AE 6.5 Titles look Horrilbe once in FCP??

[Chris Poisson]

Ryan,

What codecs are you trying? What is the alpha output?

I use AE titles in FCP all the time, mostly they are Animation codec at millions+ for the alpha channel, and that should be set to straight. Never had a quality problem.

Once inside FCP. you may have to go to Modify>Alpha Type and set it to straight.

Also, you probably know this, but you will likely need to render and you must check quality on a decent production monitor, or at least a good TV.

Have a wonderful day.

[Shane Ross]

Also bear in mind that if your sequence is a DV sequence, it will convert your nice high res title into the DV format once rendered. And DV is highly compressed.

But yes, as mentioned, do not judge the quality of your image on the computer monitor:

Shane’s Stock Answer #2: Blurry playback

ONLY JUDGE THE QUALITY OF YOUR MATERIAL ON AN EXTERNAL NTSC MONITOR, OR AT LEAST A TV.

The canvas shows you what happens after the codec you are working with has been applied. The viewer shows you the material in its native format.

1. Disable overlays on the canvas
2. Make sure you’ve rendered everything (no green bars at the top of the timeline

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=24787

Video playback requires large amounts of data and many computations. In order to maintain frame rate and be viewable at a normal size, only about one-fourth of the DV data is used in displaying the movie to the screen. However, the DV footage is still at full quality, and is best viewed thru a TV or NTSC monitor routed thru your camera or deck.

Shane

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[Ryan Walker]

Chris,

Thanks for your reply. I have been trying almost every main codec that I can, including animation, and even “none” for compression settings. So obviously it is not so much the codec, but the settings I am not correctly using, since you are having no problems with the animation codec inside of FCP.

I tried your settings (I think) and ran two tests. When I made a quicktime movie of the AE Title, from After Effects, of course it turns out fine. But when I bring it into FCP to make the same quicktime, again, it loses a lot of quality compared to when it comes from AE.

The only reason I tested it this way, is when I want to keep switching between FCP in After Effects. Right now, when I want to add effects, or titles to my projects, I am taking the entire final timeline from FCP, exporting as a quicktime, bringing that into AE for all the effects that I want, and using AE to render my final movie. But if I want to do any additional editing to the final product, I have to start the whole process over. This is why I am looking how to find what I need to do to bring AE titles, or whatever into FCP.

Can you give me an exact breakdown of what you do to transfer. I tried the Alpha Channel to Millions + and straight, but there must be something that I am missing. Thanks again in advance if you read this entire message. ha Talk to you soon.
Ryan

[Ryan Walker]

Chris,

Thanks for your reply. I have been trying almost every main codec that I can, including animation, and even “none” for compression settings. So obviously it is not so much the codec, but the settings I am not correctly using, since you are having no problems with the animation codec inside of FCP.

I tried your settings (I think) and ran two tests. When I made a quicktime movie of the AE Title, from After Effects, of course it turns out fine. But when I bring it into FCP to make the same quicktime, again, it loses a lot of quality compared to when it comes from AE.

The only reason I tested it this way, is when I want to keep switching between FCP in After Effects. Right now, when I want to add effects, or titles to my projects, I am taking the entire final timeline from FCP, exporting as a quicktime, bringing that into AE for all the effects that I want, and using AE to render my final movie. But if I want to do any additional editing to the final product, I have to start the whole process over. This is why I am looking how to find what I need to do to bring AE titles, or whatever into FCP.

Can you give me an exact breakdown of what you do to transfer. I tried the Alpha Channel to Millions + and straight, but there must be something that I am missing. Thanks again in advance if you read this entire message. ha Talk to you soon.
Ryan

[Kevin Hamm]

[Ryan Walker] “But when I bring it into FCP to make the same quicktime, again, it loses a lot of quality compared to when it comes from AE”

I’m not an AE guy at all, but this is the part that looks wrong to me. When you are exporting the quicktime, what are the settings you are using to create it? Are you just exporting a QuickTime movie? Are you making it self-contained? Or are you using Quicktime Conversion or Compressor and using some codec there? Or, when exporting the Quicktime movie from FCP, do you have “most recent settings” chosen and someone used your system to export a 720×480 clip using, say, the compression settings for a web clip?

So, basically, can you expand upon your Quicktime Movie Creation steps from FCP?

[Ryan Walker]

Hey Kevin,

Sorry about that. I am in fact using the current settings, and the movie is self contained when exporting a Quicktime out of FCP. Also, my FCP sequence matches the sequence settings in After Effects. I am having to do this because whenever I bring a moving title from After Effects into FCP it loses all quality. So I have to guess where I want titles in FCP, so I can add them later in After Effects, to keep the quality when I make a final Quicktime Movie FROM After Effects. Hope this helps, and thanks to everyone that is helping me out. VERY much appreciated.

Ryan

[Kevin Hamm]

Ok, so that’s not likely the problem, but you still haven’t told us what your sequence settings in FCP actually are. You say you’ve tried tons of codecs, but what is it set to right now?

More importantly, what is the final format of this project? If you give us that, we’ll be able to give you better help.

[David Hames]

Obviously missing a few details, but it sounds like AE is rendering the QT at one size and the sequence is another. For example. AE is creating a 720×486 (D1 Raster) movie and you’re editing it into a 720×480 movie (DV). FCP will squeeze the video ever so slightly to make it “conform” to the sequence which will make a pristine clip look like poop. Solution? Render the shot at the same size as the sequence, or open the clip into the viewer from the timeline and make sure the scale is 100, and there’s no aspect ratio change under “distort” in the motion tab–that way FCP won’t try to make it “fit.” I hope this helps.

David

[Ron James]

As mentioned in the other posts, you need to post your actual FCP sequence settings. It doesn’t matter how great your titles are when you bring them in, it matters how FCP is treating them once they get there.

I’m guessing you’re in DV-NTSC (aka DV25) and what you’re seeing is good old DV compression.

G5 Dual 2.7 GHz
2 GB RAM
OS 10.4.6
FCP 5.0.4
QT 7.1.1

[Chris Poisson]

Ryan,

Yes, start from the very beginning and tell us what your settings are for everything, FCP sequence, codecs etc. It does sound like you are working with DV and each time you roundtrip it, you are adding another lousy DV compression to everything. Please be very specific.

Have a wonderful day.