Still Image Sequences

[Thad_h]

Hi Todd,

Actually in the 2.6 release there are TWO new ways to work around the situation you’ve described.

The first of course is the automatic handling of individual files based on their name, which doesnt seem to meet your needs, as you’ve clearly stated in your post above.

The second is a new feature allowing the Premiere Pro importer to do the file importing for some still image types, rather than using the AJA importer. You’ll see this described in the release notes stating:

“Users can enable or disable certain functions of the XENA importer in Premiere Pro. By default, the XENA importer will import bitmaps, targas and tiffs. These importer features can be disabled, allowing the Premiere Pro importer to import these files instead. This function can be useful for importing still images rather than file sequences.”

To use this new feature, go into the Playback Settings in your Premiere Project. You’ll find the importer controls on the bottom right hand side of the playback options screen. Choose the file type which you would like to have imported by the Adobe Importer, and then select ‘Enable Adobe Importer’. This will cause all files of that type to be treated as still images rather than individual frames in a sequence.

AJA XENA Support

[Todd Terry]

Thanks, I’ll give that a try, hopefully it will work.

I did indeed find that mentioned in the release notes, but I didn’t notice it buried there before (and neither did the company who built my machine, we’ve be trading emails about it all day).

I apologize for my harsh tone earlier… it was out of frustration, I’m usually a peach… ask anyone.

It’s just that I’ve been tearing my hair out for weeks with this machine (not just the stills, but a looooong list of issues). The problems start with the fact that this POWERFUL system which should be SMOKIN’ fast is slow as molasses compared to our much weaker Canopus suites… plus a bunch of specific operational bugs. My frustration goes back to the company who built the system, where the salesman (who incidentally is no longer there) touted Aja as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then the guy there I was dealing with today said “You really should have probably bought an AXIO.” Grrrrr.

I guess I long for the good ol’ days when everything just worked….easily, and well. Actually, what I long for are the days when Canopus and Adobe were getting along.

Sorry for the previous venting,

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Jeron Coolman]

I think most editors can relate with your frustrations, Todd 🙂

I haven’t used AXIO, because I swore off Matrox a while ago. (Stories which can fill other threads…)

I’ve had problems with my Xena card, but every time I have had a problem, I’ve been able to get resolution by dealing with Aja’s support. I can’t say that with most of the other hardware and software vendors I deal with.

I highly recommmend contacting their support if you have any other issues with your Aja product(s).

P.S. I think my Xena is the best thing since sliced bread too, but I come from an Avid background where you either spend 10x the price of the Xena, for an equivalent piece of hardware, or you are stuck with a lame, over-priced, firewire-device-that-needs-an-entire-pci-bus, Mojo that only supports SD.

[David Mack]

Hi Guys,

Just want to jump in here and ask a quick question. I have a Black Magic card (bear with me) and I’ve had no luck AT ALL with image sequences. Can someone confirm or deny that the Xena system will play back 1920X1080 progressive image sequences (BMP’s or TGA’s) straight off the Premiere Pro timeline without the need to render them (or import them as a folder)? I’ve got a raid that can handle the data rate (it’ll do uncompressed AVI’s etc) but the Black Magic system just won’t do it. I’m thinking of jumping over to a Xena based system but thought I’d get this vital to me info first.
Thanks in advance!

[Thad_h]

David,

The image sequence support that we have is the exact reason that Todd has voiced his frustration above. Our Premiere plugins have been specifically designed to handle images as video sequences, for users like you.

This being the case, we dont handle image files in the same way that Todd(who started this thread) is used to in Premiere Pro, and have since had to add some workarounds for the use of images as long duration stills, rather than as individual frames in a sequence.

So that is the long answer. The short answer is that BMP and TGA sequences should in most cases play in RT off the premiere pro timeline. If you want to be sure, you can send like 3 frames zipped to xenasupport@aja.com and we’ll be happy to double check that those frames will work correctly.

AJA XENA Support

[David Mack]

Thanks for the reply. Got to say the ‘should in most cases’ concerns me!* Surely it either does or it doesn’t?!?! In what circumstances does it work and in what doesn’t it? BMP’s and TGA’s are fixed formats, we’re talking uncompressed it can’t be the level of detail in the images – so where does the variance enter the equation?

*Excuse me if I am a little wary, I’m possibly moving over to Xena because the BM system I currently have doesn’t seem to do image sequences despite it being splashed across the website as a feature! I’ve asked others and no one has managed to get it to work. It’s the ONE feature I really need in the system so I’ve got to get it right. I can’t go through all this again!

[Jeff Brown]

I’d like to add, for clarification, another question:
Will the Xena (HD or 2K) support capture to image sequences (up to HD1080)? I think the answer is yes, but as a potential “former DeckLink user”, a confirmation would be nice.

-jeff

[David Mack]

Hi Jeff,

I’m curious – have you also had no luck on the Blackmagic card using image sequences?

[Jeron Coolman]

David,

I think the “should in most cases” comment is more of a “general computing comment” than one specific to images with a Xena card; e.g. I should be able to use use a RAID 5 for a media drive, but every time I’ve tried, it never worked very well 🙂

Being a software developer of over 20 years, I NEVER say “It will work” 🙂 The best I give is “It should work”. There are just too many factors involved that could make it not work; e.g. maybe an image sequence won’t playback smoothly because the media drive hosting them is a USB drive on an oversaturated bus causing jerky playback.

I create TIFF animation image sequences in 1080i resolution in particleIllusion and import those into After Effects and Premiere Pro and they’ve always played back in real time on my PPro timeline.

I don’t have experience with Blackmagic products, but when I was trying to decide between them and the Aja ones. I ended up going with the Aja hardware because it seemed to offer more “hardware acceleration” for the media I use.

Jeron

[Thad_h]

David,

The reason i stated ‘should in most cases’ is because we clearly dont control the source of creation of all BMP’s and TGA’s. While there is a standard for these formats, not all software appli9cations create them in the exact same way.

For sequences that were either captured or rendered using AJA software/codecs, they will play fine. However there are actually many ways that the data can be stored inside the BMP or TGA file. This is why I suggest that if you have files created by some other rendering application, you send a few frames zipped to xenasupport@aja.com. This way you can make sure that the files you are using will work, before you buy. If you’d rather not do this, it is also important to note that AJA has an excellent return policy, so you can buy one, and if it isnt living up to your expectations, return it. I’ll spare you the details of the policy, but your dealer can explain it in full.

AJA XENA Support