Brendan Coots
Forum Replies Created
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This is why it is such a BAD idea to use non-standard codecs/apps for professional work. I trend to scold people for using any codec that doesn’t come standard with WMP or Quicktime, and one version back.
Chances are you’re going to have no choice but to compress the larger source files. Try the app SUPER C for this (it’s free, search Google) – it converts to/from a wide variety of formats.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
If you render to Animation codec out of AE, you don’t really even have to do the compressor step, you can just import the Animation codec file directly into DVDSP. Either method works, but DVDSP does seem to offer better feedback and control over fine tuning the final file size of the MPEG-2, which can be important if the video is long.
Also, Dave, on the Quicktime/MPEG issue. I imagine it’s similar to them charging people $1.99 for 802.11n activation software for Macbooks. They only did it due to accounting laws that prohibited them from giving the product away because R&D dollars went into it and were written off in some particular way. Something along those lines…
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Yeah, a lot of the PAR confusion comes into play when people design their graphics at the actual dimensions of the video. AE assumes any source material (stills included) that is 720×480 (or other standard broadcast sizes), is a video source and not square pixel, so it will try to apply aspect correction.
The easiest way around this is to always design your images a little bigger, maybe by 5 pixels all around, so that AE will leave them square pixel and everything works intuitively.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Here’s a tip: Uninstall Vista, install Windows XP, and give yourself a slap for every buying that piece of crap OS.
Totally kidding, but seriously any time someone has odd problems here and they are using Vista, it’s nearly impossible to troubleshoot since no one really knows if it’s the app or the OS causing problems. Vista is a D.O.G. and every designer knows it. It is renowned far and wide to suck for this type of work.
Moving on to the issue itself, there are free programs out there that will allow you to transcode your videos into another codec. Find one that sounds good (Super C is one of the better free compression apps I’ve found) and transcode your files to something like Animation Codec. If that doesn’t work, uninstall, Vista, install Windows XP and….
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
You cannot influence or create the cool, strobing look of 24p film by rendering to progressive vs. interlaced, just doesn’t work that way. It also doesn’t matter one bit whether you render to frames or interlaced, for any reason. It is merely a preference. No matter what you do AE/the NLE will do what it needs to do. The only difference between the two is that some slow moving vertical animations with sharp edges can suffer strobing (not the cool, 24p kind) if they are rendered interlaced. That said, if your show is interlaced you might as well render interlaced, but it’s not a crucial issue.
As for the compression issue, you can’t really call uncompressed an “extra compression step” since there is NO compression, hence the name. Yes older NLEs might push it back to DV, but it is the exact same visual result either way. Personally, I always render out of AE to the Animation Codec and let the NLE do what it may. Also, Final Cut 6 (almost a year old now) doesn’t transcode footage anymore, it allows full format mixing and matching so the Animation/Uncompressed method WILL result in higher quality results.
I would suggest you either render to the animation codec (no loss similar to uncompressed, but smaller files), use the ProRes422 codec throughout your pipeline or use DV/DVCPRO 50, but only as a last resort.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Convert your original 140MB files using the Quicktime Animation codec. The files will still be large, but since it is a lossless codec they will only be as large as they need to be to retain full quality, unlike uncompressed. Avoid formats like MPEG for this stage of your work as they are all very lossy and will make your work look like crap. If this is for your reel, you probably don’t want that.
I would agree with Dave on both suspicions – your frame rates aren’t matching or you used a funky codec that has heavy intraframe compression.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Are these two clips the exact same clip with the EXACT same Keylight settings, only one is from 7 and one from CS3?
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
It’s on everybody’s lips these days (so it seems) but my outlook is very similar to the other responses here. While we are looking to diversify and otherwise shield ourselves from a recession, I just don’t think it will hit our industry as hard as others. In the fallout of the dot-com days, the companies that reeled in all of their marketing and basically took the ostrich approach withered away. I think a lot of people learned from that period that in a recession you need to get out there and compete your butt off or lose it, pure and simple. Also, I agree with other statements here about the breadth of markets and potential revenue streams our industry currently enjoys vs. times past.
We WILL see a shakeout, no doubt about it, but I think there are three things that will lead to demise in this – poor reels, high debt and excessive employees.
< rant > These days when you hear talk of “hard times” and recessions, they are usually talking about major corporations and lenders taking a bath in the markets because they made poor investments. Sure there’s a trickle down effect, but the real agenda seems obvious – they want all of us to get nervous about our own wallets so that we will eagerly approve the bailouts Uncle Same will inevitably offer them. Free market my ass. < /rant >
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Personally I think you would be better off with the dual-quad. There are a lot of reasons, but here’s a few:
1. Setting up the second machine to assist in renders would require unnecessary effort.
2. You will lose rendering productivity due to machine#2 having to read the project file AND source files from machine#1 for every frame it renders. Even on a well-tuned gigabit network (which will add expense/maintenance time to set up and manage)this will not be anywhere near as efficient as a local render.
3. Fewer machines to maintain/make space for/buy software and/or plugin licenses for/pay electrical bills for. The generally accepted rule of thumb is that this is NOT a cost-effective setup until you can scale up to 4 or more render nodes. I started with 5 and STILL felt like the work of maintaining the machines and managing files was barely worth the added render speed. Don’t underestimate the cost of all those additional software and plugin licenses, it can really add up fast.
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com -
Generally speaking you want around 2GB RAM per CPU core for AE to really shine in the multiprocessing department. With a quad-cpu machine 8GB is ideal. I know it’s expensive, but Other World Computing sells Apple certified RAM (OWC Branded) for half or less what Apple charges.
Also, the memory settings tweaks mentioned above will help you get multiprocessing out of AE with only 2GB RAM, but According to Adobe this method can lead to “undesirable” results whatever that might mean…
Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com