I have created an output .mov quicktime file from After Effects at 23.98 fps. It looks great and plays smoothly in Quicktime. When I try to bring that same mov file back into after effects to combine with another one, it plays back jumpy and is repeating some of the frames even though my composition is set to s4 and it recognizes the file as 24. Is there something I'm missing? Can I not just import the 24 fps quicktime mov back into after effects?
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Kevin Camp on May 1, 2008 at 4:01:51 pm
if all your frame rates are consitent, you shouldn't have any duplicate frames.
if you are working in 24 fps video, then you want to be working with 23.976 as the frame rate (fcp and some other software call 23.976 23.98, but it is actually 23.976 and needs to be set that way in ae).
if that doesn't fix the problem, there have been some posts here stating that there may be a bug with ae and the 24p settings. here is the thread, the second to last post is an explanation and work around. i haven't tried it, but it may help you out.
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Justin Coupe on May 1, 2008 at 4:16:58 pm
Interesting, I tried the workaround, and that doesn't seem to be doing the trick. The funny thing is, I'm not importing from another program, I am bringing a file in that I rendered from After Effects 2 seconds earlier back into after effects! Hmmm, odd, not sure what to think of this.
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Kevin Camp on May 1, 2008 at 4:35:12 pm
when you bring the rendered clip back into ae, drag it straight onto the make comp icon, then see if you get any duplicate frames.... this method of creating a comp will ensure that the clip and the comp have the same frame rate, so you should not see any duplicates/skips/stutters. if you do then there is a problem.
if the drag clip to icon method does work, then the problem you may be having with the bringing the render into another comp is most likely due to a frame rate mismatch. check the comp's frame rate to see if it matches the render's frame rate. if it doesn't, you have two choices, change the comp's frame rate, or change the render's frame rate.
obviously, the comp can be set right there in the comp settings window; to change the rendered footage, select the footage in the project window and choose file>interpret footage>main... set the frame rate to the frame rate of the comp that you are placing the footage into. or you can rerender the footage after setting the original rendered comp's frame rate to the other comp's frame rate.
if that sounds confusing, all you want is all your footage and comps to have the same rate. so for 24p video, you would like that to be 23.976 fps (or maybe that frame rate suggested by pierre in the thread i linked to)....
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Dave LaRonde on May 1, 2008 at 4:27:49 pm
Aw, jeez, just screw the film frame rate and work in 29.97, or 25 in PAL-land. You'd be FLOORED by how much the motion of progressive-scan video ( such as files rended with NO interlacing in AE) looks like the motion of film.
Once you get to know AE a little better, then you can get into the subtle nuances and the extra hoops you have to jump through to do a film frame rate effectively.
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Kevin Camp on May 1, 2008 at 4:54:00 pm
[Dave LaRonde]"Aw, jeez, just screw the film frame rate and work in 29.97"
yep... if you are not combining the rendered footage with already shot 24p footage, 29.97 progressive would be a better way to go.
if you are ever asked to work on a project where someone talks about wanting to shoot in 24p, you might want to suggest that they shoot in 30p (29.97p). many cameras can shoot in 30p, even if they don't have 24p capabilities, and the workflow is much simpler and there are fewer headaches and no pulldown problems...
i know this wasn't the problem you are facing, just a suggestion to anyone thinking about 24p. unless you want to do a film print, or more easily create content to be both in pal and ntsc, 30p is a simpler way to go, and you'll get 20% better resolution in ntsc....
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Justin Coupe on May 1, 2008 at 5:30:37 pm
Well, dragging the footage directly onto the make comp icon still produces the same result, and trying to match the frame rates manually produces nothing different.
I have been working for with After Effects for a while and know the program pretty well, this is the only problem we have had so far that we haven't been able to figure out.
Unfortunately, our entire film is in 24 so we can't work in another format. I'm not sure what else to try, but it does seem a little buggy to me.
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Kevin Camp on May 1, 2008 at 5:52:18 pm
[Justin Coupe]"dragging the footage directly onto the make comp icon still produces the same result"
can you play the footage back in quicktime (or media player)? do you see the duplicate frames?
if you do, are the duplicate frames in movement of animated (key framed in ae) movement or in video footage that was in the rendered comp?
if it was in the video footage, then it is most likely a frame rate mismatch with that footage and the rendered comp.
is it possible to describe the basic structure of the rendered comp that is showing the duplicate frames? like the comp settings, what primary elements are in it, if there is video footage, what the frame rate of the footage is (particularly the frame rate listed in the interpret footage settings, sometimes ae gets it wrong and you have to correct it).
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Justin Coupe on May 1, 2008 at 6:09:11 pm
the funny thing is, when the footage is played back in quicktime, it plays perfectly smooth in 24. In the movie inspector, it says the rate is 23.98, playing at 24. And I have tried every combination in AE of frame rates.
