[Erik Pontius]

I should probably mention that no matter what you feed YouTube it will still look like garbage (I would bet that even video encoded to Quicktime Animation would still look like crap once processed).
YouTube suggests some form of MPeg-4, Divx, 3vix, H.264…but they don’t give any useful specifics…but looking at the quality of their own video uploads (have you seen the cnn/youtube presidential debate videos?) You might do some testing on your own to figure out what yields the best results for you.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

The 100mb upload limit is only with their “single file uploader” They now have a “multi-file uploader” that can upload files up to 1GB (though it will take larger files longer to process). According to the Nov 8, 2007 YouTube blog post, this was PC only, however they mentioned they were working on a Mac version. Don’t know if that has been released yet since I’m a PC guy.
There is also a 10 min length restriction…however, some legacy “Director” accounts do not have this limitation (I’ve recently been able to upload a 30+ min video for a client who had one).
The Multi-file uploader is a godsend for content providers as you can queue multiple files to upload with metadata.
I’m sure it is a port over from the Google video uploader utility which was a standalone utility, while the new YouTube seems to run some software in the background but use a webpage interface.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

To steal a concept from “Thank You For Smoking”…just write in a line of dialog at the beginning that says that back in the Old West everyone lived in town houses with satellite dishes…and be done with it…problem solved.

Have fun roto-ing.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

Having upgraded recently to PC3, I’m seeing the same thing.
Apparently, from what I’ve researched, Upper/Top field first for the “DVD” mpeg2 encoding profile is forced for compatibility. As some older DVD players had problems playing anything that was lower/bottom field first. I’ve never seen one not play…not sure why the suddenly decided to enforce this rule in the 3 major release of the software…
So, they say a field order mismatch between your source and your output settings doesn’t matter…as long as the Input Source setting matches the actual source field order (ie. DV is lower field, and the source settings should reflect that). It then compensates properly switching the lower field to upper field and creates a properly encoded file with no field mismatch problems.
I’ve seen this in some tests I did long ago with PC2 and it does work, but the consequence is that it adds to the time it takes to encode since it is doing the field order switch calculations…which is why I preferred to set my output to match the field order of the source.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

You might have a look at Aharon’s “How to create a Film Flash” tutorial for some pointers…

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/Film_Flash.php

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

I would take caution with the YouTube upload recommendation referenced in the link (not to mention that they’re video is not correct aspect and looks bad to begin with).
Uploading FLV was probably removed because creative folks concerned with the quality (or lack thereof) of their uploads developed…err..hacked…FLV header information to exploit the fact that content encoded to earlier versions of flash (non-vp6) were passed without re-encoding…hence they were able to upload content using a much higher bitrate and length than what was allowed.
I’m on a Windows PC, so I’ve found through testing that 1000kbps , 15fps, WMV yields the best results for me and my workflow. I did some upload tests using various bitrates and compression formats (divx, 3vid, h.264, etc..) comparing file size of the file to be uploaded (Youtube has a 100mb limit for their single file uploader) and quality results after uploading. You can perform your own testing the same way (you can flip the broadcast options to “private” if you don’t want the world to see your testing).
Hopefully someday, YouTube will get with the times and start encoding to a more recent better Flash format. YouTube is a free service, so I guess we can’t ask for too much…

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

I would strongly advise against converting your films from 4×3 to 16×9. Just plan for your next film to be shot and framed 16×9.
For a number of reasons, the two biggest: 1) There will be quality loss. It is unavoidable. In order to “convert” your 4×3 material to 16×9, the image will need to be scaled UP so that the sides of your 4×3 frame meet the sides of the 16×9 frame. This will cause a quality loss. 2) In order to keep the aspect ratio correct when the image is scaled up, a sizeable portion of the top and/or bottom of the frame will be cropped out. You will be modifying your original artistic vision of framing. By using “pan & scan” techniques you maybe able to keep some of your framing similar, but it will not be the same, sacrifices will need to be made.

After all that if you are still curious or determined to do it, you can do this easily with After Effects.

1) Start a new AE project.
2) Import your DV AVI file into the project. Double-check to make sure that AE is properly interpreting your pixel aspect ratio and interlacing (clicking on the file, the information shown near the thumbnail in the project). If it is not correct, right-click on the AVI file and “choose interpret footage” and set the pixel aspect and interlacing properly (i.e. NTSC DV .09, lower field first)
3) Drop this DV Avi onto the “new composition” button at the bottom of the project window. This will create a new compostion the length of your AVI file.
4) Click on “Composition” then “composition settings”
5) Change the preset to “NTSC DV Widescreen” and click ok
6) Click on the layer with your AVI file. Press and hold down CTRL-ALT-SHIFT then press the H key and release all the keys. This will scale the layer to fit the width of the layer to the width of the composition.
7) Select the layer and press the P key to open the position properties. At the very beginning of the layer (press the HOME key) click the stopwatch to set a keyframe. Right-click on the keyframe and choose “toggle hold keyframe” Your diamond shaped keyframe will change to a square.
8) Scrub through your entire film, adjusting the vertical framing up or down to make sure that you are not cutting anyones eyes/mouth out, that an object of interest in the top or bottom of the 4×3 frame is not being cropped out, etc… each time you move the position a new hold keyframe will be added. You can toggle this hold keyframe on/off depending on the situation.
9) When everything is as you want it, choose to add this composition to the render queue and render out to a lossless codec (ie. Quicktime Animation).
10) Use a compression software (Squeeze, Procoder, etc…) to create a MPEG2 file with the proper pixel aspect ratio (1.2 for NTSC).
11) Author a DVD making sure that it recognizes the pixel aspect ratio of the file.
12) burn the disc
13) Make sure that your DVD player is properly setup and that it knows you have a 16×9 display.
14) play the disc.

Good luck with your next project.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

Oddly enough, I found this in the AE help file:

“After Effects supports a maximum image resolution of 30,000 x 30,000 pixels for importing and rendering files. Resolution refers to the dimensions (width and height) of an image measured in pixels. When you work with higher resolutions, you can use a wider variety of formats, such as IMAX frames (4096 x 3002 pixels), full-aperture/silent frames (4096 x 3112 pixels), and other large-format media. ”

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to create a new unique mask for every keyframe.
If you twirl down the properties for the mask, you will see an keyframeable option for mask shape. You can either create normal keyframes or hold keyframes, moving and re-positioning your mask.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

Welcome to rotoscoping.
You might check out the “How do you cut out an actor from the background (Rotoscoping)?”
in the “Common After Effects Questions (FAQ)” post that is at the very top of the AE forum.

Once you have done all your masking, your background will be transparent. You can then include this into another composition.
It is a little more complicated if you are exporting the footage to be used in another application. You will need to export the footage with an “alpha” channel and in a format that supports it (i.e Quicktime Animation).

Erik