[Jeff Brown]

You may be running in to the fact that Standard Def video sucks. Even uncompressed is still interlaced, which will contribute to ugly artifacts.
Make sure you have proper field settings, and are rendering to fields.

There is a reason that underlines were almost never smaller than 4 pixels high for CG work… interlace flicker.

Detail will usually look worse in reality (video playback) than it does on your computer monitor.

Wish I had a better solution for you,
jeff

[Jeff Brown]

Start with some basic math: how big do you want the file to be (in MB)? Then, you will need to experiment — a lot — with frame size, frame rate, and data rate combinations. Keep in mind that most codecs that let you specify data rate express this in Kbps, which is Kilo _bits_ per second, not bytes. Start with a target Mega Byte per minute files size, do the math (there are 8 bits in each byte), and start testing. For small files, try 320×240 at 15 FPS for starters. Sorenson is old technology at this point, I’d agree with trying H.642.
I have gotten the best quality/size results using Flash video (with the on2 codec), if that’s an option for you.

Compression is still somewhat of a black art…

-jeff

[Jeff Brown]

[videoworx] “I’m running the latest version of Quicktime (downloaded it from Apple.com this morning)”

—-
I’d start there! can you do a rollback to a previous version?

-jeff

[Jeff Brown]

Tom,
Here’s a site with some good background for you. If the terms you mentioned are new to you, I’d recommend goinging through all the articles:

MediaCollege: video

-jeff

[Jeff Brown]

A while back I had asked Black Magic tech about the HD-Link and interlaced display. It does not display interlaced. It converts interlaced to progressive display.

The only interface for LCD display I know of that will show you if you have field reversal, or interlace artifacts, i.e., a true interlace display, is the eCinema Systems EDP100, and it’s standard-def. I _hope_ there are others! But that’s the only one to date that I’ve been told by the manufacturer that “yes, you will see interlace twitter if it’s there”.

Wish I knew more about the new crop of HD monitors (Like the JVC).

-jeff

[Jeff Brown]

I may be mistaken, but i think ALL character codes need to be 4 digits, hence the leading zero, for any program where you want extended “alt +” characters. I know it’s true in 3dsMax and Illustrator.
BTW, I keep a shortcut for “character map” in my main start menu. I can only remember the first digit (0) for things…

-jeff

[Jeff Brown]

David:
The only way file sequences work in PPro w/ DeckLink stuff is as you have found: as a string of 1-frame still images, which of course is pretty much impossible to edit with. There is a BlackMagic document which specifies this (and only this) procedure of importing 1-frame stills from a folder, but they don’t really talk much about it… wonder why?

BTW, thanks to the AJA folks for the confirmation. I’m hoping 4Gb Fibre channel gets a wee bit less $$ in the fall…

-jeff

[Jeff Brown]

I’d like to add, for clarification, another question:
Will the Xena (HD or 2K) support capture to image sequences (up to HD1080)? I think the answer is yes, but as a potential “former DeckLink user”, a confirmation would be nice.

-jeff

[Jeff Brown]

This may be pertinent:
NTSC is _always_ 29.97 FPS. Drop or non-drop refers to frame numbering, not frame rate. Possibly this is “confusing” the BMDC?

-jeff

[Jeff Brown]

The “folder technique” is the only documented (by BlackMagic) method I’m aware of. I think it’s in their manual?
I have tried using FrameLink, but it seemed untenable for my workflow. Can’t remember why, but it ended up being easier to render to AVI.
I don’t find render-to-AVI to be a killer, but my stuff is usually less than 1 minute.

-jeff