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Interpreting Footage, Movie Delayed
Hi, Everyone.
Unfortunately, I’ve got no too good impressions about this well-known Adobe Software.
After Effects surprised me when after I did the import of a footage (an AVI, compressed by Lagarith Lossless Video Codec, with no audio, at 23.981 frames per second), created a comp with the footage settings and worked on it (applying effects, texts and a lot of other stuff), I made a movie (composition>make movie…) and that “my stuff” is not synchronized. I had to do “Interpret Footage” and set the video framerate to 23.981 before creating comp, because that was rounded off by After Effects to 23.980 – And I’m absolutely sure that the final rendered video is not exactly like the one shown in the preview screen, inside AFX. Texts are delayed by 1 frame, and it makes a lot of difference.I can’t use some recent version, because I’ve got no hardware for it yet. My AFX is the 6.5 Pro.
Can anybody here, please, help me?
Best regards,
Dave.
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13 Replies
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the frame rate for 24p is actually 23.976 fps. some nle’s call it 23.98, but it is actually 23.976.
make sure you conform your footage to 23.976 (file>interpret footage>main) and set all your comps to 23.976 fps.
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
The footage is coming from an MKV processed with variable frame rate (that’s why it’s lossless AVI), and this footage, even in two other softwares, has the very same 23.981 fps.
And, yes, I made sure of that. The problem is what happens at the end of the rendering. It is like the layers above the AVI footage layer were delayed by one frame, but in my preview, everything is fine, synchronized.Thanks for the answer, Mr. Camp.
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hehehe, yes, MKV, the matroska container. Can you tell me if AFX has some issue when dealing with uncommon framerates, like this 23.981 one?
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ae should be able to handle any frame rate up to 99fps. the problem with 23.981fps will come later if you need to get to a broadcast frame rate, possibly even if you need to get it into a nle, which tend work with frame standard frame rates… even some codecs only use standard frame rates. dvds and blue rays also only work with standard frame rates….
what are you viewing your render in? are you bringing it back into ae to see it?
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
[Dave LaRonde]You’re making it sound like it’s a shortcoming in AE, and it’s not.
No, I’m not trying to distort anything here. I’m sorry if this is what it sounds like, I’m just trying to understand why it’s happening. I’m a beginner.
I know that the 23.981 is weird, maybe ridiculous, but at least I know why. That’s something under control, which is not the case for rendering the movie and then getting the layers not synchronized.
(i’m sorry if my english is too poor)
I just wanna know why is it happening in order to get the problem solved. That’s all. ^^v
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Kevin Camp
ae should be able to handle any frame rate up to 99fps. the problem with 23.981fps will come later if you need to get to a broadcast frame rate, possibly even if you need to get it into a nle, which tend work with frame standard frame rates… even some codecs only use standard frame rates. dvds and blue rays also only work with standard frame rates….
I see, but the problem is not the framerate of the output file. The things really important in the process I’m doing are the number of frames and the framerate of my composition, after rendered. Later I’ll process it with some timecodes file, and that will be muxed back to another mkv with the right fluency and framerates, varying while the video plays. The video will, then, be synchro, and some parts of the video will have a 23fps, other will have something like 30fps, and other ones 23.9762…
The problem seems to be inside of AFX, because the preview screen, inside, show me my video exactly as it should be at the end, just like it should after all the editing, filtering, and stuff.
what are you viewing your render in? are you bringing it back into ae to see it?
Hmm, I’m viewing in my player of choice. Why is it important, if the frames will be rendered for good?
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[Dave Slipp] “I’m viewing in my player of choice. Why is it important, if the frames will be rendered for good?”
if you were to play that render on a device that only worked with standard frame rates, then you’d get duplicate frames or skipped frames, or some other weirdness, depending on how the device tried to conform the footage. by bringing it back into ae, then you can verify that the the player is not the problem…
another thing to verify is that the comp’s frame rate matches that of the original footage. selecting the footage in the project window should give the frame rate (next to the thumbnail at the top of the panel). open the comp and then choose composition>composition settings and make sure that the frame rate is the same. even if it was off slightly, it could account for a one frame discrepancy.
also, you mentioned that you made an adjustment to the 23.980 frame rate to 23.981… it sounded like you adjusted the frame rate of the render… was that after the render or in the render settings? i wouldn’t make that adjustment in the render settings, i’d just let it go. then, if needed, you can import the render and, use the interpret footage settings to override the frame rate a re-render.
there is really no reason for ae’s render not to match the ram preview, so it’s a matter of tracking down where the problem is, which seems to be where the frame rate for the after effects added content is getting off from the original footage’s frame rate.
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Dave LaRonde
I don’t understand how that can be. I’m only familiar with video files that have a constant frame rate.
