Preparing AE projects for HD

[Brendan Coots]

There are several “standard” HD sizes, and you really need to find out from someone what the specs of your project are (maybe ask the editor). Most HD in broadcast TV is 1280x720p, but there is also 1920x1080i. After Effects has composition presets for all standard HD sizes, so you should use them once you know the project specs.

Working in 16bit would be a very good idea, but other than that there isn’t much different than working in standard def. You should know that HD is square pixel, and is either progressive frame (720p) or interlaced (1080i). Interlaced flavors of HD are always upper field.

Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

you’ll also want to work with proxies as much as you can. Serge has a tutorial at the COW.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Steve Roberts]

Yes. You MUST ask the editor what he/she wants from you in terms of codec, frame rate and frame size. If he/she doesn’t know, go down the line until someone tells you.

[Steve Roberts]

Now if it’s already been shot in HDV, you should convert it to something like Photo-JPEG (you’d think I own the licence for that codec) or Animation if you have the disk space before importing into AE.

[Darby Edelen]

[Steve Roberts] “Photo-JPEG (you’d think I own the licence for that codec)”

I Heart Photo-JPEG.

I’m making the T-shirts I swear I am, and I’m not paying you any royalties ;P

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Brendan Coots]

Speaking of animation and photo-jpeg codecs, does anyone here use the Sheer Video Codec? I have read many good things with regard to high quality and tiny file sizes, and apparently some big studios are using it a lot as a replacement for the Animation codec. But I’ve yet to hear from average users if it’s worth moving to as a day-to-day, operational codec.

Anyone?

Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com

[Michael Powers]

Has anyone experienced crashes while working with HD footage?

I have with AE7 and the CS3 trial version, so much so that I stopped using AE7 and went back to AE6.5!

It occurs when I have QuickTime movs from avid with the DNxHD codec. Any ideas?

Thnx

Michael Powers
Art Director, Animation
Cramer
Crameronline.com

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Dave LaRonde] “By the way, did you know that the absence of Windows Media for Macs was a MUTAL decision between Microsoft and Apple? Ron Lindeboom wrote about it in a thread not too long ago.”

Hi Dave,

What I alluded to was that neither Microsoft nor Apple was willing to directly step on the toes nor to support the media efforts of the other. It’s not like there was a grand conspiracy to ruin the lives of the other guy’s users or anything. In fact, I once read somewhere on the net that Apple funded the development of the encoding technology that third parties did to bring WMP and WM encoding to the Mac.

In the end, they each open up to each other; they just use a “kissin’ cousin” of each to moderate.

I guess you could say that neither wishes to directly endorse the other guy’s technology due to the implications that would arise as they both compete for Hollywood distributors, the Web, etc.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Dave LaRonde] “Call me an idealist, but I don’t think you ought to have to pay to have a codec.”

Even if that codec does what *none* of the other Quicktime codecs can do? Things like (to quote David Battistella in his COW Magazine article) compress/decompress 50-times faster than other lossless codecs? 7-times faster than DV? 3-times faster than Apple PhotoJPEG or MotionJPEG? 2-times faster than uncompressed?

It’s not an intermediate codec. It allows users who don’t have the latest versions of FCP Studio 2 to work with files that they can’t when trying to use ProRes 422. ProRes only works with machines that have the latest FCS2 installed. If you have Adobe After Effect only on the machine, you are hosed in ProRes 422.

If you work in a cross-platform shop, you are mega-hosed in ProRes 422. Sheer Video codec works even in cross-platform shops.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Dave, but how many more times are you going to bag on a technology that is actually quite cool, does what Apple *isn’t* going to give you, and allows AE users the kinds of powers that were promised in ProRes 422 but are only there for those who are willing to have the latest FC Studio 2 on every machine where they need these kinds of powers.

That’s an expensive dongle! ;o)

I apologize if this seems harsh, Dave, but I am scratching my head wondering why you seem to hate these guys so much??? Again, my apologies if it seems I am slapping you. I am not. I am merely wondering why you take every shot you can at these guys.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom

[Erik Pontius]

I downloaded the codec from BitJazz to try it out…it has a free full featured trial for 20 days (I think). I tried it out since I had some Apple DVCpro50 greenscreen footage I wanted to manipulate on the PC with AE. Since the Sheer CODEC is cross platform, I exported the Apple DVCpro footage out of QT Pro on my ancient Mac to the network and was able to open it up in AE on the PC. Worked like a champ…used it for some other intermediates for some other stuff out of AE to then use Procoder to encode to a couple of different web formats. Worked fine…though I did have a hang up in AE when working with the greenscreen footage, though I didn’t do enough testing to see if this was related specifically to the Sheer codec or just my system getting moody.

Erik