• Adobe After Effects

  Converting from YUV (DV) to RGB

  Posted by Peter S on May 5, 2005 at 1:12 am

  Can anyone explain to me if you take a quality hit by importing Mini DV footage into AE from FCP (which I understand is in YUV) and then working on it in After Effects in RGB and then exporting back into FCP using the DV codec.

  If so, what strategies can you use to minimize the effect?

  Thanks…in anticipation.

  Peter S replied 21 years ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Deathwolf

  May 5, 2005 at 1:38 am

  yes
  dv uses 4:1:1 sampling
  so when you convert from dv to rgb you will have to interpolate the subsampled chroma, and when you go back to dv you’ll lose some info in the convertion.
  so in the end you will most probably lose some color precision in chroma channels, although dv->rgb->dv isnt going to be much color loss.
  rgb->dv->rgb would be much worse
• 

  Peter S

  May 5, 2005 at 1:42 am

  Forgot to mention – I’m working in a PAL environment (Australia) does that make a difference? Also are the DV artefacts made worse by this conversion?

  And finally, do you happen to know if Motion or combustion keep the footage in YUV or do all compositing apps convert to RGB to work?

  Thanks again.
• 

  Barend Onneweer

  May 5, 2005 at 10:21 am

  There isn’t a big difference in PAL.

  The RGB to YUV conversion isn’t a very big deal. The step that causes the biggest hit on image quality is the actual DV compression where the chroma is downsampled to quarter resolution. And unless you decide on a different finishing format than DV, you’ll still need to do that.

  If you are planning on finishing on DVD, you could avoid rendering back to DV and go straight to DVD.

  Bar3nd

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• 

  Peter S

  May 6, 2005 at 12:56 am

  Thanks for your response. I do plan on finishing on DVD. Can you recommend another format for finishing other than DV? The animation codec’s files are enormous. Is there another option or should I just put up with the file sizes? All of my source material originates from DV but once I finish with it in After Effects, I need to get it back into FCP for assembling the sequence, for output to DV. So I’m wondering what that sequence should be so I keep the best possible quality.

  Thanks, in anticipation. Peter

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