MKV is a container that, among other things, has the functionality of giving the encoder the specification of framerates for each part of the video.
Example:
Assume 23.976
0,120,23.981
121,5172,23.9762The first line says that the default framerate (and it means “the parts that has not some framerate set by this timecodes file”) of the video is 23.9760.
Second line says, from the initial frame to the frame 120, the framerate is 23.981.
Third says the same between frames 121 and 5172, specifying the 23.9762 fps framerate.Let’s say that the video is an AVI with 6000 frames. We know then that, between 5173 and the final frame, the framerate is 23.9760. (first line)
That’s why it doesn’t matter if the framerate of the footage imported in AFX has 2fps, 40fps or 99fps. I’m editing the frames, and watching out for the way the footage is interpreted and for the framerate of the final rendered video (after AFXing, it has to be the same).
But there’s some difference between what was edited and seen in the AFX screen and what was the result.
Kevin Ramp
if you were to play that render on a device that only worked with standard frame rates, then you’d get duplicate frames or skipped frames, or some other weirdness, depending on how the device tried to conform the footage. by bringing it back into ae, then you can verify that the the player is not the problem…
Okay, I understand now, thanks. I just did, and it’s the very same thing that I see on my player: the layers are aprox. 1 frame moved forward.
another thing to verify is that the comp’s frame rate matches that of the original footage. selecting the footage in the project window should give the frame rate (next to the thumbnail at the top of the panel). open the comp and then choose composition>composition settings and make sure that the frame rate is the same. even if it was off slightly, it could account for a one frame discrepancy.
also, you mentioned that you made an adjustment to the 23.980 frame rate to 23.981… it sounded like you adjusted the frame rate of the render… was that after the render or in the render settings? i wouldn’t make that adjustment in the render settings, i’d just let it go. then, if needed, you can import the render and, use the interpret footage settings to override the frame rate a re-render.
there is really no reason for ae’s render not to match the ram preview, so it’s a matter of tracking down where the problem is, which seems to be where the frame rate for the after effects added content is getting off from the original footage’s frame rate.
The framerate in the project window is exactly “23.98 fps”.
Seeing this, here’s what I did:– Imported the footage
– right button the footage, interpret footage, main…; In the option “conform to framerate”, I put “23.981” (without quotes). Then, OK. Dragged the footage to the New Composition button at the same Project Panel, and it creates a comp with the same settings that the footage has.
– Edited, layers, solids, effects, texts… After I did all this, I did a preview on the screen, and everything was fine.
– Then, finally, Composition>Make Movie…; Configured the video codec (the footage has no audio), it was Lagarith Lossless.
– Rendered, and got the AVI with this delay.Did something wrong?
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your workflow sounds good… your frame rate should be consistent.
you might try rendering to another codec/file type.
i’d be tempted to try an image sequence, but an uncompressed avi would probably be fine. i’m hoping to eliminate any potential issues from compression, particularly temporal compression.
also, since the ram preview is good, if you can preview the entire preview to ram, you could choose composition>save ram preview. again i think i’d choose a codec that i know doesn’t use temporal compression.
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Dave LaRonde
Why does the video file you imported into AE have a 23.981 frame rate? Why isn’t the frame rate 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97 or 30? 23.981 is such an odd frame rate that it’s difficult to understand how it got that way and why it got that way.
Hmmm, yes, what you say is very relevant. Let me think… If I have an AVI with 23.981 fps and transform its framerate to 24 fps (just remuxing, no encoding?), there should be more frames each second. If I change back later to 23.981, maybe it would guarantee that the number of frames and the location of the frames were the same at the end…? I’ll give a try.
I’m not going to ask why you need a variable frame rate file. You probably have a good reason for it. But I, for one, am confused.
Well, thing is it’s not me the one who needs it. The file is already that way.
The explanation that I have (the one that the footage provider gives to me) is that, as the source is japanese animation with cell shading, the actual framerate varies. It’s like it would be a technique that only gives us the frames used, the ones that will “mean” some movement at the video. Example, some CG parts are done with 29.97fps, but most of anime is at 23.976. Black screens could be at 1fps. Less data, same fluency.
The video kinda “jerks” when I change the framerate. The same fluency is not that accurate anymore.By the way, thanks for answering me.
Kevin Camp
also, since the ram preview is good, if you can preview the entire preview to ram, you could choose composition>save ram preview. again i think i’d choose a codec that i know doesn’t use temporal compression.
“Temporal compression”? I’ll take a look on that. About the “save ram” preview, does it show a lot of settings, a Make-Movie-like screen? Do I choose the codec, and all other stuff?
Thanks a lot for answering me, Kevin.
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