[Chris Tarroza]

Thanks for the reply Jeremy.

I have had some bad experiences with getting my own enclosures and hard drives. I like the fact that I can read the product descriptions of a hard drive and it says something along the lines of “optimized for video editing”. Just getting an enclosure and hard drives is almost a risk since I will be using it on a daily basis and would want to make sure I spend money on the right thing!

Now I won’t rule out buying an enclosure+hard drive if you would kindly point me in the right direction. Brands? Some basic knowledge I should know about when buying these kinds of things? All I know is that it needs FW800 and has to be 7200rpm, other than that, I’m pretty clueless.

Thanks again.

[Chris Tarroza]

Hi Shane thanks for the response.

Ah yes. HD codecs. I’m JUST transitioning to HD from SD (company that I worked for was quite behind). Anyways, I have some XDCAM EX 720p24 footage. Also, I work with a freelance camera guy who says he will be getting a JVC ProHD camera. This is the camera > https://bit.ly/ah4IXr …but basically it says:

Video codec: MPEG2 Long GOP
File Format: Quick time format for Final Cut Pro/ISO .MP4 media file format

Never heard of MPEG 2 Long GOP. Looks like it records onto SDHC cards. Will I have any problems capturing working with this kind of footage? Anything special I should be aware of?

I’m a tad worried about the RAID 0 drives because I heard that if one drive goes down, the whole thing is lost. Budget wise, I’m looking at $300 max. Should I save up a bit more for something worth while? I’ve heard good things about the Drobo S but the thing is almost $900!

…talk about “you have to spend money to make money.”

When you say you back up the originals and not the imported, does that mean the footage straight off the card and not the QT files after log and transfer?

Thanks again!

[Chris Tarroza]

I’m just wondering then, should I even worry about getting something like a RAID or just go to my local Best Buy and get an external FW hard drive from there? From my understanding, the drives have to be at 7200rpm and no lower to avoid any problems.

Any particular brand? I’ve been looking at G-Drives and G-Raids. These even necessary?

https://www.g-technology.com/products/products.cfm?interest=all

[Chris Tarroza]

If you’re done editing in FCP and you just have a single clip that you want to bring into AE, I would just place an In and an Out around the clip that you want and export it in it’s original settings. So if you are working in ProRes 422 in 1280×720, make sure you export in ProRes 422 in 1280×720, or whatever the original file is.

Bring that file into AE, drag the video file into the ‘Create a new Composition’ button. This will make a composition in the exact same settings and length as the video clip.

Work your magic in After Effects.

When you’re all done, go to Composition>Add to Render Queue (or hit Command/Control+M). In the ‘Output Module’ adjust the settings so that they are the same as how you exported from FCP (i.e. ProRes 422, 1280×720 or whatever it is.)

Hit that render button. When it’s done, bring it into FCP, and replace the un-After Effect’ed clip.

Voila.

[Chris Tarroza]

If you have already created keyframes, changing a setting will automatically create a new keyframe.

Place the timeline indicator where you want the new keyframe to be. Then change the property that you want and a new keyframe will automatically be created where your indicator is.

[Chris Tarroza]

When in your composition that you want to lengthen, at the top menu click Composition>Composition Settings, or hit Command+K (Mac) or Control+K (PC) for the shortcut! Change the duration as need be!

On that note, shortcuts are great! Command+K is one I use almost every time I’m in After Effects.

[Chris Tarroza]

Like Dave said, audio is off by default when rendering. When in your render queue, click on the ‘Output Module’ setting (it’s usually underlined in yellow and defaulted to ‘Lossless’). In the Output Module Settings window, make sure that Audio has a checkmark beside it.

You can make a template of how you would like to render so you don’t have to keep on clicking in and checkmarking Audio. But that’s another post!

[Chris Tarroza]

Agreed. Any advice on what mouse is good? I’ve heard good things about that Logitech MX Revolution…

And I just had to ask… guessing there’s no way around the zoom in thing?

[Chris Tarroza]

Hi Adam,

Thanks for the reply! I did manage to edit the polygons of the objects but I am now at another stand still.

What i did was Use the knife tool to create pieces of polygons I could delete. Deleting that top part of the ‘T’ would leave a big whole and I would still have the edge from the ‘C’ anyways.

I’m thinking the only way is to make that whole top part one polygon… but not sure how to do that!

Thanks again!

[Chris Tarroza]

Hi guys, thanks for the posts.

I’m aware of the fundamental reason why HD is better (higher resolution than SD), but I’m wondering if there’s anything else more… concrete… when explaining to clients.

So you tell the average joe, “Well, HD has a much higher resolution. The follow up question would be, “Why is a higher resolution better?”

As people in the industry, we know the reason why. As an editor, I have experienced the pain of trying to key DV footage and the ease of keying HD footage. But clients don’t care about the workflow and 1080p is just a number with a letter at the end of it. Even if you were to get into the detail of lines and pixels, it holds a lot of value for us, but not to the average person, especially clients who are concerned about money.

I suppose it is a “See it to believe it” kind of thing. Trying to explain why HD is better in words is like trying to explain why stereo is better than mono in words.