[Bartek Skorupa]

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/broadcast_safe/video-tutorial.php

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

Turn off multiprocessing.

It’s my first thought, but I know that sometimes it may happen even though multiprocessing is off.

(I call this ball PIZZA, by the way).

In such situations I try to use good old PC method: Restart everything. Sometimes it helps.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

Let me try to “solve the mystery”

You are working with image sequences, so first of all you have to interprete your sequence (footage) correctly.

You probably have your preferences left at default settings, so every time you import image sequence – AE interpretes its frame rate as 30fps.

Select your sequence in the project panel – hit Cmd-F, and change its frame rate to 25.

(If you live in PAL world, you can set this interpretation as default, by changing AE’s preferences.)

Put your sequence into new comp (25fps), make a matte and output it to whatever you want.

If you output it into sequence and import it – AE will set its frame rate to its default – as set in preferences, so if you didn’t change the preferences – it will be again interpreted as 30fps.
You will have to interprete it again.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

I won’t help you with the sound but I think I know what could happened with the view:

Check out the bar under your composition view window.
Hover the mouse over the controllers and go to “3d View Popup”.
If it says anything else than “Active camera” – change it to “Active camera”.
You could have changed it earlier by accident.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

I don’t know the simple way, like: “select, move, scale, done”, but:

1. Create a solid.
2. make a mask – whatever shape.
3. select all the position keyframes you want to manipulate, and Cmd-c.
4. Select the “path” property of the mask you just created – Cmd-v.

You get the mask of the shape that is exactly the same as the path of your movement.

5. Manipulate the mask the way you want. Scale it, move, rotate, whatever.
6. Select the “path” property of your mask, hit Cmd-c
7. Remove all the keyframes of the position of the object you manipulate, select “position” property and hit Cmd-v.

This is not simple manipulation, but it works fine.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

If you feel that rotation needs to be stabilised as well, I would suggest as follows:

1. Stabilise the rotation.
2. Add “null” to your comp.
3. Parent your stabilised footage to the “null”
4. Recreate the rotation using “null”. Try to use just a few keyframes. Sometimes only two is enough. I would suggest one at the beginning, one at the end, and then tweak the rotation in between if needed.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

I don’t know how to duplicate the “tree”, but I can tell you how I work with templates.
I create the project containing only the template, call it “template.aep” and import it into the project I am currently in.
I can import this “template.aep” many times. The result is: several copies of the template in one project.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

Sorry for this misunderstanding. I didn’t read your post carefully enough. I focused on the word “upgrading” and didn’t notice that you have CS4 on your PC already.
What you are trying to do should also be possible. Adobe in your country should help you with that. I’m 100% sure that it is possible. I would’t try to find answers on Adobe website, but ask local representative. There has to be possibility to get DVDs with no license assigned to them and use the key you already paid for. Of-course you’ll have to deactivate the software from PC.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

In fact I have done exactly what you want to do.
You will have to contact Adobe in your country, and they should guide you through the process.
You won’t be able of course to run CS3 on your PC, and CS4 on your mac, as the upgrade doesn’t allow this, but your CS4 on mac should be fully functional.
When you install upgrade – you’ll be asked to give the upgrade serial number, and previous version serial number. You don’t have to have the previous release installed on your computer to install the upgrade.

Once again: Adobe in your country will give you all the answers.
In my case – it worked. Adobe in Poland gave me all the feedback I needed, provided me with all the DVDs and so on. It works fine.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland

[Bartek Skorupa]

From my experience – the best multiprocessing settings are: “OFF”.
I tested it on several projects and found out that only few of them were rendered substantially faster using multiprocessing.

The other issue is RAM. I hope that this is not your case, but I know people who tried to save some money and bought RAM not from Apple, but used some RAM that “should work fine”. They experience many problems.

Bartek Skorupa
Warszawa, Poland