-
Dave’s Stock Answer #1 – Followup Q
Followup question for Dave’s Stock Answer #1 (If the footage you imported into AE is any kind of the following — footage in an HDV acquisition codec, MPEG1, MPEG2, AVCHD, mp4, mts, m2t, H.261 or H.264 — you need to convert it to a different codec.)
Like many others, I’m capturing HDV (with an HV30) as m2t files and using PPro and AE CS4. In addition to post effects, I also need to Reverse Telecine my 24FP footage. What’s the best workflow to address the above?
Options:
a) Edit footage into finished sequence(s) in PPro. Import PPro project into AE. Create proxies for every captured HDV/m2t file included in the project. Work in AE with the proxy files, then render out the finalized sequence(s) using the original files to an intermediate format like Lagarith or Animation.
>> This way we avoid an extra rendering step prior to output / intermediate file.b) Edit footage into finished sequence(s) in PPro. Save a new copy of the PPro project. Put each piece of used footage (ie, each clip) into its own sequence and render out the sequences to a lossless format (Lagarith, Animation), including rendered files in the project window. Reassemble the rendered files into the finished sequence(s) so that they now use the lossless Lagarith or Animation codec rather than mpeg-2 / m2t.
Delete all the original footage and sequences from the PPro project (hence the saving of a copy), so that there are no AE-unfriendly files in the project. Import this project into AE and work with it. Since each clip has been rendered as its own lossless file, AE can guess the pulldown for removal for each one, as each file consists of only one cadence.
>> This method keeps HDV acquisition codecs away from AE, but adds a generation / render to the workflow.c) Maybe AE CS4 is cool with HDV and we can work with it? So just import the source HDV footage into AE.
Thoughts on the above? I think many would find this useful. And no, not using my HV30 or capturing HDV is NOT an option!!;)
-
5 Replies
-
AE CS4 works better with interframe codecs such as those used in MPEGs and CS5 is supposed to be even better with them. However, like Dave, I’ve been burned under deadline by it in past versions and I haven’t done enough testing to trust it in these new versions yet.
There’s a fourth option that you haven’t mentioned and that’s to simply render out your Premiere projects as a lossless file (Quicktime with the PNG codec has been pretty popular lately). It doesn’t preserve any of the cuts which may be a dealbreaker for you, but it’s an idea.
Since the newer versions of AE are supposed to be better with interframe codecs, I say give working with it a try and just import your Premiere project. If you have weird issues, you’ll know the first place to look.
– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.
-
I had a conversation with one of After Effects’s quality engineers and here’s what he had to say re: MPEG’s in AE:
Our engineers have put a significant amount of effort into making sure that various flavors of MPEG files play well in the timelines of both After Effects and Premiere Pro and that we can export to MPEG formats with high quality. The quality assurance engineers at Adobe, including myself, have tested our MPEG workflows extensively. We’re confident that most MPEG files will work well in CS5.
…
The past versions of After Effects have not done the best job at importing and decoding MPEG files. But the teams here at Adobe have worked hard to improve this in every version. We’ve enhanced performance, fixed bugs, and most importantly added new camera formats like HDV, AVCHD, XDCAM EX, XDCAM HD, Panasonic P2, and DSLR formats such as the Canon 5D and 7D. In CS4 our MPEG support was pretty good. Now in CS5 I think it’s great. Not necessarily perfect, but I’m confident that it’s the best we’ve ever had.This is only a few snippets of a much longer conversation, but hopefully that sheds some light on it.
– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.
-
I would suggest some extensive testing. Unfortunately, I don’t have CS5 yet and besides we’re really slammed right now and don’t have time for that.
However, I did try some M2T footage in AE CS4 today and it worked flawlessly.– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.
-
I was at NAB showing After Effects CS5 and Premiere Pro CS5. (I was the guy at the “Ask the Expert” station.)
Whenever people came up to me and asked me about long-GOP formats in CS5, I asked them to bring me a piece of their own footage so we could try it out. Many people came back with USB drives with various MPEG-based files (especially AVCHD/MPEG-4 stuff), and we tried them on the spot. Not a single failure. Smooth previews, renders without dropped frames… the way it should be.
I think that CS5 may make Dave’s stock answer obsolete.
———————————————————————————————————
Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
———————————————————————————————————
If a page of After Effects Help answers your question, please consider rating it. If you have a tip, technique, or link to share—or if there is something that you’d like to see added or improved—please leave a comment. -
> I hope so.
Me, too.
If not, then we’d love bug reports with attached video files that are problematic. If you’re sending a bug report with an attachment, you can use aebugs [at] adobe [dot] com instead of the bug-report form.
———————————————————————————————————
Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
———————————————————————————————————
If a page of After Effects Help answers your question, please consider rating it. If you have a tip, technique, or link to share—or if there is something that you’d like to see added or improved—please leave a comment.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up