Adobe Dynamic Link Nightmare – Please Help

[Pablo Hill]

Dude, thanks for giving me a heads up. I’m making a 30 min video that’s got over 50 graphic with dynamic links to AE comps. I’m having problems right now due to the fact that for some reason DL looses the direction to the AE file, so its giving me a MEDIA OFF LINE screen. So I’m still far away from the render process. I moved from FCP to Premiere pro because I liked the idea of not rendering between video editor and graphics composer. But it’s definitely not working for me. I might be moving back to FCP after this project.

[Tim Stewart]

Hey Man…

I personally love the adobe products, they are very easy to use and have incredible functionality the only thing that frustrates me is rendering… i guess it’s mostly because i don’t know enough about formats to know how to do it properly. i used to render everything from after effects into a quicktime photo jpeg, but the file sizes are huge, but anything else i tried the quality was terrible.

there must be a way to speed up the live previews in Premiere Pro… it seems pointless to have dynamic link if you can’t even preview your work cuase it’s so slow, and i’m pretty certain that its not my system. 8 hours to encode and burn a 2 minute dvd is crazy…

Tim Stewart
[Expression Studios]

http://www.expression-studios.blogspot.com

[Jon Barrie]

Dynamic Link has never been sold as a function that speeds up render times. Rendering is always going to be required that’s the nature of video.
Dynamic Link allows me to keep my options open. I can send edits and layers of PS titles, images etc directly to AE and do my compositing immediately. How many processes are involved when working with AE and FCP… too many for my time.
Using DL means I get to move into another app – like AE or Encore immediately. I don’t need to make my final transcodes until the design and flow of what I’m producing is decided.
If an AE comps is less than simple, (PPro can play out simple AE comps without the need to render) then I’ll render it out of AE and replace it in PPro.
No one said that Dynamic Link means no render times – just not so many times.
If you are using DL in PPro and want to render, it needs to look at the AE comp/s and translate all that information using the AE engine, then put it all into the PPro App, there is alot of calculating required to keep it all going from one App to the next. It’s no wonder it takes a long time to render.
Think of DL as a way of working faster with proxies not advanced AE comps and you’ll have less frustration.
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Tim Stewart]

Thanks for your reply,

I understand that there is still going to be rendering required, but its the rate of slowdown that really gets me, i could render of the files in after effects in say about an hour. but using DL it takes up to 8 hours.

is there a way to do a preview render in after effects so that when working in premiere pro it simply plays an already rendered version?

ie. like a RAM preview.

Tim Stewart
[Expression Studios]

http://www.expression-studios.blogspot.com

[Jon Barrie]

There is no magic setting to use the AE RAM in your PPro timeline. The RAM is limited and it doesn’t contain much, when it comes to render it uses the RAM to hold the Apps processing and dumps the Rendered Video from itself.

You can use the ram preview from AE as a clip. Save the RAM preview out as a clip then replace it with the DL comp in the PPro timeline.

JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net