shakey Quicktime imports

[Jon Zanone]

What’s the source of the QT? I tried bringing a QT in I converted from an MPEG2 using conversion utility. I never could get it exactly right…

Jon

“So you want to throw out the old you – but the old you is old enough to know it won’t make it better”
Del Amitri – “Make it Better”

[Michael Hancock]

Are you in PAL Land? I think there has been a bug in Avid in the last few versions where PAL quicktimes that were imported with the proper field order would actually have the field orders reversed upon import and cause shaking.

If you’re working with DV PAL it should be lower field first and I think that’s supposed to work. However, everything else is Upper Field first. To get around the bug you need to render in Lower Field First then set your import settings to Lower Field first. When Avid imports it will correct the field order and play back fine.

Also, always make sure you’re setting your fields on import. Rerendering in a different field order won’t help if you won’t change your Avid import settings to reflect that change.

Otherwise, if you’re seeing very thin lines flickering up and down and not the entire picture then it’s because of interlacing issues with thin lines. Make then fatter or add a subtle .5 Gaussian blur to them and it can smooth them out.

Michael.

[Dan Warvi]

I’ve had tons of issues with stuff that started DV25, imported into After Effects, and rendered out again regardless of resolution. That version was MC 2.5.3.

In the end, I installed a seat of Quicktime Pro on the Avid, and rendered out of After Effects to either a DVCPro, Animation or H264 codec – which took a long time to import, but looked fine.

[Mike Dow]

Are there 6 verticle lines of shakiness? If so, you might have imported 720×486 when AVID was expecting 720×480 or vice versa. Other problems could be in the import settings of AVID. If you’re doing NTSC DV make sure the options in AVID are 601 and 601 lower filed first. You can either change the import settings in the settings tab by double clicking the import setting with the check mark next to it, OR choose “override current settings” in the import dialog.

Happy editing.

[Dan Lacloche]

Sorry for the vagueness. I rendered 720×486, NTSC, Animation Compression, 29.97, lower field first. Then I did one with upper field first; neither worked.

The strange thing is that I’ve always used Animation codec and 720×486, lower field first and it always worked, until he updated his Avid software to Composer Adreniline 2.6.4

I even went to Avid’s site, and they say Animation codec is okay to use.

[Dan Warvi]

What is the resolution of the source file? Are they editing in SV25 or Avid 2-1 (or higher?)

There’s a nasty issue with rendering DV25 files in After Effects, and then sending them back in the same codec…(this started with MC 2.5)

[David Franklin]

Did you ever resolve this problem? I’m having the exact same issue. (Well, except I’m on a Composer 2.7.)

I render out of After Effects using the Animation codec to a Quicktime at 29.97. When I watch it un-interlaced in the quicktime player on my windows machine, it looks clean as a whistle.

Then I import into Avid and suddenly all these horizontal lines start vibrating like crazy as the image zooms in. (It’s a shot of water that zooms in on the original jpeg file, and the horizontal lines vibrate up and down as the fields interact with one another).

I tried rendering lower field first, upper field first, always importing to match, but no luck.

I can defeat it through brute force by putting a 2 or 3 pixel vertical blur on an adjustment layer back in After Effects, but that makes the entire comp unacceptably soft by the time it reaches Avid.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks.

p.s. I’ve also tried rendering as an OMF2 and MPEG 50, then importing each of these as native file types in Avid, but to no avail.

[Dean Holbird]

Did anyone ever figure this one out??? I still haven’t figured it out

[Aaron Kochman]

I am having some serious issues with Quicktime file import on the Avid 3.0. it is clean and looks great when I play the file on my desktop, but when I import it, it gets soft and pixeley. I have tried all variations of the import settings and no luck. I import at 1:1 and odd first, even first, RGB, RGB dithered, etc. what gives? anyone have an idea? i am on a tight deadline and need to have this as clean as it looks on the desktop.

thanks,
Aaron Kochman

[Michael Hancock]

In Avid, is your timeline playback mode set to full quality (Green/Green)? Also, how are you viewing the quality–on the computer monitor or on a broadcast monitor? If you’re viewing it on the computer monitor, you should remember that you’re only seeing 1 field when play is stopped, so it’s going to look softer than during playback to a broadcast monitor that shows both fields.

Also, what’s the codec and frame size of the quicktime you’re trying to import?

Michael.