AE Composited video stutters in FCP

[Paul Conigliaro]

The problem with cutting in native HDV is that HDV is an inter-frame codec, and anything beyond simple cuts and dissolves results in the wonderful “Conforming to HDV” dialog in FCP (as it essentially has to recompress everything anyway… and from HDV-> HDV, resulting in image quality loss). If you’re cutting a native HDV sequence, there’s no getting around rendering in HDV.

By transcoding to an intra-frame codec (at least one with less compression and higher color resolution, like ProRes) results in little to no image quality loss and the ability to do much more in an edit and with graphics without constant conforming slowdowns.

Generally you’re right, though. I’d much rather cut in native format. But with HDV (a format that should never have gone beyond consumer cameras), it’s a different ball game.

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Dave LaRonde] “…sadly, it’s no longer the case.”

No it isn’t. And beating the drum against it doesn’t help. I know, I hated it when Apple began to charge for their OS software after nearly 15 years or so of getting it free.

Free…now that’s a nice price.

:o)

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
Join the COW’s LinkedIn Group

Now in the COW Magazine: Commercials. A look at the history, strategy, techniques and production workflows of successful commercials. All brought to you by some of the COW’s brightest members. Accept no substitutes!

Would you like to be in Creative COW Magazine with your story or contribution? Contact me.

Do you have your complimentary subscription to Creative COW Magazine yet?

[Jayson Rahmlow]

Paolo I downloaded the sheer video trial version to give it a try but it’s confused me.

Also it seems there’s 8 different flavors of the sheer codec (rgb(a) 10bf, sheer y’cbcr(a) 8bv 4:2:2, etc.)

Which should I use with HDV?

Do you use it as the fcp sequence compressor?

[Jayson Rahmlow]

Dave, it turns out I was already using animation without realizing it. It’s the default export setting in Motion. Which I was using before AE.

Also, I think I’ll start using an offline/online workflow by exporting two copies of the video from AE or Motion: one lossless (animation or sheer video if I can figure it out.) and a second hdv version to cut with in FCP. (This will keep my firewire drive from getting bogged down by the wide bandwidth the lossless codecs require.) Then when i’m done editing the hdv I’ll replace the hdv files with the lossless files. Then I get the speed of working with hdv in the hdv FCP timeline. And the quality of the lossless for the export. Think that’ll work?

And I checked out that macbreak video, I liked it. I never really understood 4:2:2 vs. 4:1:1 before. Thanks.

[Paolo Ciccone]

Hi Paul.
I know about the nature of HDV and all the problems involved in recomputing GOPs but I described a procedure to avoid all that. The point in my approach is that if you use Premiere and edit in HDV and then master your video on AE you will not have any quality loss. This is because you will be import the Premiere *project* in After Effects, not a rendered video. By importing the project you end up with pointers to the original footage. AE reads the clip and then you are free to render to Uncompressed or TIFF sequences. This is by far the fastest and safest why of handling HDV.

You can achieve the same with FCP => AE by using the FCPtoAE script (google it) or Automatic Duck. The result is the same, no rendering, no transcoding.

And the rendering time required for the transitions is still lower than transcoding the whole sequence.
Now, if we are talking about *acquiring* footage than I totally agree, if you can capture *directly* from component out or HDSDI to ProRes, Cineform or Sheer then you are much better off.

[Paolo Ciccone]

I generally use YCbCr 10b. The different flavors depend on the use or not of Alpha channel.

I’m currently redesigning my workflow. I used to work in FCP but I’m moving to Premiere gven the amazing integration of Premiere with After Effects. I do a lot of work in AE and the ability to move back and forth in *seconds*, without rendering is plus that I cannot ignore anymore.
Given that condition my use for Sheer is much more limited today but I still use it when I need to communicate with other Applications, like SynthEyes or any other situation where I need to roundtrip and preserve the color information.

In several cases I captured HDV footage and then converted to Sheer before editing in order to have a non-GOP version of the clips that is 100% faithful to the original. Other times I used it as a compressor in FCP because after the time you spend in rendering the output of the whole sequence, even at feature length, takes just a few seconds, if you use a QuickTime reference movie.

[Owen Smithyman]

Hello all,

I’m with SheerVideo tech support, and I’d like to say to anyone who has any questions at all about SheerVideo: if you can’t find all the answers you need by searching through forums, by all means please email us at BitJazz!

For informational questions: info [at] bitjazz.com
For customer service: service [at] bitjazz.com

We’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have, so please don’t hesitate to contact us.

I’d also like to do a little plugging: SheerVideo is 1/2 price from now until the end of NAB!

Cheers,

Owen Smithyman
Technical Associate
BitJazz, Inc.
https://www.bitjazz.com