Dave Johnson
Forum Replies Created
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As Joe said, the error messages tell the deal … the file is corrupt/damaged … if you’re 110% sure it was originally rendered both properly and completely, it probably became corrupted/damaged while transferring from one drive to another or something similar.
The first thing I’d do is double and triple check my QuickTime … make sure you have the latest version and that it works fine with any other MOVs. You might also try opening the file on different computers … perhaps with an older version of QuickTime.
Also as Joe suggests, if you can get the file to open anywhere, run with it … in other words, see if you can get any conversion software to read it and export it to a new file (i.e., Squeeze, ProCoder, Cleaner, MPEG Streamclip, etc.).
This may seem overstating the obvious, but in my opinion, this can never be overstated … personally, I absolutely never have only one copy of any of my work (including all sources & project files). And, the 3-4 copies I keep are always in different places (i.e., external drives, backups, etc.) … computers are not infallible.
As an extra safeguard against this kind of thing, its also helpful to always embed project files into your QT movies … if you did that, try importing it as a project instead of as a MOV. Then, if you still have the source media, it’ll probably be much faster to re-render it than trying to get this file to work.
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You might try the Shadow/Highlight image adjustment filter, then use the Dodge tool with a soft feathered brush and very low flow setting to further soften the shadows as necessary. I hope this helps.
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It sounds like there are at least two separate issues contributing to the less than ideal results …
[1] H.264 doesn’t contain complete image data in every frame, only at keyframe intervals … so, using interframe media as a source is always bad (see Dave LaRonde’s “stock answer #1” for details), but the issues will be more extreme when time remapping since there is so little image data for the frame interpolations to be based on.
[2] 300% is quite a stretch … that degree of slo-mo is usually best accomplished by shooting in slo-mo and only using post methods for relatively small adjustments.
Since you might be past the point where you could address either issue in the ideal way (re-shooting with the end result more in mind), one option to consider is hiding the artifacts with other effects like forcing motion blur onto the subject (if the artifacts aren’t too extreme and additional effects would fit the situation).
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Michael makes some very good points …
Total Training has been among the best AE training for many years now.
And, the point about learning AE over the phone is one reason I worded my opinions the way I did … I think it depends a lot on the details of the situation (i.e., specifically what needs to be learned, experienced editor expanding skill set vs. beginner learning from scratch, etc.) … explanations to fill in some gaps could work over the phone, but the more in-depth stuff for someone without much background could be very tough.
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Duplicate your shape layer, use the duplicate as a track matte for the element you want to move within the shape and use the offset filter to move the element out to the right and back in from the left without needing multiple instances of that element.
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I need to add one thing …
“the file selected in the project panel.” that part means you are not only writing over a previously rendered file, but one that has been imported back into your AE project … it’s rarely a good idea to render over a pre-rendered file that is used in the same project … especially if you’re not familiar with the detail of how it all works.
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[Julie Mullins] “The Output Module will overwrite the file selected in the project panel. Would you like to continue? I have no idea what this means.”
It means you’re rendering the same file name to the same folder that you’ve previously rendered and, thus, replacing your previously rendered file. That’s sometimes ok to do … as long as it’s intentional and you’re aware of exactly what you’re doing … for example, if the render fails, the previously rendered file will no longer be any good since it was in the process of being overwritten.
To avoid that message and situation, you can render to a different file name (i.e., appending each with “v01”, “v02”, etc.) or render the same file name to a different location … I’d suggest the first approach. By the way, you should always “render” your work using the render queue, rather than using export movie.
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[Clint Hayes] “If I need to use something different for the audio, what codec should I use?”
Almost anything other than .m4a or .mp3 … ideally an uncompressed AIF or WAV.
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I’m not a 100% sure I understand the situation, but it sounds like one of tow things is happening … either your MOV from FCP has its audio in some type of weird codec that AE doesn’t fully understand (i.e., muxed audio as part of some type of MPEG video file) or, there is something wrong with how you’ve set your AE render settings or output module (i.e., an audio checkbox deselected, an audio codec issue, etc.)
It’s hard to say without more info (codecs of both input and output, etc.), so sorry for these elementary suggestions if it turns out to be a more complexed issue, but so far, it sounds like one of those things.
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I’m not in AE right now so I can’t confirm this and may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure I recall correctly that, if you select the keyframes for a particular parameter on different layers and change one of them by dragging its value number to the left or right (instead of typing in a new value) the others change by the same amount. In other words, if twenty different layers have inpoint position keyframes with different values, you can put the playhead at the inpoint, select each layers’ keyframe and drag the position value for one of them to move it by 100 pixels … the others will also move 100 pixels (instead of all changing to the same value).
Note this adds to but doesn’t contradict what Dave L. explained … it only works if the keyframes are at the same timeline spot … otherwise it’ll just create new keyframes wherever the playhead is.
As I said, I can’t confirm right now and there’s sometimes a disconnect between what my fingers do instinctively while I’m working in AE and what my pea brain recalls so sorry if I’m wrong.