Frame rate problem in AE

[Bret Williams]

Does it say it requires rendering In FCP? If not then it matches. If it requires rendering there will be some color bar at top of timeline. Green, orange, red, etc.

Your system may not be able to play it back. Although any drive should be able to play 35/ mb xdcam. In your user prefs, is it set to abort playback on dropped frames?

I did have a situation today where my prores 1080p was showing up as orange even though everything matched. When I turned off the scopes playback, the orange went away. Completely repeatable. Never seen that.

[Martin Del rio]

Hi Brett:
Thank you for your response. When I import the file to FCP and I drop it to the timeline, FCP doesn’t give me any error message, there is no need to render anything. But as soon as I hit play almost at the end of the animation, it stutters.

Also, when I want to check the clip settings of the animation inside FCP I get an error message that reads:

No items have files applicable to this operation

I exported the same animation from AE compressed in Apple PRO RES HQ, then when I import that file in FCP, I drag the file to the timeline and FCP asks me to match the video settings to sequence settings, I hit OK and then the video plays without any problems.

What do you think is going on?

Thank you very much for your help Brett,

All best,

Martin

[Bret Williams]

What does it look like in QT player? You could try the same thing to make sure you have the right seq settings for the xdcam. Delete the pro res clip so the timeline is empty, then drag in the xdcam clip. It should ask to match the settings. Say yes.

[Martin Del rio]

Hello Dave:

I created a new project with a new timeline in FCP and I made sure the “field dominance” was set to NONE. Then I dropped the XD CAM EX 1080p30 file to the timeline and when I played it back the results were the same… The animation stutters.

I used render queue in AE, I checked all the settings and everything matches. There’s one thing that I couldn’t set in the XD CAM EX option in render queue. That is the field order. I couldn’t find any option for that. Other than that, everything was set to match.

The frame rate is 29.97 and I already checked that in render queue inside AE.

When I tried using a different compression like ANIMATION in render queue in AE, the results are better when I open that file in FCP. It plays good.

Another thing… When I open the XD CAM file in quicktime itself, it plays fine.

Should I use the ANIMATION compression or should I just keep trying to use exactly the same compression that my client has in his FCP sequence?

My client has to put the animation at the end of a life-action footage (It’s just an animated logo at the end of a TV commercial).

Thank you very much for your help Dave, I really appreciate it.

Cheers

Martin

[Martin Del rio]

Hi Bret:

The file looks fine in QT player. I checked all the settings for the XD CAM sequence and everything matches. One thing that I noticed is that in the sequence settings next to FRAME SIZE it reads HDTV 1080i (16:9) I think that ” i ” stands for interlaced.

In After Effects inside render queue I couldn’t find any option for interlaced in XD CAM EX compression in fact the compression set in FCP is XD CAM 1080p30, the same compression that I set in After Effects.

” Delete the pro res clip so the timeline is empty, then drag in the xdcam clip. It should ask to match the settings. Say yes.”

I did that and it didn’t work. Would it be a problem with the playback settings?

Finally I imported the file compressed in ANIMATION and it plays fine inside FCP.

I still can’t get the XD CAM EX file to work in FCP although the sequence has the same settings.

Thank you Bret,

Martin

[Martin Del rio]

Hey Dave:

Well…the guy editing the video couldn’t give me a useful answer. He shot the video with a Sony XDCAM HD at 29.97 fps and then captured the footage in default settings. Yeah I know It is frustrating answer…I just going to get back to him and recreate every step from the actual settings on the camera, the camera specifications, the capture process and the sequence settings in FCP.

Thanks Dave,
Martin

Martin Del Rio