[Chris Davis]

[David LaRonde]

“YOU would know that. But After Effects, not being a clairvoyant application, would not. Before you tracked the motion, it would see footage at 1920×1080 pixels. It would not know a blessed thing about its previous life as 4K footage, even if you tried to tell it…”

Oops. I just meant to make the question clear by using “perfect” footage as an example — 1920×1080 4444, with each pixel being able to resolve a single independent discrete piece of information.

No such camera outputs footage of this clarity, to my knowledge, so the nearest example I could think of was 1920×1080 footage, downsampled from the 4K RED. But I did not mean to suggest I would be using a proxy workflow, so the idea of 4K just confuses the question.

Hope that clears that up. Seems like the more I say, the more vague my questions become… 😉

[Chris Davis]

Isaac Viejo,

Thanks for the info.

Since I posted, I exchanged several e-mails with “Re:Vision Effects.” They know their products inside and out. They said De:Noise does not render particularly fast with FCP or Motion (no render speed ratios given).

But in AE CS5, De:Noise utilizes multiple cores with “Render Frames Simultaneously” set. They advised using a fast RAID drive to avoid a bottleneck.

They said most their plugin’s (or maybe all of them, I forget) utilize multiple cores with AE CS5. I wish RE:Vision Effects had an upressing program like Magic Bullet’s “Instant HD.”

-Chris

[Chris Davis]

Rafael,

Sorry for misspelling your name above.

Shane,

Do you recommend using Compressor to upres/cross-convert 720p24 to 1080p24, then stabilize (and crop heavily, like half the area) in a 720p24 timeline?

OR

Would I get results that are just as good by placing the 720p24 footage in a 720p24 timeline, copping heavily, like half the area, and allowing FCP to sort of “up res” the footage from there?

Thanks again. I hope I was more clear…

-Chris

[Chris Davis]

Shane,

Looks like MB discontinued “Instant HD Advanced,” but perhaps recently replaced it with a 1.2 version that includes “Resizer.” (Quote for MB site below).

Question: Does upressing or cross-converting in compressor get better results than simply putting 720p24 footage in into 1080p24 timeline and rendering in FCP? (I’ve not tried this yet, BTW. Would convert into 720p24 slow motion first).

The main reason I wanted to upres/cross-convert the footage is for heavy cropping for shaky footage. Plan to record 720p60 with very fast shutter for no motion blur, convert to 720p24 or 720p30 in Live Type (I think that’s the application; so it’s slow motion), then denoise, auto stabilize, then add motion blur with Vision Effects “De:Noise.”

The reason I’m saying my planned workflow is I wonder I should just put the 720p24 footage into a 720p timeline, and stabilize and crop heavily in a720 timeline and render.

“Since the release of Magic Bullet Instant HD Advanced in 2008, image scaling has become more sophisticated. Built-in tools such as Apple Compressor are now quite strong. Based on this development, we decided Instant HD Advanced no longer meets our criteria and will be discontinued and removed from our product catalog. This means Magic Bullet Instant HD Advanced will NOT be redeveloped for use in Adobe CS5.”

Rafiel,

Last I heard Shake was not getting more updates. Does it use more than 2 cores for rendering when upressing/crossconverting? I think I read in a FX Apple Training Series book that Shake was great for auto “smooting” and slow motion interpolation (IIRC). I don’t know if Motion or AE are up to the old Shake with auto smoothing for shakey footage yet. Also, did Motion get Shake’s slow motion interpolation abilities yet?

Thanks for your time,

Chris

[Chris Davis]

Bret and Shane,

Thanks. I am on my wife\’s iPhone so will be back when I can type faster than a word per minute.

Posting now to clarify. I need to upres but not make footage soft. Like PS plugin Genuine Fractals but for video.

[Chris Davis]

Rafael,
Thanks for your reply. I assumed “Open GL” meant graphics card only, but was not sure if there was also significant CPU used.

For those here who use RSMB with FCP, I’m eager to hear what render speeds you’re getting.

Thanks again,

Chris

[Chris Davis]

Stephen Smith,

Simple and well thought out approach to this “moving through time” effect.

Would you say this effect is easier/faster to do in Motion vs. After Effects?

(I’ve not read your bio, but I assume you are an AE pro as well).

Also, do you recommend taking out superwhite of a clip (maybe by adjusting opacity against a black slug) in FCP and rendering and reimporting the clip first, before exporting to Motion?

Some say Motion preserves super-white in 16 or 32 bit mode, but that’s not what the scopes are showing — superwhite is clipped.

Thanks,

Chris

[Chris Davis]

Stephen Smith,

Thanks. I’ll check it out when I have a moment…

-Chris

[Chris Davis]

Rafael Amador,

Thanks for the suggestion. NeatVideo looks good.

In “The Encyclopedia of Color Correction” for FCP 5, Alexis Van Hurkman lists third party FCP noise reduction software from Graeme Nattress, CGM, CHV-Electronics, and Joe’s Filters. Then he says that if these filters are not good enough, he recommends Vision Effects “DE:Noise.” At the time of print (2007), DE:Noise was marked under Algolith and was for After Effects only. So it seems like it must be something special to make it into a Apple Pro Training Series book.

1. Sounds like you’ve used Algolith/Vision Efects “DE:Noise.” How does it compare to NeatVideo?

2. Looks like NeatVideo accesses FCP through “FxPlug.” May I ask what kind of render times your getting (with what graphics card) with HD footage (like ProRes 1080p24 or similar)? Are render times for NeatVideo decent relative to other noise reduction software?

3. I’m also curious what other noise reduction programs you’ve used.

Sorry for the belated reply. I’ll be back here Monday between 7 and 9 PM, EST.

A sincere thanks for your time. If my questions are too specific, any info would be helpful.

-Chris

[Chris Davis]

Please note error above. I quoted Chris Short for the first two sentences only, but forgot to put his words in italics.