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Problem importing AE renders
Hi, I posted this in the AE basics forum first, but this is probably a question a Vegas user can better answer. I am using AE CS4 and Vegas Pro 8 on Windows XP SP3.
I am working on a multicamera Vegas project shot in 30p. I am color correcting ALL of the raw B camera footage in AE, and then importing the new color corrected B cam footage back into Vegas.
Sounds good, right? The corrections look way better than what Vegas has to offer, so I like the workflow.
Now AE more or less exports the renders properly, and I make sure the footage is interpreted as No Fields/etcetc. In the Render Queue I do the same. However, Vegas still imports these renders as Lower Field first interlaced, and not Progressive Scan like my original footage.
You might say having Lower Field first interlaced in a 30p project is not the end of the world, but this causes Vegas to convert the rendered footage in realtime while I do my multicamera edits. My computer is not fast.
And I am dealing with about a two hour timeline where I’m often tweaking the multicamera edits, so pre rendering is not an option. And re-rendering hours of footage again in Vegas to Progressive Scan is just way too inefficient for my tastes.
And before you say ‘Well are you sure the rendered footage is actually being rendered differently?’, I have checked by importing the renders into AE. The new renders show up as Lower Field first, while the original footage does not show up with any similar descriptive term (presuming this means 30p). I’m still learning AE, though, so I could be reading that wrong.
Anyone have any experience with this? A simple thing, but very confusing!
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7 Replies
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> I have checked by importing the renders into AE. The new renders show up as Lower Field first, while the original footage does not show up with any similar descriptive term (presuming this means 30p).
If AE thinks the rendered files are lower field first when you re-import them, then there is something wrong with your AE render. It’s obviously not rendering progressive. This is not a Vegas issue and there is nothing Vegas can do about it. You need to get AE to produce progressive footage that AE agrees is progressing when you re-import.
What format are you using to render? What format is the original footage?
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
“This is not a Vegas issue and there is nothing Vegas can do about it.”
Thank you. I was having some difficulty getting that point across with some people in the AE basics area. I do not see the point in blaming the NLE when AE is obviously rendering the files in a different format. Unfortunately when I have Googled this issue, however, I haven’t come up with much.
The ORIGINAL footage is 29.97 progressive (30p). In AE I make sure I Interpret the footage as proper progressive. In the Render Queue I am using the following settings:
Quality: Best
Resolution: Full
Field Render: Off
Pulldown: Off
Format: Video for Windows Movie
Output Info: Microsoft DVI have also tried Export -> DV Stream. Here, there is an EXTREMELY clear (simplified) dialogue box where I can specify Interlaced or Progressive in very simple terms. The results are still interpreted as Lower Field First when imported back into AE (and obviously in Vegas as wels).
Hence why I am quit baffled, and for now will probably just be forced to convert the Lower Field First footage into Progressive inside Vegas, just so I can edit the footage without dealing with any realtime conversion lag.
Any help is greatly appreciated, though! 🙂
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> Output Info: Microsoft DV
This is your problem. The fact that you specified no field order in the Render Settings of AE means that AE will send progressive video to the encoder. Unfortunately, the DV encoder in AE will gladly take those progressive frames and convert them to interlaced DV footage. I would recommend that you use a different codec that supports progressive footage. Lagarith or Huffyuv is probably a good choice since both are lossless.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Sorry, I should have specified that the original footage is also using DV compression. So while lossless would be true progressive, it would then require me to convert that render into the DV 29.97 ‘Progressive’ format I originally shot my footage on with my DVX.
That would work, but obviously would be very cumbersome/time consuming.
The DV format might not be ‘true’ progressive, but within Vegas my footage is soon as either progressive or interlaced. Rendering within Vegas creates files seen as ‘progressive’, whereas AE render files consistently return ‘Lower Field First’. AE reads these files the same way.
Would using different DV codecs in AE solve the problem? I believe Sony uses its own DV codec in Vegas. Perhaps using that would solve the problem?
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You could try using a different DV codec. I also used the Matrox DVCPRO codec and got the same results (interlaced video). I did some testing and found some very strange results.
I rendered an image as progressive out of AE using the Lagarith codec. GSpot confirmed that footage was progressive and had no field order. Vegas still thought that it was Lower Field first, AE thought that it was Lower Field first, but Premiere Pro thought it was progressive! So something is wacky with the way these applications are interpreting footage even within the Adobe CS4 suite.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
John,
Thank you very much for running those tests! I have read that Premiere Pro has its own problems exporting progressive as well.
That confirms that there really isn’t much I can do. For now I converted my existing renders (using Vegas) from Lower Field First to Progressive, so all the footage plays well together.
In the future it seems I’ll just have to work out a different workflow (use Premiere Pro and AE together, etc). A bit disappointing/frustrating, but I must admit I am very relieved I wasn’t missing something obvious. It was driving me crazy trying to get this to work, haha.
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