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XDcam HD media in AE looks bad
Does anyone know what the settings should be on an AE comp to playback XDCam HD media? The media that we have imported to FCP plays and looks great in FCP and in QT, but the minute we put it into an AE comp is falls apart. We have created a new comp by dragging the clip onto the new comp button so that it uses the clip setings but it ends up looking jagged. We have tried interpreting the footage and changing field dominance with no luck. Even matching the pixel aspect that FCP shows and Adobe claims should work, to the interpret settings and comp settings still shows a jagged image.
Is there a way to make it look good in AE or do we need to capture the old fashioned way?
Vic DiAngelo
Vic DiAngelo
Glazen Creative Studios
Cleveland, Ohio -
4 Replies
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i haven’t worked in xdcam… but if it has a pixel aspect ratio other than square (1.0), try turning off the p.a.r. correction (at the bottom of the preview window… it looks like a rectangle with a double headed arrow above it).
another option would be to just change the your comp setting to square pixel and see how that looks (don’t render that way, just see what it looks like, if it looks good then you can switch the par back knowing that your render will look fine).
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
I have tried both of those and they didn’t help. Thanks though. I am beginning to wonder if it isn’t the pixel aspect because in FCP the clip properties say the pixel aspect is HD (1440×1080) and in AE the same settings still show the pixelated edges, actually I should say it’s more like an aliased edge on live images (not graphics).
All of this makes me wonder if AE needs to add support for XDCam in future revisions, but when I brought this up on the AdobeLabs AECS3 forum they said they were not currently working on that.
Vic
Vic DiAngelo
Glazen Creative Studios
Cleveland, Ohio -
” in AE the same settings still show the pixelated edges”
99 per cent chance these pixalated edges are not “real” but just a consequence of having the Pixel Aspect preview option turned on. When you turn on PAR preview in AE (or PS), anti-aliasing doesn’t work. Just like when you use odd zoom levels for viewing your Comp.
If you turn off the PAR preview button (located in the bottom of the Comp panel, between the 3D view menu and the Fast Previews/OpenGL button) you’ll see your subject loose a lot of weight, but you shoud also get anti-aliased edges 🙂
Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires – Argentina
ar(AT)adolforozenfeld.com -
you may end up rendering to an intermediate codec, maybe dvcprohd, to go between fcp and ae…
but, have you tried to leave (or match) the interpret footage in ae to the settings that you have in fcp (a 1.33 pixel aspect as you decribed)? you can leave the field and frame rate alone at this point. then drag the footage onto the make comp icon, but then set the comps size to 1920×1080 and pixel aspect to square.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW
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