There is no footage in the rendered comp. It is basically movement of a photograph using motion and scale keyframes, with some blur and liquify effects. That's it. But again, it plays fine in quicktime, just not when it is imported back into AE. Even when I double click on it from within the project window in AE, it plays smooth on its own, just not when it is in the composition window.
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Justin Coupe on May 1, 2008 at 6:17:59 pm
The footage viewer plays smoothly. RAM preview and Spacebar do not play smoothly. Even going through frame by frame on the comp timeline clearly shows that frames are being doubled for some reason.
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Kevin Camp on May 1, 2008 at 6:16:58 pm
well if it looks good in quicktime, and when you get the rendered footage frame rate (from the interpret footage settings) and the comp's frame rate to match and you still get duplicate frames, then i'd have to say there must be something that ae is doing wrong...
i think i would post this on adobe's ae forum and see what they come up with over there, this isn't something i've ever encounted.
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Jerry Chan on Jun 26, 2008 at 8:47:42 pm
I've encountered the same exact thing. When I step through my initial 23.98 AE output in Quicktime, there are no duplicate frames, and it plays back smoothly. But when I re-import the output back into AE and drop it on the Comp icon, I get duplicate frames as I step through the timeline. After I re-output it, the duplicate frames are still there when I playback with Quicktime.
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Dave LaRonde on Jun 26, 2008 at 10:04:06 pm
[Jerry Chan]"When I step through my initial 23.98 AE output in Quicktime, there are no duplicate frames, and it plays back smoothly. But when I re-import the output back into AE and drop it on the Comp icon, I get duplicate frames as I step through the timeline. After I re-output it, the duplicate frames are still there when I playback with Quicktime. "
Are you using Sony Vegas, by any chance? Vegas plays 24p footage -- which is actually 23.976 frames/sec spread across 29.97 frames/sec -- and automatically removes the 3:2 pulldown for playback. It does NOT remove the pulldown from the footage, which remains at 29.97. And if you render such footage in a 23.976 (or 23.98) AE comp, you are good and truly hosed.
Working in film frame rates in the NTSC system isn't rocket science, but neither is it a no-brainer. You have to know about these things before you blithely launch off into using it.
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Dave LaRonde on Jun 26, 2008 at 10:15:30 pm
Now, if I'm not mistaken, the HVX ALWAYS records 720p at 59.94. If you shoot 24p, the HVX adds the appropriate pulldown, and then you have to capture it properly to get the HVX or the corresponding deck to play out at 23.976 (aka 23.98), resulting in a 23.976 (aka 23.98) file.
So... did you capture in FCP in the appropriate way? In other words, did you just try it intuitively, or did you READ THE MANUAL???
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Jerry Chan on Jun 26, 2008 at 10:33:46 pm
Yes, I imported it correctly; I work with HVX footage all the time. Again, the original output plays perfectly fine with no duplicate frames. Any issues with the HVX source footage would've appeared in the original render. The problem arises when I bring this output BACK into AE.
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Dave LaRonde on May 1, 2008 at 6:02:24 pm
Okay, now it's time to ask some probing questions, because there could be frame rate and pulldown issues aplenty:
When you say "film", what do you actually mean:
• Moving images shot on actual celluloid, then transferred to, say, 2K files or image sequences?
• Motion picture film transferred to videotape?
• Moving images shot on a video camera?
If you really mean "moving images shot on a video camera",what kind of camera was used for shooting?
If you really mean EITHER "moving images shot on a video camera", OR "motion picture film transferred to videotape", we continue:
• Standard Definition or High Definition?
• How was the footage brought into AE? Did you export an edit timeline? Did you export individual clips? Did you capture video, then import the raw files into AE, thereby bypassing the editing process?
• Does the term, "3:2 Pulldown" mean anything to you?
And finally, what is your editing software? Avid? Final Cut Pro? Vegas?
Believe it or not, this kind of minutia can have a very great bearing on your situation.
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Justin Coupe on May 1, 2008 at 6:15:36 pm
Well, we have shot on DV 24p advanced Standard definition and removed the frames so we are editing on a 24p timeline in FCP.
But this shouldn't matter because we are not having trouble with that footage, the problem is a rendered 24 comp from after effects that is a movement over a photograph. It has nothing to do with any footage that is being brought in, only a mov file that was originally created in AE and brought back in.
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Dave LaRonde on May 2, 2008 at 12:02:08 am
As Kevin says, this is a new one one me. I echo his recommendation to ask about it on the Adobe web site in the AE forum. You've gone to great pains to explain what's going on, and this is downright weird.
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Chris Wright on Jun 27, 2008 at 12:14:32 am
this may be a hit or a miss,but what if you re-encoded it uncompressed from FCP or quicktime player and tried importing back into AE. Then you'd know if AE is malfunctioning.
Re: importing 24fps, jumpy by Jerry Chan on Jun 27, 2008 at 12:24:55 am
Funny you should suggest this, as I just re-exported the file from Quicktime as Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2, and when I imported it into AE, it seemed to do the trick. The original file was compressed with the Animation codec, which usually doesn't have any framerate issues.
