Working with uncompressed footage

[Steve Roberts]

Maybe we’d better get some terms straight, since in this business, we have to be specific, technically.

“Compressing to PAL” is a misnomer. There’s no such thing, since PAL is not a codec.
Exporting an existing movie to a new movie as “uncompressed” or “none” just freezes the quality of the movie in its current state, but makes a huge file. Exporting with the current sequence settings (assuming they match those of the original codec) also keeps the original quality of the movie, but at the original file size (per second).

1. To which specific codec were you compressing in all (both?) the situations you described?

AE doesn’t have trouble with a file because it’s uncompressed. It has trouble with interframe-compressed files (MPEG-2 or HDV) because it has to generate frames itself. I think you have another problem.

2. Look at the “uncompressed” footage in Quicktime Player (cmd-I, under “format”), and tell us what codec is used.

In case you didn’t know, saving as a reference file means that you are making a tiny file which contains “play the original, unchanged file from here to here now”. When you change the codec of a file, you are not saving as a reference file, you are creating a new file entirely.

3. Are you running out of drive space?
4. Please tell us what your desired workflow is: for example: capture in FCP, export with no effects from FCP, key/composite in AE, edit back in FCP?
5. Generally, I capture in FCP, export a non-reference Quicktime movie with current sequence settings (no changes!) then import that into AE, key/composite, then

… and please answer the questions by number. You’d be surprised how many people don’t do that. Makes it difficult to troubleshoot. Thanks.

[Brendan Coots]

There is no point in creating an uncompressed file out of Final Cut if the footage is Mini-DV, you aren’t gaining any quality and as you saw it just results in a huge file for no reason. 99% of the time you should export footage in its native format for use in After Effects. In your case, this would be the DV codec which After Effects should have no problem with.

When you render back out from After Effects, it’s a totally different story. The key and any other effects that you do in AE are done at 4:4:4 uncompressed quality, that’s just how After Effects works. Therefore, it DOES actually make sense to render to an uncompressed or lossless codec out of AE because there is new, higher quality elements there than the DV footage you imported. To save space, don’t use uncompressed – lossless codecs don’t lose data but save space wherever possible, resulting in a file visually identical to an uncompressed file, but at a much smaller size. The Animation Codec is probably a good option here.

I should also add that doing the type of work you are attempting to pull off requires that you have a relatively fast computer with at least 2GB RAM or more, and at least one fairly large secondary hard drive (320GB at least) dedicated solely to storing your media. Anything less than these specs and you will be limited to working at lower quality and taking much longer to do basic tasks, as you experienced.

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

[Phil Beastall]

I disagree because by changing the codec in sequence settings to ‘none’ it makes the image appear much crisper.

Hypothetically, if I am working with text, I do not want it to lose its sharp edge by being soften using the PAL codec, so what would you recommend, if I have a sequence with mini-Dv footage and text graphics. Thats another reason I have been choosing to not compress the footage.

I’ve worked out that the reason the file size is so big is because I do not render before export. So by rendering, and then exporting separately, the file size is reduced dramatically.

Its worth doing a test on an image of someone’s face. When the sequence setting are set to PAL, the face is soft, and then when changed to None or Animation, the face becomes sharper, and is much better for usage on the Internet, where I want the footage to be crisp.

[Steve Roberts]

There is no such thing as a “PAL codec”. From a digital point of view, PAL is a frame size and frame rate. Any codec that can be applied to NTSC footage can be applied to PAL footage. What compressor is the PAL sequence using?

DV footage comes out of the camera compressed. If you render it to the “none” codec (uncompressed) you do not improve it, because the codec cannot create information that isn’t there. If you render to any other codec, you are recompressing it, with varying degrees of loss. Animation is a lossless codec.

By itself, rendering does not reduce file size. It only does so if the new codec (to which you are rendering) has a lower data rate than the original codec of the footage. So rendering DV material to “none” increases the file size because “none” has a higher data rate than DV.

If the FCP sequence settings match the footage characteristics, then the footage will not be recompressed in a cuts-only sequence. It will only be recompressed in that sequence if effects, transitions or motion is used. So if your footage is miniDV, then use a miniDV (preset) sequence.

Phil, there’s something that you’re not telling us about your FCP sequence and workflow. Please check out my earlier post and answer the questions so we can solve your problem.