HighDefinition Challenge!!

[Steve Roberts]

HDV footage uses interframe compression. This means that every 12th frame or so, you have an image. In between, you only have the data that has *changed* between images. While this makes for efficient compression, allowing us to acquire HDV on a MiniDV tape, it doesn’t work well with compositing apps like AE. This is because AE likes to see a full image on every frame. With interframe compression, AE has to always reassemble each frame from the surrounding frames.

So. When you acquire HDV, you need to convert it to a Quicktime codec such as Animation (if you have disc space) or Photo-JPEG at 89-100% (if you don’t have disc space) before you import it into AE. Photo-JPEG isn’t ideal, but it’s often acceptable, if we recall that stock video houses use Photo-JPEG.

It’s not impossible to work with HDV in AE, but it’s more difficult, it’s not recommended, and people have reported problems with HDV and AE. Search the AE COW for “HDV”.

Now if you’re talking about HD, and not HDV, you can make RAM previews just fine if you have enough RAM to preview enough comp at your desired resolution. Get used to previewing only what you need, and at 1/4 res. Get as much RAM as you can afford.

Yes, you need a big hard drive, separate from your system drive, of course. How big? It depends on the size of your projects.

I work in DVCPROHD, using the HVX-100. It’s real HD, in the 720p format. It’s not 1080i, but it’s clean, includes every frame and works quite fine on an external FW drive. We had two weeks of footage (shot commercial style, not doc style) on a 500GB LaCie, once we captured it at 24p. By the way, the HVX is not recommended for doc-style (“let it run”)shooting unless you have a drive such as the FireStore to capture clips longer than 2 minutes.

Regarding HDV cameras, I’d post in the Cinematography forum, or go to 2-pop.com , maybe.

Hope that helps.

[Sam Moulton]

I work with HDV footage every day but it is converted on capture to either the Apple Intermediate codec or Apple Pro Rez 422. I prefer proRez 422. If you’re on a Mac I’d look there. There’s a white paper on the codec that you’ll find by searching on google.

I’ve also worked a lot with HDV that’s been converted to the DVC Pro Hd and to Black Magic codecs. I did one time work with HDV that used the Cineform Codec on a PC and it was great.

The ProRez 422 codec and the Cineform codecs for windows don’t have the storage or raid requirements that other codecs require and the quality seems to hold up very well.

The hardest and most expensive part is getting your work out to an HD format that broadcast clients accept. You’re talking about a hundred grand in equipment if you want to do it in house. Fortunately there are lots of post houses and there are getting to be more and more others that will accept digital files. You just have to ask them exactly what format they want and provide that. All that’s required is a stack of DVD data disks or some portable drives. I’ve even ftp transferred tv spots over the net.

Hope this helps. The only thing AE really demands is a codec that was designed for editing line the ones i’ve mentioned for video, image sequences, and enough memory to process the frame size. I’d stay away until you have at least 4GB of ram.

Good luck and welcome to the fray . . .

[Steve Roberts]

Yep, I ignored some fine codecs such as the Intermediate codec, ProRes and Uncompressed 8-bit. My error — I’ll correct it in future posts.

But apparently, the is/was an issue with AE rendering ProRes:
https://www.capria.tv/2007/06/19/prores-422-after-effects-gotcha/

I’m not sure if it has been resolved yet, but it relates to rendering ProRes from AE, not importing ProRes. So you might be fine.

[Lutz Dieckmann]

Hi,

just want to help you a bit. I work with a JVC 110 HD camera. 720p. I export it from AVID Liquid 7.2 either as MPG or uncompressed AVI. And import it to AE.
Works fine, sometimes I use a Quicktime/JPG proxy. AE needs some time if you don