real time.
Believe me, you DON'T want to render out in HDV. It is a lossy codec. You'll start losing picture quality. That's why HDV is not recommended as an effects codec, and why many people who have to do rendering capture HDV in a different codec. Yes, you'll need more drive space. But if you want to preserve picture quality, it's worth it.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Jayson Rahmlow on Mar 4, 2008 at 8:45:23 pm
Thanks for taking the time to spell it out for me Dave. I do a lot of effects work, and practically everything I shoot I key things out of. So I guess I'll be buying another external drive for my mac book pro soon to fill up with prores and animation files. And I'll be waiting for ProRes to add an alpha channel while my animation clips render.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Paul Conigliaro on Mar 4, 2008 at 9:12:05 pm
In the end, the added cost of the drive is worth it compared to the time you'll save by not working in HDV. If you can, I'd highly recommend not cutting in an HDV timeline to begin with. Transcode the footage to ProRes or Apple Intermediate Codec (though the latter is still a 4:1:0 compression) on capture or through Compressor afterwards. Your storage requirements go up, but you'll avoid problems like this in AE and the dreaded "Comforming to HDV" progress window in FCP.
(Also, Command-Shift-3 and Command-Shift-4 are your friends ;)
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Jayson Rahmlow on Mar 5, 2008 at 12:03:48 am
So to sum up, I need to make some changes to my workflow. I should work with an fcp sequence with its quicktime video settings set to Animation (or sheervideo if I buy it.) Then convert all hdv footage into animation (or sheervideo) and then I can go between fcp and ae without having to render on the timeline. And also I don't have to worry about generational loss. And I can work with an alpha channel. But I'm going to have to buy a terabyte or two's worth of hard drive cause the files will be huge.
thanks for all the suggestions.
Dave, i just read your suggestions on keying. I'll definitely check out that video. So far all I've done is output my video's into websized files 480x210ish sizes. And I have a "loving hands at home" style so most is forgiven (see my website for examples.) But I do have the ultimate goal of hd+ projection. So I think I must heed everyone's advice here and adopt the above workflow to keep from making the people of the future watch really grainy, mosquito-y, if charming video.
As for keying with HDV. It's the best I can afford right now. I'm using the hv20. And also it helps that most of my keyed video ends up being about a quarter to fifty percent of its original size in the final video.
And paul you're right, command+shift + 3 or 4 are very nice.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Paolo Ciccone on Mar 6, 2008 at 7:18:00 pm
Hmmm, the idea of transcoding, even with ProRes is not something that I would advice. If you want to convert to a lossless codec than OK but otherwise, if your original footage is in HDV, I would edit in that format while being careful to not render in HDV.
For example, if you capture footage from your HDV camera, via FW, you end up with a data dump that is exactly what is stored on the tape. No generation loss. If you edit in Premiere or FCP, directly in HDV, you don't loose anything as long as the codec implementation is accurate.
Once you need to go to AE you have a couple of options, all better than transcoding (here "better" means no quality loss):
- In Premiere/AE you just import the project thus referring to the original HDV clips. No generation loss.
- For FCP to AE you can use the FCPtoAE script or Automatic Duck to do the same. Your AE project will have a Sequence that links to the same unmodified HDV clips.
- Convert the NLE sequence to an lossless format and then import in AE.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Paul Conigliaro on Mar 6, 2008 at 8:09:41 pm
The problem with cutting in native HDV is that HDV is an inter-frame codec, and anything beyond simple cuts and dissolves results in the wonderful "Conforming to HDV" dialog in FCP (as it essentially has to recompress everything anyway... and from HDV-> HDV, resulting in image quality loss). If you're cutting a native HDV sequence, there's no getting around rendering in HDV.
By transcoding to an intra-frame codec (at least one with less compression and higher color resolution, like ProRes) results in little to no image quality loss and the ability to do much more in an edit and with graphics without constant conforming slowdowns.
Generally you're right, though. I'd much rather cut in native format. But with HDV (a format that should never have gone beyond consumer cameras), it's a different ball game.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Paolo Ciccone on Mar 7, 2008 at 7:14:47 am
Hi Paul.
I know about the nature of HDV and all the problems involved in recomputing GOPs but I described a procedure to avoid all that. The point in my approach is that if you use Premiere and edit in HDV and then master your video on AE you will not have any quality loss. This is because you will be import the Premiere *project* in After Effects, not a rendered video. By importing the project you end up with pointers to the original footage. AE reads the clip and then you are free to render to Uncompressed or TIFF sequences. This is by far the fastest and safest why of handling HDV.
You can achieve the same with FCP => AE by using the FCPtoAE script (google it) or Automatic Duck. The result is the same, no rendering, no transcoding.
