Massive quality loss on import – Due Friday

[Chris Wright]

THE CHALLENGE: Getting DVCProHD video exported from Final Cut Pro 6, into After Effects CS3, and then back into Final Cut Pro without shifting color or gamma.

THE PROBLEM: Apple and Adobe interpret Gamma differently when using the DVCProHD codec. Each use their own version of a DVCProHD codec.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS:
1) Use a 3rd party codec for both apps (Mainconcept, Canopus, Cineform, Raylight)
Downside: Cost money and I’d rather not deal with them

2) Use the Animation codec
Downside: Animation is a buggy codec, dropping frames and such. Also, file sizes are ridiculously huge and impractical.

3) Export Prorez HQ from FCP and in AE make an adjustment layer and tweak the gamma to 1.24.
Downside: This is a crude, temporary fix and probably not perfect in the gamma matching either.

and the long post:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/919924#940047

[Scott Roberts]

I would try a different codec . . . QT Photo JPG, QT Animation, QT PNG. What format are you to deliver?

Color Grading presets for After Effects, Premiere, etc., plus free presets and more.

LITTLE BLACK BIRD – PROFESSIONAL VISUAL EFFECTS

https://www.littleblackbird.com

[Todd Morgan]

Why not export to Avid’s DNxHD codec from FCP. Works like a charm, and then render to tiff sequence from AE back to FCP?

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Chris Wright] “Animation is a buggy codec, dropping frames and such. Also, file sizes are ridiculously huge and impractical.”

I have been using the Animation codec since 1994 when I bought CoSA After Effects 2.0 and I have never had any issues with using it. Never, in many hundreds and hundreds of times of using it.

With the cost of drives what they are today, the file sizes are of little consequence. They were long ago but today they are such a minor inconvenience as to be of no issue to nearly all of the pros that I know. Why the size seems so important to you, I simply do not understand.

If you don’t like something, that is your prerogative and your right. But espousing it as gospel is misleading…

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom

Remember: Burt Bacharach lied. What the world really needs now is an undo button.

[Darby Edelen]

I agree with everything that Dave said. Also, in my experience working with footage from AE->FCP I would think that the first thing you should check are interlacing settings.

Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[David Bogie]

[Ron Lindeboom] “[Chris Wright] “Animation is a buggy codec, dropping frames and such. Also, file sizes are ridiculously huge and impractical.” “

Chris, of course the Animation files are huge, it’s a lossless codec.
You are probably trying to play it back in real time. Never could do that with Animation-based clips unless the version is hardware supported as on Ye Olde Media 100, which wans’t really Animation but a realtime proprietary codec that supported alpha. Man, I loved that thing.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Chris Wright]

it has nothing to do with playback, its importing the animation clip back into AE. Many, many people in other forums talk about this, but since you guys are adament, I’ll relent and not bring it up again. 🙂

[Ron Lindeboom]

[david bogie] “Never could do that with Animation-based clips unless the version is hardware supported as on Ye Olde Media 100, which wans’t really Animation but a realtime proprietary codec that supported alpha. Man, I loved that thing.”

Or the ye olde SLOMO engine from the old NUBUS-based Media 100 — no one has still to this day created a slow-mo engine that is as easy to use, as quality in output and that makes a slomo that is as convincing to the eye of the audience.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom

Remember: Burt Bacharach lied. What the world really needs now is an undo button.

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Chris Wright] “Many, many people in other forums talk about this, but since you guys are adamant, I’ll relent and not bring it up again.”

If I were to take this comment at face value, I would be left with the impression that the people in this forum are just stupid. Either that, or that the people in this forum know something that the others don’t know.

Yes, we have a lot of newer users here but we also have a LOT of working pros who have been at this for many years. If this were a common problem as you espouse, I am sure it would come up here on a regular basis. It doesn’t. Well, except for one or two people whose experience seems quite contrary to the massive body of evidence experienced by the “body aggragate.”

As David Bogie points out, it may be a localized issue that some people have just not worked through.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom

Remember: Burt Bacharach lied. What the world really needs now is an undo button.