[James Strawn]

Before you crop it, just razor it at frame 332 and apply warp stab to each half of the cut clip. I did that and it made it look pretty smooth. You see some subspace warping going on but it looks ok, and you could always try changing that so it just uses the regular motion parameters for stability.

If you end up cropping it will be more complex then just applying a mask effect since that does;t actually crop out any pixels… it just hides them from your view.

Software Quality Assurance – Digital Video at Adobe Systems

[James Strawn]

You’re right, that is some really beautiful scenery!

One of the reasons it’s not stabilizing that well is because the airplane itself is fixed to the camera and it fills a bug portion of the frame. So that’s throwing off the stabilizer algorithm since you basically have two significantly different stabilization scenarios in one shot. You could try masking out the plane but I’m pretty sure it will still want to stabilize the whole frame, which would mean you’d need to export it out (with transparency first) and stabilize that but then it probably would not line up tot the airplane well. it really becomes a problem for an AE (or other) rotoscope artist at that point and will not be a quick fix.

The other reason (which is a LOT easier to fix) is that you have a jump cut at frame 332 (11:02 in time) which is going to mess with the stabilizer if you run it on the whole clip at once. Cut the clip at that frame and then apply warp stab to each new cut in the sequence. I just tried that and got some pretty decent results, at least on the first half of the clip (that’s as far as it’s completed so far).

[James Strawn]

If the object’s movement is pretty clear and fairly isolated front eh background, then PrPro’s build in masking and tracking tools should be able to follow it pretty reliably with minima input from you. That’s available for most effects and can be found inside the Effects Control Panel once you apply the effect you want.

However… to draw a line trailing from it (or pointing to it?)… there is no straightforward effect for that in PrPro, so I’ll defer to Tyler’s suggestion for now.

[James Strawn]

For preview files: Go to Project Settings > Scratch Disks…
For media cache files: go to Preferences > Media

In either case, see the default paths listed for each item and use the browse buttons to set different directories as needed. There is also a checkbox in prefs>media to save media cache files next to originals when possible. And the default for preview files and other scratch disk settings is ‘same as project’ so that will of course cary depending on where your project is.

Software Quality Assurance – Digital Video at Adobe Systems

[James Strawn]

It’s not exactly what you’re asking for, but you can use Match frame (press F) to match a given frame from a sequence to the source monitor. Reverse Match frame (Shift + R) does the same thing in reverse. So these two shortcuts, while not a toggle per se, provide a pretty handy way to hop between monitors without having to find your frame with timecode input (or by eye) each time.

You can also nest sequences inside of a parent sequence, if that’s what you meant by “seeing the sequence as a sequence”. It’s a good way to keep thing compartmentalized on longer edits, or for other reasons.

[James Strawn]

In PrPro, if you use clip speed/duration (available as a clip property in the sequence), it repeats and removes frames in set pattern as needed. If you use time remapping (available as a fixed effect int eh Effects Control Panel), it lets you use keyframes for variable speed changes.

Either way, you should have frame blend turned on so that it will interpolate and plane frames for bed results.
Choose Clip > Video Options > Frame Blend.

Software Quality Assurance – Digital Video at Adobe Systems

[James Strawn]

For a simple test, try this:
1. browse to a clip in the media browser.
2. Right click on the clip in the media browser and choose import
3. Go to the project panel and see your clip

At this point, if your camera is disconnected, then either…
a) the media you just imported into your project will go offline (because you imported it directly from your device, which (as Alex mentioned) for most users is not the best practice) but will still be represented as offline media in the project panel.
OR
b) the media is still present, online and usable within your project and any open sequences (because you imported it from a local copy, which is preferred practice for most users).

If you’re seeing other results, then you’re either misunderstanding what the media browser does, or you are experiencing a bug which should be reported.

[James Strawn]

[David Honan] “One last query… is it ok to post “How do they do that” esque posts here? I looked across all other forum topic areas I couldnt find a match.”
Yes it is.

But there are a lot of advance DV FX going on in that short, and we can’t say for sure how they did it all. I saw evidence of rotoscoping, 3d modeling, keying and other effects. Most, but not all, of that could be done with a combo of PrPro, AE and PS, and they probably used several other tools as well. Shane is right though, green screen would be the easiest way to replicate something sort of similar to that on a budget but don’t expect the end result to be nearly as elegant without a lot of time, skill and TLC.

Software Quality Assurance – Digital Video at Adobe Systems

[James Strawn]

There’s not a lot of zoom-in on that example (like from space to street level, as you often see these days), so you can probably just get a high res map image and then animate its motion properties until you get the smooth sort of motion + zoom you’re looking for. After Effects will give you a lot more control but has a steeper learning curve, IMO. You’ll need it if you wan to get very sophisticated like they did with the snake and other elements all in motion. But if you just want to pan and zoom on a map, PrPro can do that well enough. Either way, I always recommend using anchor point parameters for the xy motion (as opposed to position), because you usually end up with smoother motion in the end that way, especially if you’re animating rotation, scale, etc.. at the same time.

[James Strawn]

[Tero Ahlfors] “As much as the footage allows. Use your eyes.”
I second this, but modify it too say:
Until it starts looking bad in your external monitor, or wherever you plan to output to.

Software Quality Assurance – Digital Video at Adobe Systems