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Video preview in AE CS4 looks grainy and degraded
Hi
I’ve been at it for a day and a half and I cannot figure this out!I’m capturing SD 29.97 footage in Final Cut Pro 7.
I import that footage into After Effects CS4 and it looks like hell in my SD broadcast monitor.
In final cut the footage looks perfect, just like on the tapes. Why is there such a dramatic difference in the way it’s being displayed? I’m not re-compressing anything past the initial capture and as I said it looks as good as SD can look.
Both programs accessing the same footage, but it looks way different!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Gilbert
I’m going through firewire and a canon GL-2.
2.8 GHz 8-core 10 GB ram
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12 Replies
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Is the footage being correctly Interpreted in AE as far as field order?
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Yes, it is interpreted as lower field. I’ve toggled that on and off and there is a slight difference. It looks closer to the Final Cut Pro version when I enable the “Match Legacy After Effects Quicktime Gamma Adjustments”. But from what I’ve been reading, I shouldn’t have to mess with that. Are my Color settings or working space settings messed up?
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Could you post a screen shot, maybe two, showing the difference?
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Also,
Does it look fine on your computer monitor and only bad on the broadcast? Could be a video out thing.
Joey -
I uploaded screenshots from each. As far a video out thing, Final Cut Pro displays the footage without issue. It becomes really noticeable as the shots play. The noise in the final cut pro version is acceptable but in After effects it looks as though it got compressed.
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After Effects
Final_cut_Pro
Sorry bout that.
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I don’t know if it’s hard to tell based on these 2 stills but it basically looks like someone turned up the Gamma in After Effects revealing noise. Now if it’s just that After Effects is displaying it that way and not actually altering the footage I think I can live with it but, still, it seems logical that there should be no difference between the way the two Apps display the footage as it will affect what I do to it.
Incidently, what would be the best preflight checklist for DV NTSC widescreen 29.97 footage that is to be processed in After Effects. What’s the best footage interpretation, color space etc. The end result will be an SD DVD.
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Just drag your footage into the “make new comp” icon. How does it look then? If your broadcast monitor can switch to 16×9 do so.
Joey -
Yeah, that’s what I do. But the clip looks grainy and brighter than it does in Final Cut. Is there a way to dial in After Effects’ display settings to closer match what’s going on in Final Cuts display settings?
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You really shouldn’t need to change anything. Make sure your video display settings are set for 525 NTSC. How are you exporting out of FCP? That could be the issue.
Joey
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