And the rendering time required for the transitions is still lower than transcoding the whole sequence.
Now, if we are talking about *acquiring* footage than I totally agree, if you can capture *directly* from component out or HDSDI to ProRes, Cineform or Sheer then you are much better off.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Paolo Ciccone on Mar 7, 2008 at 7:22:23 am
I generally use YCbCr 10b. The different flavors depend on the use or not of Alpha channel.
I'm currently redesigning my workflow. I used to work in FCP but I'm moving to Premiere gven the amazing integration of Premiere with After Effects. I do a lot of work in AE and the ability to move back and forth in *seconds*, without rendering is plus that I cannot ignore anymore.
Given that condition my use for Sheer is much more limited today but I still use it when I need to communicate with other Applications, like SynthEyes or any other situation where I need to roundtrip and preserve the color information.
In several cases I captured HDV footage and then converted to Sheer before editing in order to have a non-GOP version of the clips that is 100% faithful to the original. Other times I used it as a compressor in FCP because after the time you spend in rendering the output of the whole sequence, even at feature length, takes just a few seconds, if you use a QuickTime reference movie.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Dave LaRonde on Mar 4, 2008 at 11:26:09 pm
[Jayson Rahmlow]"I do a lot of effects work, and practically everything I shoot I key things out of."
Then you DEFINITELY want to capture in the highest quality you can. Chroma keying depends on... well, chroma, and re-rendering an HDV can really screw up colors. It's a lot like DV in that regard.
I recommend watching a podcast by Alex Lindsay, the founder of DV Garage and Pixel Corps, called "The Road to 1080p Part 2". In it you will find an excellent description of the differences between 4-4-4, 4-2-2 and 4-1-1 color resolution, and you will come to understand the challenges of keying DV or HDV. It's WELL worth the 15 minutes it takes to watch.
As you watch if, keep in mind that Alex Lindsay runs a company that makes DV chroma keying plugins.
I alway say that shooting HDV for chroma key work is an okay idea, as long as you're going to work in standard definition. In high-def? Different story.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Jayson Rahmlow on Mar 6, 2008 at 11:01:15 pm
Dave, it turns out I was already using animation without realizing it. It's the default export setting in Motion. Which I was using before AE.
Also, I think I'll start using an offline/online workflow by exporting two copies of the video from AE or Motion: one lossless (animation or sheer video if I can figure it out.) and a second hdv version to cut with in FCP. (This will keep my firewire drive from getting bogged down by the wide bandwidth the lossless codecs require.) Then when i'm done editing the hdv I'll replace the hdv files with the lossless files. Then I get the speed of working with hdv in the hdv FCP timeline. And the quality of the lossless for the export. Think that'll work?
And I checked out that macbreak video, I liked it. I never really understood 4:2:2 vs. 4:1:1 before. Thanks.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Dave LaRonde on Mar 6, 2008 at 5:35:24 pm
[Paolo Ciccone]"Nothing against Animation, I just find Sheer faster and smaller."
Likewise, nothing against Sheer in particular. I just find the idea of paying a lot of money for a codec to be repulsive. I feel that every codec in the world should be priced like a commodity, like water, salt, grain, or electricity. It's a quirk of mine.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Paolo Ciccone on Mar 6, 2008 at 7:10:54 pm
Hmm, I actually thought that Sheer's price was pretty fair. I worked in the software development industry and writing software is an extremely costly and risky business. If you make software for the consumer level then you can afford to be sloppy, see Microsoft Office, but at the pro video level you need very solid coding and that costs a lot of money because good developers want to be paid good money. Every month :)
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Dave LaRonde on Mar 6, 2008 at 8:15:43 pm
That might be. But then, think back several years. Quicktime Pro contained just a TON of different cross-platform-compatible codecs such as Animation, for a mere thirty bucks.
Now, THAT'S commodity pricing for something that really ought to be a commodity. And sadly, it's no longer the case.
Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Ron Lindeboom on Mar 6, 2008 at 10:11:29 pm
[Dave LaRonde]"...sadly, it's no longer the case."
No it isn't. And beating the drum against it doesn't help. I know, I hated it when Apple began to charge for their OS software after nearly 15 years or so of getting it free.
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Re: AE Composited video stutters in FCP by Owen Smithyman on Apr 15, 2008 at 6:23:22 am
Hello all,
I'm with SheerVideo tech support, and I'd like to say to anyone who has any questions at all about SheerVideo: if you can't find all the answers you need by searching through forums, by all means please email us at BitJazz!
For informational questions: info [at] bitjazz.com
For customer service: service [at] bitjazz.com
We'll be happy to answer any questions you may have, so please don't hesitate to contact us.
I'd also like to do a little plugging: SheerVideo is 1/2 price from now until the end of NAB!
