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XDCAM EX24p playback problem
Hi all – not sure whether to post this here or in the After Effects forum. I’m editing a show shot on XDCAM 24p (35Mb/s, VBR), and am working in an FCP timeline in that format. Running Leopard on a 2 x 3 GHz quad-core Intel with 16mb RAM.
I am exporting some of that footage for After Effects work. My After Effects comp settings are exactly the same as the footage settings. I render out of After Effects to the same codec: HDCAM EX 24p, 35 Mb/s, VBR. I bring it back to FCP, drop the footage in the timeline, and get zero smooth playback. Audio plays fine, video sticks and jumps. I render it in the timeline (“render all”), and still the playback is completely unusable – picture sticking and freezing but audio playing fine. Drives are RAIDs, the native HDCAM EX footage plays fine, I am keeping all timeline settings, comp settings in After Effects, render settings in After Effects all the same.
“Safe RT” is turned on, I turned off audio waveforms in the sequence, windows are sized correctly. I also tried rendering out of After Effects to Pro Res, tried DVCPro HD, and I can not get the footage out of After Effects to play smoothly on the FCP timeline.
But – – playing the Quicktime files from After Effects in Quicktime player is smooth as silk – both picture and audio. Any thoughts? Something I’m missing here?
Thanks in advance, Larry Marshall
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4 Replies
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Hi Lawrence,
XDCAM is OK for acquisition, but no for post.
You waist time (very slow rendering) and quality (very high compression).
Go Prores.
Rafael -
Hi Rafael, thanks for responding. My edit is pretty much completed on the XDCAM timeline except for lots of holes where I have to put in some composited sequences. I didn’t shoot the project; I was brought in to edit. I am going to take the XDCAM timeline and let it render overnight to a DVC Pro HD timeline. I did a small test… it seems to work, and then I can composite my After Effects comps more efficiently. I think. I hope.
Larry (as the deadline screams closer and closer) Marshall
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Hi lawrence,
Most people (my self included) are cutting XDCAM in a Prores sequence. You have lot of RT performance, and a solid format in the end. Rendering may be 3 or 4 folds faster.
DVCProHD is a bad option when you can go Prores.
If you go Prores, before exporting, set “Render in High precision”.
rafael -
Thank you for this suggestion, Rafael. Admittedly this is my first experience with XDCAM EX. Last night I copied all the clips I edited in my XDCAM timeline, including audio clips, and dropped them on a DVC Pro HD timeline, 720p, running at 23.976 fps. Everything scaled correctly and played fairly smoothly without rendering. I rendered it out anyways… it’s an 8-minute program and took about that long to re-render to the DVC Pro HD timeline. This morning I’ll try the same, dropping the edited clips into a ProRes timeline.
Larry (I’ve been doing this a very long time… why are there so many frickin’ formats?) Marshall
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