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Exporting Lossless Clips for AE?
Hi,
I’m working on a project shot on the HVX200, which is being cut in DVCPROHD. I want to export a handful of clips from my timeline for effects work in After Effects.
The problem is, every time I try and export a clip, I notice a slight degradation in picture quality. The image seems to get softer, and a little blurrier. I really don’t want the picture to degrade whatsoever, especially even before I send it to AE.
I am performing the exports by selecting in’s and out’s in FCP’s timeline, then going to File->Export->Quicktime->Current Settings and leaving make movie self contained checked. I have also tried leaving this button unchecked. Both outputs yield a soft looking result.
Here is the footage from the original DVCPROHD timeline:
Here is the same shot exported with make movie self contained checked. Notice the blurriness:
Here is the same shot with make movie self contained unchecked:
If anybody has any idea how to export a totally lossless, perfect copy of a shot out to AE, your thoughts would be much appreciated. I am open to exporting to Uncompressed 10 bit, ProRes HQ, and Animation, but my preliminary tests show softening (or gamma shifts) in each of these formats. I have also tried using a Compressor export, as well as a Quicktime conversion export, all to no avail. Oh and one more thing, I am working with a few effects artists, so it would be preferable to export files that are not reference files.
Many thanks,
David
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10 Replies
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What you’re doing is correct. However all I see are black squares.
You realize Ae defaults to displaying at half rez? Make sure you’re viewing your comp at full rez. Also it looks softer with pixel aspect compensation on. As with final cut, what does it look like on the NTSC monitor?
In any case, exporting current settings IS an exact duplicate of the clip you’re exporting with no degredation. No recompression. Checking make self contained creates a file with a copy of the selected frames while unvhecking that creates a file that actually links to the original frames. I would only use the latter with very long files where drive space is an issue.
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Hi David,
How are you capturing those pics?
Where are you comparing the images?
If you are exporting a Reference movie or a Self-contained without recompression, you end up with the original footage.
Shouldn’t be no difference at all.
The player you are using can be doing this.
rafael -
Hi Rafael & Bret.
Thanks for the speedy replies.
The stills I grabbed (sorry they’re not showing up) are frame grabs right from my timeline, captured through Apple’s screen grab command. They’re basically 100% crops, zoomed in to a specific part of the image.
I am exporting the media out of FCP, then re-importing it right back into FCP, putting it next to original footage, and comparing them one to one.
Very odd… Thanks for the advice. Is there another way I should be monitoring this?
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What are your AE render and resolution settings?
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there are two ways to bring lossless clips into AE:
1. Use the clips
2. Export using the animation codec.You can achieve 1 by using reference movies (this assumes your original has be tronscoded into a format that both FCP and AE can deal with without processing).
You can achieve 2 at the cost of huge time and disk space since Animation files will be 5 to 10 times as large as your originals.I’ve never shot with your camera, I’m strictly a DV shop.
bogiesan
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Thanks for the answers everyone. I’m looking to deliver shots to effects artists, so unfortunately reference movies or XML’s won’t work (I can’t hand over all of the dailies, I need to hand over just the shots I need worked on).
Bret, The problem is experienced even before I make the trip to AE. I’m just exporting the shot, and re-importing it to make sure it looks the same as my footage. However, the problem is also experienced after making the trip to and from AE. Here are my settings.
My AE Comp settings are:
DVCPRO HD 720 23.98 Preset
960 x 720
HDV 1080/DVCPRO HD 720 (1.33) Pixel Aspect ratio
23.98 Frame rate
Full Resolution
In Project settings, Preserve QT legacy gamma is checked
Export using Animation codec…Is there a setting somewhere that would degrade sequence outputs in FCP?
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Hello all,
PROBLEM SOLVED…
The sample clip that I was using for my shot comparisons was a clip that was in reverse motion. I had the “frame blending” button selected, which for some reason or another, resulted in a slight blur effect when comparing the original timeline footage to the output footage.
Many thanks for all of your suggestions, I’ll go ahead and use exports with make movie self contained for delivery to the FX artists.
Best,
David
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[David Green] “was a clip that was in reverse motion”
Hi David,
Great you found the reason of this issue.
But, if you are making “Reverse Motion” in FC, I hope that you are aware of the FC bug when trying to do so.
When you play a clip in reverse, the field order should be changed. Playing DV the Upper field should be read before the Lower field.
FC doesn’t do so. You need to apply the Shift-fields filter, or download the Nattress “Reverse”.
Free from Nattress web-site.
Rafael -
Rafael,
Does the same apply if I’m working in a 23.98 timeline, from footage that originated as 24p?
David
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If the footage is Progressive, of course this shouldn’t be a problem.
Rafael
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