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HDV + AFX = bear?
I’ve worked with DVCProHD footage for a while now in After Effects. Obviously it’s not quite as smooth to work with as DV but it works. I’ve got my first HDV based project and it’s bending AFX over its knees on two different 2ghz+dual core systems (one amd, one intel) each with 2gb of memory and quadroFX cards. And I don’t mean just generally slow, but for instance with DVCProHD I can preview a clip from the project manager in realtime (outside of a comp obviously), which now it wants to render first with HDV files?? Even stranger, if I have an HDV clip in a comp it refuses to do even a simple period-key audio preview (no video) it just says “mixing audio for preview” and often crashes thereafter. This happens even in a fresh project with one HDV clip in one comp a few seconds long. Is this just life with HDV or am I doing something wrong? I’ve got my memory/cache settings optimized as best I’ve learned over the years. Please don’t tell me that my machines described above can’t even preview a clip out of the bin!
Thanks,
Devin -
3 Replies
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[inigomyeggo] “Please don’t tell me that my machines described above can’t even preview a clip out of the bin!”
Well, I won’t tell you that… But I will tell you they can’t preview an HDV clip out of the bin =)
HDV uses intra and interframe compression (spatial and temporal compression), it’s based on that MPEG-2 format that we all know AE loves to hate so very much. I recommend that you transcode your HDV footage to a lossless/uncompressed codec for work in AE.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
Welcome to the pain that is HDV!!
HDV is a heavily compressed format with a long GOP and requires substantial processing power to handle.
The best way to deal with it is transcode to another format for use in After Effects – Quicktime?
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Have a read on Tim Wilson’s &page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/wilson_tim/ProRes01/index.html” TARGET=_blank>Apple ProRes 422 which covers HDV in a way that’ll help you sort things out.
One other CODEC to consider is Cineform’s Neo Player. It’s cross-platform and supports AVI and QT architectures and does AVI2QT and QT2AVI conversions. Sounds good. But take note that I’ve not used it b4. But it’s a solid company.
The thing to take note of with HDV is that it is an acquisition CODEC. It’s not optimized for post-production work. That’s where interdiate CODECs come into play. The choice you make depends on the platform of your choice and the final delivery medium. In short, lots more options and headaches. The good thing is that you only have to work this out once for each workflow that you have. Then it’s a case of rinse and repeat.
Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace
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