still sequence 1080p workflow and output to HDCAM

Adobe After Effects

still sequence 1080p workflow and output to HDCAM

Posted by Fwdinc on March 9, 2007 at 6:24 pm

I need to deliver 1080p native uncompressed quicktimes to a post house (I used a DS suite first…and will do the next session on a FCP HD suite..this time working natively uncompressed…with Blackmagic 10bit or RGB 10bit).

I am shooting (with a Canon 20D) some still sequences animations…usually about 600 stills.

I want the AE quicktime animations to be 1080p native, and knowing that HDCAM records at 23.976… I am confused as to how I should set up and render out to FCP HD for print to HDCAM…and I am aware that with still sequences, there are no video recording intrepretation issues to deal with.

Should I set the project and footage interpretation to 24p or 23.976? My first 23.98 HDCAM Tape had strange results to me…ouch! I have been editing in 29.97 for many years and first thought it was just my eyes not adjusted to the 24p look…but now I am concerned about my AE Quicktimes. The images seemed to studder and did not have that smooth look I was used to…this may be why in hindsight…

Project Settings: Timecode base 24 fps
Interpret Footage 30 fps
Pref: Import Sequence Footage 30 fps
Render out: Used comps frame rate at 24 fps
btw – project Color Depth: 16 bit

Another issue. The DS editor noticed that the levels of the quicktimes were clipped at 100 ire…I rendered 16bit but rendered out Animation Uncompressed (which is 8 bit) Does AE clip the image levels? That’s news to me.

Thanks for your help in advance,

Sam Moulton replied 19 years, 5 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
2 Replies

Fwdinc
March 9, 2007 at 9:11 pm

Thanks Dave,

I’ll try that forum too.

I posted to the AE forum because I was looking for the AE settings specifically.
I am shooting the stills with a Canon 20D digital camera…and using JPEG high.
The facility I am going to (when I sort out my AE framerate workflow) will use HDCAM and not HDCAM SR. 🙁

I am working 16bit in AE, and will render with the blackmagic 10bit RGB codec (on Mac OSX with AE 6.5). I know I am sliding down the quality slope but when I shoot the stills in RAW (over JPEG High) I will spend the extra money on HDCAM SR…soon. 🙂
but for now, my bigger problem is making the still sequence quicktimes the correct framerate (and luma levels) for FCP HD to print out to HDCAM.

btw, the facility says this is new ground for them too…so no answers there.

Thanks for your response,
Sam Moulton
March 10, 2007 at 9:03 pm

i attended a conference given by Chris Meyer about working in HD and he specifically pointed out, and at great length, that you must design differently for HD and even design differently for 720 vs 1080, and for p vs i. This is because the critical speeds for both horizontal and vertical movement change with frame rates, size, and interlacing. He even said that he charges more when projects must be delivered in multiple formats like hd and sd because most motion projects just won’t easily translate.

as far as frame rates go, he said you must match them. I believe him.

I’d suggest that you’re going to have to take a careful look at everything you do in hd for a while so you can figure out how fast you can move the images and how much motion blur is going to be required. Don’t feel like the lone ranger here. I was watching some projected HD stuff they show in the theaters before the previews start friday night with my sweetie and the Coke add had so much motion jitter it made my eyes go buggy. I’ll bet it looked great when they showed it to the client on DVD for approval…

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