David Johnson
Forum Replies Created
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One person’s view, which will be more useful if taken as a piece of the whole answer you’re looking for … the rest of which I’m sure will be provided by the many very knowledgeable pros at the COW …
Whether it’s FCP or any other NLE I work on, I look at my NLE as primarily the online/finishing system even though most NLEs now have the ability to do relatively basic versions of the things a composting/animation/mograph/specialFX program like AE is for.
It’s definitely helpful that NLEs have evolved to this point … especially when the needs of a project are relatively basic or there is a severe time crunch since NLEs are always faster than far more complex tools like AE, in addition to the fact that adding tools to the workflow of a project always adds to the total time.
Even though FCP (and most NLEs these days) are very powerful tools in their own right, I still refer to their capabilities in the areas tools like AE specialize in as “relatively basic” because a specialized tool like AE offers far more control with similar things since those things (composting/animation/mograph/specialFX) are what it was designed to do, unlike an NLE.
This isn’t at all true for everyone, but I practically use my NLE as almost a cuts-only finishing system … I do almost all text, graphics, color correction, keying, etc., etc. in AE and put together final edits, basic transitions, etc., in FCP. One of the many reasons I work this way is that AE obviously offers far better interaction with other programs that are always a big part of my workflow (namely Photoshop & Illustrator).
I hope you find my ramblings somewhat helpful.
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Sounds kinda like the render files folder or a source media folder got moved or lives on a drive with throughput that isn’t fast enough for FCP … hard to tell since you didn’t fully say what the message says … what is “Not Found”? Render files or media? Or, something else I suppose?
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I can’t help with the main issue, but for this last part …
“When I quit FCP and relaunch, it asked me to reconnect to the same files from before, and all renders disappeared, I would have to render it again.”
Before reconnecting the media, you might try putting the hi-rez files in a ZIP file so FCP can’t find them, naming the low-rez photos the same, then putting them in the same folder the hi-rez ones were. You’ll probably get the error that says some attributes don’t match so you can’t do this, but if I recall correctly, it still works most of the time and you won’t have to reconnect them all one-by-one since FCP will find them all once you reconnect the first one.
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Good point Michael makes about the easy setup. Since DVC-Pro is a Panasonic format, I’d try their website for a codec installer before going all the way to reinstalling FCP … or, maybe even Apple’s pro apps pages … not sure either will have it, but worth a shot.
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I’m very glad you found my reply helpful, Christopher. I don’t recall the prices, which are obviously an important factor too, but in deciding whether to get Flix Exporter or Flix Pro, you might also consider your workflow …
When I’m in an extreme time crunch, it’s very nice to be able to render good FLVs straight out of AE without the need to render an uncompressed QuickTime first. However, I always render uncompressed QuickTime files too anyway and it’s also very nice to be able to run sources that did’t originate in AE through Flix Pro.
For me, the amount of web video I do now justified both … especially since a repeat client basically bought the software for me, but I also know choosing one is difficult when paying directly. Depending on your circumstance and budget, you might also ask yourself whether it’s likely the FLV format will really be dominant indefinitely … based on history, my guess is no.
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Your could …
Import your rendered video file back into AE, add it to a new comp, turn off its layer’s audio, add the new audio as another layer and render. It will render much faster since the video won’t need to re-render.
Open a copy of your rendered video file in QT Pro, go to Movie Properties and delete the existing audio track(s), open your audio file in another QTP instance, select all & copy, go back to your video file and “add to movie”. If the new audio track is not exactly the same length, you may have sync or similar issues.
By the way, in my humble opinion, every video professional (and even serious hobbyist) should own QuickTime Pro … for only $30 it is well worth it for all the things it can do.
Paul, glad to finally have an opportunity to tell you I absolutely love your observation about the child-parent relationship in AE! lol
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Yes, it’s not there … there is only something like a reference to the total number of frames that were to be rendered, not an actual timecode count as those frames render.
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I’m sure you know this, but just in case, much like an MOV, an AVI can be made with any one many different codecs so it sounds like the ones you’re having trouble with are muxed (video and audio combined into one track). I very rarely use AVIs since they are kind of unpredictable so I can’t tell you the precise solution, but will mention a couple things that should help you find the solution.
Demuxing isn’t a feature that sells compression/conversion software so its one that some software has, but it often isn’t mentioned in the features lists. Because I need to do it infrequently and haven’t in a while, when I do run into your situation, I just have to try each of the compression/conversion tools I own, which is what I suggest. I’m certain at least one of these will pull audio from most any muxed AVI, but don’t recall which one(s): Grass Valley ProCoder, Sorenson Squeeze, Autodesk Cleaner Xilisoft Video Converter, and/or RAD Video Tools Bink & Smacker (yes, that’s really the name ;~).
Also, these are some codec information applications that, in my humble opinion, every video professional should have in their toolbox for situations like this: KC Softwares AVI Toolbox, KC Softwares Video Inspector and GSpot Codec Information Appliance. If I recall correctly, most of those are freeware.
I hope my ramblings are somehow helpful … good luck!
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[matt cue] “I meant no disrespect towards anyone b/c of their age, era, job title, or obsession with DOS.”
Obsession with DOS!? lmao No offense taken and I didn’t mean to sound defensive since I’m not that old after all! lol Just making the point that it’s generally a mistake to assume age and/or years in the business has an inverse relationship with knowledge and/or skill and that, usually, just the opposite is true. Hmmm … that was a pretty confusing way to say that wasn’t it!? lol
[Ron Lindeboom] “But if an engineer came in talking with quotes such as I read in this thread, I wouldn’t hire him for free.”
Point taken. At the same time, I’m in corporate now so there are no staff Engineers, but the last station I worked at had several “old school” Engineers who practically built the place from the ground up, yet I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t even know what a RAID is since there were separate computer technicians who wouldn’t know a deck, camera or routing system if it bit them. That’s a fairly common scenario in some contexts these days, but at the same time, the Engineers I know wouldn’t go spreading misinformation about things they don’t know either so, again, point taken.
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If you’re talking about Photoshop text layers you want to convert to AE text layers, just right click on hem in the timeline and select convert to text. If it’s some type of text document you’ve brought into AE, you’ll have to open that doc in it’s appropriate program, then copy and past the text into AE text layers.