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Importing Animation Codec
Hi everyone,
I am currently trying to import an animation done in Flash to my Final Cut file. Unfortunately, I haven’t had experience editing animations before so I need a little help with the sequence settings and such.
The animator provided me with a Quicktime MOV file of the animation, 1920×1080, using the animation codec. I watch it in both Quicktime and Final Cut, and it looks to me as if it plays a little slow / choppy. I don’t think this is because my laptop can’t read the file fast enough, although I suppose that could possibly be the case. However, both QT and FCP read the file as 10fps, when the animator said he exported it as 24fps, which may account for this. Do I have to convert this before editing? Why do both programs read a 24fps animation as 10fps? Or did the animator export it incorrectly? What sequence settings would I use?
I have Final Cut 6 and a 17” Macbook Pro.
Thanks in advance, let me know if you need to know anything else.
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7 Replies
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Import it in to FCP, and check the frame rate in the browser. Quicktime can report incorrect frame rates sometimes.
Then, I’d put it in a Prores timeline at the matching frame rate if it’s a standard video frame rate. If it’s 10fps, then the animator might have cone something wrong.
Jeremy
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The issue is PRECISELY because your computer cannot read the file fast enough.
The Animation Codec is HUGE!!! It is basically 4:4:4, totally uncompressed footage. Your laptop harddrive literally cannot grab the footage fast enough, especially because it is HD. You may even have trouble reading SD Animation codec.
Open the file in QT, and hit COMMAND+I to Get Info and check the DATA RATE required to playback in realtime. It’ll probably be up near 189MB/s or such. A FW800 drive can only do about 100MB/s.
So the Frame Rate of 10fps could be that QT can only Play it back that fast, that’s as fast as it can achieve. But more likely, I’d wager that Adobe Flash just wrote the file a little hokey and probably off offical spec and it’s causing problems.
My recommendation is to use Compressor to Convert the file into the ProRes422 codec (HQ if you encounter any banding) at full size, 24fps, and then work with that in FCP.
Whenever I encounter weirdly submitted files or even PC video files, I usually try to get them into a ProRes format. I’ve found PR to make really solid and super stable video files. Gigantic, but super stable. And they seem to export into H.264 and other formats very smoothly.
Good luck!
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Cool, thanks for the time and advice.
I opened up the animation QT file like you said and it said that the data rate was below 100mbps. To be exact, it says 26.52mbits/s.
I also tried converting the animation as you said in Compressor using the ProRes422 codec at HQ (and at regular ProRes), full size, 24 fps (and multiple other compressions) and the file still has the same choppiness as it did in its original form when it was at 10fps. As far as I can see, it pretty much looks the exact same on both QT and FCP.
So, yeah. Guess I’ll keep trying new things and hopefully something will work…
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[Brian Barnes] “So, yeah. Guess I’ll keep trying new things and hopefully something will work…”
Please import the file to FCP and tell us the frame rate. Don’t look at Quicktime.
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As I said in the previous post, I did import into FCP. Without converting the originals, FCP reads it as 10fps. With converting the original to 24fps ProRes, it reads it as 24fps but looks the exact same as the original.
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[Brian Barnes] “As I said in the previous post, I did import into FCP. “
Must have missed that part. I thought you said QT, but anyway, that file is screwed up.
I’d get another from the animator.
How did they make the file?
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I had the exact same problem- I was able to solve it by converting the animation files to “Apple ProRes with Alpha” . Converting them to normal ProRes or ProRes HQ still had choppy results.
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