HD Animation Codec output issues

[Vince Becquiot]

I have a feeling the issue may have to do with AVCHD and Quicktime. I have never seen that issue on our side, but plenty of other issues with Quicktime, including audio delays and scrambled outputs. Most seem to have been fixed with the latest CS4 update.

My guess is these constant issues are arising from Quicktime updates being incompatible with Premiere, so we now stick with AVI uncompressed or Tiff sequences as exports between Premiere and AE. Yes the size is a bit bigger, but the headaches are gone…

Vince Becquiot

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area

[Terry Hahin]

Vince,
I was afraid of that answer. Means a lot of work on my end.

The strange thing is that I see these results when I use Ppro to the Media encoder. But when I use the MEdia encoder by itself it typically takes the Qt’s just fine.

Thanks for your input. If anyone else has some two cents before I re-render all of my hundreds of source files I’d love to hear it.

Terry Hahin

Designer and Editor
terryhahin.com

[John Frey]

Where are you monitoring your video output when you say that you see the distortions in the ‘white spaces’ of the video? You may want to check your video levels. If your ‘whitest’ whites read hot, you may want to consider bringing them down. Some video monitoring systems can show ‘tearing’ when whites are over boosted. Just a thought.

John D. Frey
25 Year owner/operator of two California-based production studios.

Digital West Video Productions of San Luis Obispo and Inland Images of Lake Elsinore

[Terry Hahin]

Hi John,
thanks for your input. I’m monitoring these currently on my desktop. The files will end up projected in a gallery, never intended for broadcast space.

I know what you mean with blown out white distortion, but this is very different. It causes strange pixel noise to show up. This most current run of distortion I am receiving looks as if I had applied a horizontal directional blur, then posterized it. Different than blown out whites.

Sadly, I am getting the impression that there is no solution to this. The Adobe Media Encoder can simply not be trusted to input/output, or have all sorts of uncompressed Quicktime codec sources. It is a poor, un-versatile encoder and I have decided to no longer depend on it professionally.

Many have often offered the suggestion that switching to uncompressed AVI is the way to go. The problem with this is that myself, (like many other freelancers in my situation), often work with other post houses that are purely Quicktime based. The idea of using AVI’s to them is not an option. So as a result, it would really be helpful if my workflow be Quicktime based as well.

This issue is part of a huge list of problems I have been having with this encoder. Whether it be stuttering h264’s, or distortion in more “uncompressed” formats, it’s one thing after another. I wish adobe would listen to it’s users and the countless problems I see all over message boards about problems with AME and Quicktime. My time tech support their lousy encoder is done. I am officially throwing in the towel.

I have found a work around where I can import the premiere sequence into After Effects, then use the After Effects render engine to do all my final renders. An extra step…but at least the AE render engine is reliable.

So there’s my rant. Thanks for listening all.

Terry Hahin

Designer and Editor
terryhahin.com

[Tim Kolb]

Are you on a PC or a Mac?

Interesting how you note that Media Encoder handles these files just fine directly but the export from Premiere is a problem…therefore it’s Media Encoder’s fault?

Are you exporting to a BluRay preset? Keep in mind that BluRay 1080 has a 1440 px wide frame size` option. 1920 dropped to 1440 will cause some obvious horizontal aliasing on certain kinds of content.

I would use an uncompressed timeline for QT Animation files as opposed to a compression-based sequence setting. It would eliminate that from the mix.

For the record, After Effects taps the same ME mechanism to output converted files as PPro does…so i think I’d examine your sequence setting as the source of the issue before you throw it all in the campfire.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Terry Hahin]

Hi Tim,
appreciate your time. I’ll clarify a few things.

I’m a PC here at my home studio where I do much of my freelance work. But I do a great deal of FCP cutting remotely at other studios so it’s possible that I am simply used to the reliability of Quicktime on a MAC based platform.

In terms of blaming Ppro vs AME, most of but not all issues do seem to arise from using AME through Ppro, as opposed to AME by itself. So in fairness they are both a pain I guess.

Question for you in terms of your Blu-Ray output preset suggestions. I see there is a 1440 option, but it seems like that A. I don’t want to lose the quality if it’s not necessary, and B. I’ve already built everything at the full 1920×1080 so why not continue in that dimension size?

But you mentioned something I would like to discuss more. That this could stem from the sequence preset in Ppro itself. I am unable to find (or custom create) an appropriate sequence setting for 1920x1080p animation codec quicktime files. The closest is the one that I have been using, mentioned above in my previous post, with the AVCHD codec. It’s the only option as far as I can tell that even allows me the full 1920×1080 dimensions.

It does not surprise me that the back end of the After Effects render engine is essentialy the same as AME. But it is definitely true that it works much more stably, quickly, and qualitatively better out of After Effects. At least it’s always been that way on the numerous types of PC configurations I’ve had over the past few years.

So I would love you to be right that my problem is my sequence setting. So I guess my question is…what sequence setting in Ppro would you use if you were in my shoes?

Thanks for your help Tim,

Terry Hahin

Designer and Editor
terryhahin.com

[Tim Kolb]

Well…I’ve got some issues with an FCP system chewing up some footage on its way to a DVD through QT export right now, so I guess I’ll just say that the perfect system still eludes me…

I would think you’d want to simply make a custom preset, choose ‘desktop’ and set your frame size and choose no compression. I’d be curious what the output looked like from that.

Does QT Pro handle the footage any better?

…I’m just curious about this.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Terry Hahin]

Hi Tim,
Looks like the desktop timeline setting in Ppro worked well when I exported out using the AME encoder. Only one test, but so far, so good. Really appreciate your suggestion on that.

In terms of QT Pro as an encoder, although it has less options in the outputs setting, it does tend to give me more stable results. The biggest issue I’ve noticed is that the banding results when you make lossy compressions (h264’s, mpeg2’s, etc.) tends to be a lot worse from QTpro than out of AME. But since it’s more stable I lean towards that more and more these days.

Appreciate your comment about the troublesome FCP DVD output. I also have yet to come to a perfect system myself, but it’s easy to forget that when yours is going down!

Again thanks for your suggestions on the sequence settings. If it wasn’t for all the great advice on the cow I don’t know where I’d be!

Cheers,

Terry Hahin

Designer and Editor
terryhahin.com

[Tim Kolb]

Regardless of the source of the issue, problems that prevent us from making a living are serious and I have my share as well…

I agree with you on the QT Pro encoder points…I keep QT Pro on all my machines.

I’m happy you have a way to move forward. The nuances of the issue can be identified when there aren’t invoices on the line.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,