[Alisa Placas]

Put your letterbox graphic in the timeline.
Take the square tool from your tools palette and draw a rectangle around the portion you want to remain visible. This is a mask. The black bars are now invisible.

Either under the composition pulldown menu or by pushing Shift+Cmd+B (i think), you can change your background color. Change it to something other than black. This will allow you to see if you’ve drawn the box properly and have removed all of the black in the letter box area.

With that layer selected, press “F” to open the feather options. Try giving the mask a feather of 1 pixel. This is just to slightly soften the line.

If you want, change the background color back to black.
Render your timeline out. Keep in mind that only certain codecs will support an alpha channel. Quicktime’s Animation codec is a safe one to use if you are unsure. You can select this under the “Output Module” in the render que.
The “Format” should be Quicktime. Then, click on the quicktime button and you will get a second pop up menu with a pulldown list of possible codecs. Look for animation. A setting of High should be sufficient. Close that menu.
Under “Channels,” make sure you select RGB + Alpha. The “Depth” should then say “millions of colors +”

If you ever want to doublecheck that an animation has an alpha, open the rendered movie in quicktime and press “Cmd + I”. This gives you the movie info. Click the triangle for “more info.”
Under Format, it will say “Millions of Colors +” if it has an alpha channel.

When you import it into your editing application, be sure you have your settings set up for importing with an alpha.

Are you just laying still letterboxed graphics over the video? Or are you somehow animating the graphics in after effects that you had already made?

[Alisa Placas]

Do you mean that you have an image with a black background and you want the background to be transparent?
Or do you have an image without a background and want to make an animation with an alpha?

If your image has no background, all you have to do is place it in the timeline and render it out. In the render que, under the “Output Module,” make sure the Channels says “RGB + alpha” and the Depth says “Millions of colors + ”
The ‘default’ background color in your comp will be identified as the alpha channel and only your ‘image layer’ will appear.

If you have an image that already has a black background and you want to remove it so that it will be transparent over your video……put it in your timeline and either:

A. draw a mask around the area that you want to keep opaque. Whatever is not in the masked area will be transparent and render out with the above settings. Use the pen tool in your tool window to draw the mask. After you draw it, press “F” to open the mask feather options….you can soften the cutout of the mask by a few pixels if you wish with this.

B. Use a keying effect on your image, selecting the background color to ‘remove’ it. Fiddle with the tolerance levels to get a clean key. (this is only a good solution depending on the colors in your image and the color you want to ‘remove.’ ) Render with the above settings.

I hope I interpretted your question correctly. Let me know if I didn’t
Good luck.

[Alisa Placas]

Luke,
Were you able to download and play that animation?
Did it have a motion jitter when you played it?

I do have ‘report dropped frames’ selected in the settings and it hasn’t reported any dropped frames.
I’ve spoken to several people about the storage and data rate and now am led back to believe that is not my problem.
It is either something in After Effects (moving too many pixels, too quickly) or perhaps something in my video card. Not sure it could be the video card though because many animations look great. It is only the fast moving ones that are givng me a problem.

Didn’t know that thing about the audio though. I only had audio on as a reference. These don’t have to have sound at all.
Is that something that could trip up Final Cut and the Decklink in this way?
Thanks for your time.

Alisa

[Alisa Placas]

Thanks, Jeremy.
I really appreciate you taking the time to check it out.
Best,
Alisa

[Alisa Placas]

Thanks so much, Luke.

I put an example up on my server. It can be accessed at:
https://webftp.powweb.com/?action=logout
hostname: terra.powweb.com
username: alisagraphics
password: graphics

There is a DVCPro HD animation on there that is giving me the ‘motion jitter’ problem during the move. I also included the folder with the After Effects project in it that I used to make the animation.

So, if DVCPro HD only has a 14MB/sec data rate, then my maxtor render drive with a 48MB/sec data rate shouldn’t have a problem playing it back, right?
Or is there something very different just in the striping process that would make the Medea Firewire 800 solution work much better?

If it IS in playback, I need to fix it today by ordering different storage solutions.
If it isn’t in playback due to data rate, I’ve got to figure out what I’m doing wrong in the project file.
However, after an extremely long process-of-elimination period of tests……It seems to me that it must be a playback issue.
My main problem is that there is NO ONE that I know in Boston with an HD setup that I can go test with. I’m going to overnight an example to the online editor in Canada to check on his system.
But, I am actually supposed to be outputting all of the finals this weekend. ……stress……

Best,
Alisa

[Alisa Placas]

Thanks for responding.

After going through every possibility, I believe now that it IS my drive. It just isn’t fast enough. I think it is working at 50MB/sec.
I’m looking for economical options right now. I can’t spend a lot because I really only need the faster storage for HD and I will more than likely not have any other HD projects for at least a year. I’d hate to blow lots of money that I don’t have now…..to find it outdated by the next time I needed it!

I was told that Medea’s G-Raid Firewire 800 storage is a possibility. However, I am getting some mixed messages from their website.
It says it supports 3 real-time video streams of DVCPro HD, 4 of HDV and 7 of DV streams.
The compatibility chart with Blackmagic does not mention HD capabilities at all though.
The model info page says that the G-Raid has a max data rate of 75MB/sec…..and I’ve read that DVCPro HD is 100MB/sec.

How could it support 3 streams of DVCPro if it doesn’t even have a data rate of 100MB/sec?

Any other ideas for low priced storage? I don’t need a lot of space…..just the speed for playback of some animations.
Seems like it goes from $400 for a G-Raid…..straight to $2000 and up for other options. $2000 and up isn’t an option!

alisa

[Alisa Placas]

Thanks again, Dave.
When you work alone all the time, sometimes you just need someone else to assure you that what you are doing is right.
I research until I “think” I am sure about something, but then it takes a load of weight off to have another person double-check and agree with your final conclusions.

Alisa.

[Alisa Placas]

Thanks for replying, Dave.

Unfortunately, the editor is in Canada and I am in Boston.
I have spoken to him though and he told me to deliver 1920x1080i 29.97 upper field first. He can take animation codec quicktimes or targa sequences. The quicktimes are preferred because none of my offline editors like working with targa sequences.

So, I can deliver that. I have the codec. It just produces ENORMOUS files.
The stuff I am working with is all moves on paintings and etchings and watercolors….few of which are of outstanding quality, so that is why I was trying to make my life easier and just go with a compressed codec.

I CAN preview and check all my animations compressed as DVCPro HD on an HD monitor and then rerender them as lossless animation quicktimes for the online. I am just a bit uncomfortable delivering something that I’ve never watched (in that codec) and won’t play on my system.

I have to figure that he should be able to handle the massive files since he IS in a fully decked-out HD editing suite with all the power one needs to drive those. And I have to guess that there won’t be any surprise moires or jittering in the lossless versions that didn’t show up in the DVCPro versions.
At this point, that seems like all I can do. Am I imagining a problem where one doesn’t really exist??
( I hope so! )

[Alisa Placas]

Thanks.
Sounds like field order might be the issue.
I didn’t even think of that because I’d read that HD was “upper field first”….but I am watching these with a Blackmagic card and their codec is “lower field first,” so, hopefully, that is the issue.

Alisa Placas
Lucid Animation
Cambridge, MA

[Alisa Placas]

The comps I’m working with are:
1920x1080i
29.97
square pixels

I’ve been rendering to the DVCPro HD codec….upper field first.
motion blur is ON

Alisa Placas
Lucid Animation
Cambridge, MA