Jeff Meyer
Forum Replies Created
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All good points — but the return email from Comcast with their encoded proxy and final output should give conclusive evidence of how it will play out of their spot server. Checking the proxy is a good delivery practice.
Letterboxing due to lack of center-punch-safe graphics is an interesting theory, but I sincerely hope their engineers wouldn’t introduce such an aspect ratio distortion. I’ve had their engineers call over issues before (they called minutes after I uploaded XDCAM 35 intended for a different network) and they seemed knowledgable enough and concerned enough to not do this to my client’s content. It could be policy to letterbox content that isn’t 4×3 safe, but that would be rather obnoxious.
My best advice is to use the Contact option after you login and get in touch with an engineer who can give you a conclusive answer.
For reference, I found their Premiere Pro/Adobe Media Encoder guide.
https://login.comcastaddeliverylite.com/Documentation/Lite/Media_Creation_Guide_AdobePremiere_Mpeg2_SD_HD.pdf -
Use DNxHD or ProRes. Comcast will encode those in their very particular preferred mpeg format. Don’t worry about the extra generation..Both of those codecs will deliver more detail than the final result will offer.
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What specs are you using for your export?
If you’re delivering over Ad Delivery Lite they have specific specs they’re looking for — it is incumbent upon the user to deliver properly. They provide preview tools after the upload so you can see the results after it goes through their black box transcode. I’ve linked to the specs below.
https://www.comcastspotlight.com/userfiles/ComcastAdDeliveryLiteFileFormatSpecifications–100511.pdf
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Since I think you said you’ve reinstalled Premiere it might be time for a full on reformat. If projects that worked no longer work and you’ve already done a reinstall I’m not sure what else would be left.
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Have you done 4k before?
Do your previous 4k projects open up? -
Do you have 4k media on your timeline already?
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[Johannes Knecht] “This is so annoying and i dont know what to do…”
Well, I did offer a couple of suggestions. Are you finishing in HD or in 4k?
• If you’re finishing in HD export an HD video (ProRes/DNxHD) out of AE. Do your animation in After Effects. Remember precomps — they’re your friend.
• If you’re finishing in 4k import your AE comp into Premiere. Again, do your animation in After Effects using precomps. -
This forum is for discussing FCX in light of the competition. Discussion about the competition seems pretty relevant.
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Right now your workflow doesn’t make sense in my mind. We’ve got a 5.5k display at work (it’s an odd shape) and for editing I’d use 1080 ProRes/DNxHD before 4k H.264. Sure the H.264 will have a bit more resolution, but it’s missing subtle colour gradients and it’s going to pop at every keyframe. Just because Premiere will take H.264 natively doesn’t mean you need to use H.264. There are several formats that are more appropriate.
Second, I suspect you have a hard on for 4k without good reason. The fact that you’re exporting 4k to H.264 tells me this. If you want to retain detail H.264 is a terrible choice. It’s an 8 bit codec, so subtle color tones get banded. The sky may be a few shades of blue instead of a smooth gradient from light blue to dark blue. The Long GOP structure might make the blue in the sky pop every second. So one frame in 30ish your timelapse will have all the detail possible, then as you scale up things will get more mushy until another keyframe, at which point it will pop with detail, then begin to smear as the image scales in further.
If your finishing resolution is 4k then preserving 4k makes sense — provided you’re using an editing codec.
If you’re finishing in HD and you’re having trouble with 4k there’s a better approach — working with HD in an editing codec.My suggestion?
How about you use AE to make the footage look the way you want. By that I mean create your timelapse, add scaling, time remaps, etc. with the high res media. Remember precomposing will probably be your friend. Precompose all of the clips, then do your scale, perspective, and time effects to the precomp. Export your precomp (at your finishing resolution, 720/1080/4k) into an editing friendly codec, then bring that into Premiere. All the scaling was completed with the high res media, so as long as you don’t scale it in Premiere you’ve retained more detail than a 4k H.264 clip would offer, and you’ve minimized complexity.
The editing codec I suggest would be DNxHD on either platform, or plain ProRes422 would be fine on a Mac, though the ProRes engine in Premiere is 32 bit.a===
If you’re adamant about bringing 4k into Premiere and you don’t want to use an editing codec, perhaps you should take advantage of the dynamic link and bring your AE project into PR? Doing this avoids the H.264 intermediate.
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AME will give an output every bit as professional in less time. I always use it for H.264 encodes – substantially faster than Compressor and every bit as good looking. I’d say it’s one of the most underrated parts of of the Creative Suite.