AE Composited video stutters in FCP

[Jayson Rahmlow]

thanks Dave,

I checked out the other thread. So I have to convert all hdv footage before importing it to ae.

🙁

So, if I have final cut studio pro 2. Which format do you recommend I use? (prores?)

also i found the adobe tech note on this

https://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=332583

[Jayson Rahmlow]

Thanks again Dave. I think I’ll take your suggestion and use the animation codec. I just found out that ProRes doesn’t have an alpha channel.

Also, I didn’t realize ae’s HDV exports are unusable too. I thought it would only stutter when the source was HDV. I don’t get it, it seems like this is a problem for 2006, not 2008.

[Paolo Ciccone]

If you need a lossless codec with Alpha channel and smaller size than Uncompressed , you can consider Sheervideo: https://www.bitjazz.com

[Jayson Rahmlow]

Thanks Paolo, yeah I looked at the bitjazz website, authors of the sheervideo codec. I was thinking of buying the educational version. Does anyone have any experience with it. Is it better at all than the animation codec.

Also, Dave, I ended up using the animation codec in the end. It works but it still needs to render before it plays on the fcp’s hdv timeline. I’d like to find a solution that plays in real time if possible.

[Paolo Ciccone]

Nothing against Animation, I just find Sheer faster and smaller.

[Jayson Rahmlow]

Thanks for taking the time to spell it out for me Dave. I do a lot of effects work, and practically everything I shoot I key things out of. So I guess I’ll be buying another external drive for my mac book pro soon to fill up with prores and animation files. And I’ll be waiting for ProRes to add an alpha channel while my animation clips render.

jayson
http://www.oldchildprojects.com

[Paul Conigliaro]

In the end, the added cost of the drive is worth it compared to the time you’ll save by not working in HDV. If you can, I’d highly recommend not cutting in an HDV timeline to begin with. Transcode the footage to ProRes or Apple Intermediate Codec (though the latter is still a 4:1:0 compression) on capture or through Compressor afterwards. Your storage requirements go up, but you’ll avoid problems like this in AE and the dreaded “Comforming to HDV” progress window in FCP.

(Also, Command-Shift-3 and Command-Shift-4 are your friends 😉

[Jayson Rahmlow]

So to sum up, I need to make some changes to my workflow. I should work with an fcp sequence with its quicktime video settings set to Animation (or sheervideo if I buy it.) Then convert all hdv footage into animation (or sheervideo) and then I can go between fcp and ae without having to render on the timeline. And also I don’t have to worry about generational loss. And I can work with an alpha channel. But I’m going to have to buy a terabyte or two’s worth of hard drive cause the files will be huge.

thanks for all the suggestions.

Dave, i just read your suggestions on keying. I’ll definitely check out that video. So far all I’ve done is output my video’s into websized files 480x210ish sizes. And I have a “loving hands at home” style so most is forgiven (see my website for examples.) But I do have the ultimate goal of hd+ projection. So I think I must heed everyone’s advice here and adopt the above workflow to keep from making the people of the future watch really grainy, mosquito-y, if charming video.

As for keying with HDV. It’s the best I can afford right now. I’m using the hv20. And also it helps that most of my keyed video ends up being about a quarter to fifty percent of its original size in the final video.

And paul you’re right, command+shift + 3 or 4 are very nice.

jayson
http://www.oldchildprojects.com

[Paolo Ciccone]

Hmm, I actually thought that Sheer’s price was pretty fair. I worked in the software development industry and writing software is an extremely costly and risky business. If you make software for the consumer level then you can afford to be sloppy, see Microsoft Office, but at the pro video level you need very solid coding and that costs a lot of money because good developers want to be paid good money. Every month 🙂

[Paolo Ciccone]

Hmmm, the idea of transcoding, even with ProRes is not something that I would advice. If you want to convert to a lossless codec than OK but otherwise, if your original footage is in HDV, I would edit in that format while being careful to not render in HDV.
For example, if you capture footage from your HDV camera, via FW, you end up with a data dump that is exactly what is stored on the tape. No generation loss. If you edit in Premiere or FCP, directly in HDV, you don’t loose anything as long as the codec implementation is accurate.
Once you need to go to AE you have a couple of options, all better than transcoding (here “better” means no quality loss):

– In Premiere/AE you just import the project thus referring to the original HDV clips. No generation loss.
– For FCP to AE you can use the FCPtoAE script or Automatic Duck to do the same. Your AE project will have a Sequence that links to the same unmodified HDV clips.
– Convert the NLE sequence to an lossless format and then import in AE.