[Angelo Lorenzo]

Thank you for the link Todd. I think a lot of people, myself included, think of the Mercury Playback Engine synonymously with nVidia’s CUDA architecture. I will certainly be book marking this link regardless, as I have a lot of FCP people ask me about Premiere.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

is there any reason to bring this footage into After Effects beyond rotation and scaling? The reason being is Premier can also do this. If you select the clip in the timeline and go to the effects control panel you will see the motion controls. You can expand this area, select rotation and scaling, and be done with it. Alternately you can right-click the clip and select scale to frame size and it will fit the longest end and create shadow boxes if the footage is not the same aspect ratio.

I would double check all sequence settings in After Effects and Premier as I think there is some mismatching with size or aspect ratio between the two programs or your footage.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

What do you mean by not play correctly? When downloaded to someone’s computer, are you seeing it lag and stutter?

In my experience only computers with quad core processors or graphics card enhanced video playback can handle 1080p footage. Try downsizing it to 720p, this will ease the computing power needed to display this video.

That would be my first guess.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

What codec are you using with the QuickTime container? Also, just to eliminate the obvious, when changing the size are you unchecking the little chain link next to so you can change aspect ratio.

Also, are you going to keep the anamorphic HD or are you setting it to square pixel when you export to QuickTime? If it’s set up correctly throughout your workflow, QuickTime should be able to recognize the aspect ratio and play it back properly stretched.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Brad, you are right in assuming that storing project files on a shared network is fine as long as you do not simultaneously access them.

As far as the dynamic link bug with network storage, I’m not aware of any shortcomings, but you may want to head over to Adobe’s official forum as a few more Adobe employee are floating around there who could be of service for this answer.

I would think as far as human management, I would split editing between rough cut and master cutting or assign different scenes to each editor. That, however, is your prerogative.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

In all reality, no. The reason the Mercury Engine works is through GPU accelration with Nvidia’s Cuda architecture, something I believe they are not licensing to any other brand at the moment.

This hack also only works with Nvidia cards with over a gig of DDR3 RAM, so it’s still very hardware dependent.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

I disagree with Rafael. Twixtor needs to be learned… the motion sensitivity control is key, especially for shots with a lot of detail.

Also, don’t forget shutter speed. Twixtor does far better and the result looks better if you double your shutter speed in anticipation of the emulated frame rate. 50%(60fps) then shoot at 1/125. If you’re looking at something really fast moving, I might quadruple it. Twixtor can add motion blur back in to make it feel more natural.

Concerning on-screen latitude, google the superflat camera profile. Any footage shot with it will absolutely need color grading, but it gives you another stop+ of on-screen latitude to play with, especially in the shadows.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Kryolan Anti-Shine Powder, its a stage/film product designed for all skin types. Use this before any additional makeup or concealer and don’t be afraid to get some blotting paper as well.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

I have roughly two years of 5D footage and I’ve never had a sync issue with a clap board and dual system audio (no drift through 10 minute interview clips etc), but the delay you are seeing is par for the course with dual system.

The reason for this is even at 29.97fps your still seeing posterization in time. The “delay” may mean one frame is slightly before the clap, and one frame is when the clapper is firmly closed. The actual clap is happening in the time between those frames.

A camera may do 24, 25, 30, 60 frames a second, but the camera’s audio is sampling 48,000 times a second.

[Angelo Lorenzo]

I know people who design after market cinema products for the 5DmkII. Rumor is most of the R & D is complete for the mkIII but they are delaying release as the mkII is still a steady seller.

If you need it now, get it now. Upgrades are a fact of life.