[Andrew Yoole]

Sorry, a fair question. I’m a 20 year broadcast editing veteran and used Decklink SDI cards for 10 years, so it’s not hardware I’m unfamiliar with.

I’ve tried the setup in virtually every possible combination of ways. But, of course, the main problem is the standard setup of Blackmagic-DV (activated through Easy Setup in FCP). The Timeline is DV codec, PAL anamorphic, 25fps, lower field first.

It appears to me that this is either a monitor issue – that the monitor is failing to recognise the interlaced input from HDMI for some reason – or the Intensity card is failing to output a standard interlaced signal that the monitor is able to understand. As every other interlaced source I feed the monitor works fine, my money is on the Intensity card doing something wrong.

[Andrew Yoole]

Sorry, a fair question. I’m a 20 year broadcast editing veteran and used Decklink SDI cards for 10 years, so it’s not hardware I’m unfamiliar with.

I’ve tried the setup in virtually every possible combination of ways. But, of course, the main problem is the standard setup of Blackmagic-DV (activated through Easy Setup in FCP). The Timeline is DV codec, PAL anamorphic, 25fps, lower field first.

I see the interlace issue from DV source footage and also from elements like text that are animated on the timeline.

[Andrew Yoole]

Thanks for your response but it doesn’t resolve my problem. Any SD interlaced output looks dreadful – the monitor seems to be displaying both fields simultaneously. I’ve tried a second HDMI monitor with the same results. Interlaced signals from other SD sources, like DVD players, look fine. But the Intensity output is awful.

The Intensity card and monitor are essentially useless in this setup. The results of monitoring DV are unwatchable, leaving my client wondering why didn’t just stick with a Firewire cable into his DVD deck.

I’d really appreciate some practical advice on this issue. Surely a large number of Intensity users are working with DV timelines regularly?

[Andrew Yoole]

Additional info:

Successfully upgraded to BM Decklink drivers 7.6.3 (took 40 minutes to download 60MB??!!) No change.

Substituted DVI-HDMI cable. No joy with new cable.

Tried connecting HDMI directly to internal card ports. No change.

Very frustrated, as I have a big client-assisted edit beginning in 48 hours which was the motivation for me buying a Studio 2 rather than standard SDI-only card. The HDMI monitoring was the reason for the upgrade.

Any assistance appreciated.

[Andrew Yoole]

My apologies – you did say you were working in 2D only.

Yes, mimicking the real-world physics of such an animation can be very tricky. For example, the speed of each object should slow the further away from the viewer it is.

It would be well worth your while creating the layers in 3D – probably much easier and more realistic than the option you’re trying here.

[Andrew Yoole]

In the corporate PC world there’s no guarantee a machine will contain a DVD drive OR the software to play a DVD. DVD playback software is not a standard component of Windows XP. VCD offers you no benefit over DVD if there’s no software installed to play it back.

Your best bet might be to build a little CD-ROM that auto-plays a video file using the PCs default media player (probably Windows Media Player), or plays it in a web browser.

Can you determine the age of the lowest-common-denominator machines that will be used? You can put an MPEG-1 file on a CD and it’ll play on virtually anything (but will look similar to VCD quality). A better alternative would be an MPEG-4 file or a wmv, but very old machines may not cope with these formats.

A tidier way to do it might be to have a one-page HTML document on the CD which automatically opens the web browser when inserted and plays an embedded Flash video. But again, very old machines not cope – this method requires the machines to have Flash player installed.

Here’s a how-to site that explains how to make a CD autorun:

https://www.ezau.com/latest/articles/autorun.shtml

[Andrew Yoole]

Your motion paths are not true ellipses, and the speed between points in your motion paths is inconsistent.

You can draw an ellipse with the Mask/Path tool and then copy and paste it into the Position parameter.

Set each ball to “Orient to Camera” so that the layer will always face the camera, regardless of the position.

[Andrew Yoole]

You can’t share processing between computers during the design/preview stage. Gridiron Software used to make a grid-processing tool, but it is now defunct. You can, of course, use multiple processor cores on the one machine.

You can use the AE Render Engine to utilize both machines to render an image sequence, but consider the caveats of that process:
•Both machines must have the same utilized fonts, plugins and codecs installed.
•If you’re using a lot of footage resources, it may pay to copy all the source material locally to each computer, thus avoiding network bottlenecks.
•As you must render an image sequence, you will probably have to recompile that sequence into a Quicktime or similar file after the render, and add audio if required.

Personally, I’d suggest that, unless you’re rendering VERY slowly (like 30 secs per frame or more), there is seldom much advantage in using just two computers rather than one. Render engines really only come into their own on very complex projects with many computers to share the load.

[Andrew Yoole]

Write them a letter threatening legal action if they do not supply a full refund. It’ll look more serious if it’s on a lawyer’s letterhead, so if you have a friend who’s a lawyer or something, ask the favour.

Also draft a letter to the Anti-Piracy Department of Adobe, and include a copy of the letter with your legal note to the guy.

Hopefully he’ll panic and give you a refund. Then, notify Adobe Anti-Piracy anyway.

https://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/antipiracy/reportform.html

[Andrew Yoole]

This thread, while filled with good advice, has become very cluttered with jargon and even some misinformation.

Based on your original question, and subsequent additions (and the need to keep costs low) here’s what I would do in your shoes:

Get a low-end HDV camera with true uncompressed HDMI output. The Canon HV20 is a perfect example. This will give you native uncompressed 1920×1080 output from the HDMI port, which is the BEST way to achieve quality keying.

https://www.hdvinfo.net/articles/canon/hv20overview.php

Get a MacPro. Buy the best model you can afford – the top of the line is usually way more expensive. Middle and even lower-end models will still manage the work exceptionally well. If you are watching the budget, don’t buy extra RAM or hard drives from Apple, get them from a third party vendor.

You should have a bare minimum of 4GB RAM, but get 8GB or more if you can afford it.

Buy three standard-off-the-shelf 1TB 7200RPM SATA drives. I prefer Seagate drives, but others have their own opinions. These 3 drives in a RAID will have adequate performance to capture uncompressed 1920×1080 video.

Now a choice:

CHEAP choice: No Apple RAID card. Just install the three new drives and stripe them as RAID 0. Con: No data protection if one of the drives fails.

LESS CHEAP CHOICE: Apple RAID card – stripe drives with RAID 5 for protected DATA. Con: Expense.

There are all sorts of reasons why RAIDs can fail. It doesn’t happen THAT often, and sometimes data protection still won’t save the data. There are no guarantees.

Personally, I run all my Mac systems with the project files (like the Final Cut/Premiere/After Effects/graphics files) on their own drive, and the captured media on standard (Cheap option) RAIDs. Apple Time Machine is configured to back up the Project drive but not the Media RAID drives. If the Project drive dies, I have a Time Machine backup no more than an hour old. If the RAID drives, I replace the dead cheap drive and recapture the lost footage off tape. (I have only lost 5 drives in the last 5 years, 4 of them in RAIDs. And I have 4 systems.)

Finally, get a Blackmagic Intensity card for the Mac, to capture HDMI. (US$249 retail)

https://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/

That’s it. Biggest drawback is having to have a desktop machine on-site, but if it’s a fixed studio setting, odds are you can have a permanent installation anyway.

This is the CHEAPEST way I recommend to record quality HD green screen footage.