David Johnson
Forum Replies Created
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Yes. The only issues would be, as you mentioned, third-party plugins.
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Surely you wouldn’t be asking someone on the COW to give you unlicensed software so your best bet will be to contact Adobe. Of course you’ll first have to listen to all the reasons you should buy CS5 instead, but they can definitely provide very old versions like that … provided you already own a license since it seem very unlikely they’d sell you a license for AE 3.1 at this point.
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No one here can speak for GenArts so you’d have to either contact them or read the fine print of their license agreement to be certain, but I can tell you that, understandably so, GenArts is a developer whose licensing control is as good as their software … when transferring our license from one machine to the next during a hardware upgrade last year, I promptly got an email from GenArts stating that the software had not been properly unregistered from machine A (identified by IP address and serial) and was also installed on machine B (also identified by IP address).
Not sure it’s fair to say most, but many software companies’ license agreements allow use of their software on two separate machines as long as the two machines aren’t used simultaneously since the idea is that one person can use software they own on their desktop at the office and their laptop on the road without having to buy two licenses. I’m pretty sure GenArts doesn’t allow that. It is a very expensive package that’s priced for the high-end users like Hollywood studios, but you do get what you pay for … the only other plugin packages that seem even comparable are the combination of both BorisFX BCC and FEC, which add up to $2100.
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It is best not to use AE to generate the H264 file. Instead, render (from the render queue, not export) to a lossless or high-quality file (perhaps PNG or Animation) and use compression software to generate the H264. If you don’t have compression software like Sorenson Squeeze, there are some decent free or very cheap ones out there.
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I haven’t used that particular camera so I probably can’t help beyond mentioning that, although this is probably not the issue, it’ll still be best to use the most current version of the software (2.12).
https://www.servicesplus.sel.sony.com/sony-software-model-PDZKP1.aspx
You also have the option of using XDcam Browser instead of XDcam Transfer, but I don’t have a link to that one handy.
As discussed in the thread a few lines down “i want my XDcam Transfer back please”, it’s not particularly easy to find so look at the version numbers carefully.
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[Don Greening]
“one learned about A/V gear not so much by reading operation manuals but by the older guy or gal that had been at the production facility a lot longer that you. Information was handed down from the old to the new during the apprenticeship process. I think Sony’s way of instruction is still stuck in those times.”I think Don nailed the core issue there. What the “pro” equipment manufacturers seem to have missed as they’ve redirected their focus to the consumer market is that, in today’s production world, those old guys at the shop have either been replaced by college students who only know all the ins and outs of YouTube or they’ve been left alone via staff reductions and there simply aren’t enough hours in the days for them to figure out alone how to apply their years of experience to this week’s technology. In other words, we in the field have been forced to adapt to a new business model and the manufacturers just haven’t kept up.
By the way, just so it’s not left out if this issue does make its back to Sony and is addressed in a meaningful way, as my original post states, the same issues apply to the XDcamHD format, not just EX.
Also, at least as far as the XDcamHD cameras go, Sony did package discs with each camera, but as is always the case with equipment and software discs, the software and info on the discs is outdated by the time you get it so you’re left with obsolete software and info or the indecipherable Sony web site. Just take a look at the download page, if you can find it … every version of the software is listed as version “2.12” in one column, yet has the correct version number hidden in the description. And such cryptic descriptions they are … why not just call the software “XDcam Transfer”, “PDW-U1 driver”, etc. instead of PZD1WXZX270UXYZ212!!??
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Well said, Greg. It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who thinks the XD format has been inadequately supported for real-world scenarios. Perhaps, as a technology company, Sony just isn’t very good at that part and ought to consider some consult.
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Have you considered batch processing them through Photoshop before bringing them into AE? If you’re talking about scaling them up rather than down, you do realize they will lose resolution, right? That may not be a big deal if the change isn’t drastic.
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I haven’t watched Fight Club since it first came out so I’m going purely on my often faulty memory, but if I recall correctly, they just took a separate shot of Pitt (perhaps chroma keyed) and composited a few frames of it over the scene. It may have been stylized to give a certain look (like a subtle Glow when the same technique is used to briefly flash a ghost into a scene), but the basic idea is the same.
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[Dave LaRonde] “You know you did it bass-ackwards, right?”
Hmmm … accidental duplicate post or was it just worth saying twice!? lol