[Jimmy Brunger]

I sorted it! (on Tiger at least..) It was my Blackmagic drivers going screwy after I downgraded Quicktime. Uninstalled BMD drivers then reinstalled and now FCP ref movies and my h.264’s are playing happily together now.

PHEW!

AE7 Pro – Nucleo – Mocha v1.2.3 – PS CS3 – FCP 5.1.4
MacPro Quad 3GHz / ATI 1900XT / 8GB RAM / OSX 10.4.11
30″ ACD / Decklink SP / SONY PVM-20M4E/ Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / XServe / United Digital RAID
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Production Studio CS2 – Combustion 3 – Mocha v1.0.1
Win XP Pro 32 / Intel Core2Quad Q6600 / 2GB RAM / NVidia Quadro570 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5s / Sony BVM-20G1E / 2 x Dell 2007FP / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 320GB boot/800GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

You’re not kidding! I just don’t know how to remedy the problem! Unless I re-install my OS to an earlier version and taking the hole system back a year or so then I’ve either got unplayable h.264s OR unplayable ref QTs.

What will playing the clips in MPGStreamClip do Rafael?

AE7 Pro – Nucleo – Mocha v1.2.3 – PS CS3 – FCP 5.1.4
MacPro Quad 3GHz / ATI 1900XT / 8GB RAM / OSX 10.4.11
30″ ACD / Decklink SP / SONY PVM-20M4E/ Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / XServe / United Digital RAID
———————————
Production Studio CS2 – Combustion 3 – Mocha v1.0.1
Win XP Pro 32 / Intel Core2Quad Q6600 / 2GB RAM / NVidia Quadro570 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5s / Sony BVM-20G1E / 2 x Dell 2007FP / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 320GB boot/800GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

Thanks for replying Rafael,

No, I’m not editing with these h264 file sin FCP. They were exported out of FCP a few years back for use in After Effects (I know after effects and FCP don’t like h.264..but I didn’t do the original job!)

The annoying thing is – this frame duplication problem is also occurring when playing these clips DIRECTLY in Quicktime Player and is fixed with older versions of QT (on Tiger machines at least)

The reason I posted it on the FCP forum is because now I’m having to use QT 7.5 on Tiger I’m now having problems viewing/using some OTHER clips (I think they’re DV reference clips) I can’t see them in QT player/FCP or AE.

I was hoping someone else might have had the same problem!?

AE7 Pro – Nucleo – Mocha v1.2.3 – PS CS3 – FCP 5.1.4
MacPro Quad 3GHz / ATI 1900XT / 8GB RAM / OSX 10.4.11
30″ ACD / Decklink SP / SONY PVM-20M4E/ Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / XServe / United Digital RAID
———————————
Production Studio CS2 – Combustion 3 – Mocha v1.0.1
Win XP Pro 32 / Intel Core2Quad Q6600 / 2GB RAM / NVidia Quadro570 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5s / Sony BVM-20G1E / 2 x Dell 2007FP / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 320GB boot/800GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

Yep, Photoshop text layers..thanks for that – that’s bit quicker than going down the layer menu everytime. a hotkey would be awesome, but that will do me for now!

Cheers.

AE7 Pro – Nucleo – Mocha v1.2.3 – PS CS3 – FCP 5.1.4
MacPro Quad 3GHz / ATI 1900XT / 8GB RAM / OSX 10.4.11
30″ ACD / Decklink SP / SONY PVM-20M4E/ Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / XServe / United Digital RAID
———————————
Production Studio CS2 – Combustion 3 – Mocha v1.0.1
Win XP Pro 32 / Intel Core2Quad Q6600 / 2GB RAM / NVidia Quadro570 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5s / Sony BVM-20G1E / 2 x Dell 2007FP / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 320GB boot/800GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

[eric pautsch] “The only issue you might have is if a client doesn’t like a section and you need to go back re-do the whole thing”

Sorry Eric, what do you mean exactly? How would this differ if using a high-end encoder? I mean, we’d sign off the actual content before starting the encoding process..do you mean clients saying “re-encode that, it has artifacts here and here…” sort of thing? Can you explain the different workflow for re-encoding sections in something like CinemaCraft or Fathom?

Thanks for your help on this.

AE7 Pro – Nucleo – Mocha v1.2.3 – PS CS3 – FCP 5.1.4
MacPro Quad 3GHz / ATI 1900XT / 8GB RAM / OSX 10.4.11
30″ ACD / Decklink SP / SONY PVM-20M4E/ Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / XServe / United Digital RAID
———————————
Production Studio CS2 – Combustion 3 – Mocha v1.0.1
Win XP Pro 32 / Intel Core2Quad Q6600 / 2GB RAM / NVidia Quadro570 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5s / Sony BVM-20G1E / 2 x Dell 2007FP / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 320GB boot/800GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

Thanks for your reply Eric. Yes I’ve read the cow article – that’s what made me look at DoStudio, which definitely seems like the best fit for us….

Now – A certified Blu-Ray encoder to go with it!? It seems Inlet’s Fathom is the cheapest DEFACTO solution at £5,000 (doubled the price already..ouch!) But talking to a couple of people, you can use Compressor or Adobe Media Encoder, but only as MPEG-2. Is AVC codec really as good as ppl say? Or is it only relevant if you’re trying to cramp hours of 1080 content onto one disc? I mean, if we’re not filling the disc – does it matter that our MPEG-2s are bigger in size, but look just as good as AVC?

AE7 Pro – Nucleo – Mocha v1.2.3 – PS CS3 – FCP 5.1.4
MacPro Quad 3GHz / ATI 1900XT / 8GB RAM / OSX 10.4.11
30″ ACD / Decklink SP / SONY PVM-20M4E/ Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / XServe / United Digital RAID
———————————
Production Studio CS2 – Combustion 3 – Mocha v1.0.1
Win XP Pro 32 / Intel Core2Quad Q6600 / 2GB RAM / NVidia Quadro570 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5s / Sony BVM-20G1E / 2 x Dell 2007FP / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 320GB boot/800GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

Your right to opinion is not in question to me – I wish you the best of luck with your quest. If you can get ANY reaction or help from Adobe then I’ll eat my head!

Truth is – Adobe is market leader at this level and they have got so massive that they can pretty much do what they want…unless someone comes and rivals them. Apple s/w is the only thing that will come close IMO and the competition would be healthy and is exactly what we all need. I hate the GUI and approach of Apple AV apps myself, but have to use FCP at times for my job and to collaborate well with others.

AE is pretty much necessary in that way for the kind of work I do and to share projects, etc. OS X is the best option to run it currently. It has its limitations (no scanline rendering, lack of raytracing, true 3D compositing, rubbish handling of large images, etc, etc) but it’s the best option for alot of the mograph stuff we do. Try Fusion, Nuke, Toxik, or even Flame if you’ve got the dollar if you want to go the Linux route – but IMO none of them shine like AE for mograph. Compositing – hands down, but not so much allrounders.

Maybe the Red Hat flavour of Linux would be a more likely route Adobe might follow – with all Autodesk Editing&Finishing systems running on that? Some intelligent compatibility between Autodesk & Adobe could be interesting, if unlikely whilst Combustion is still fighting to catch AE.

Best of luck getting a reply from Adobe..if they spent a bit more time listening to the customers they’ve got then when Apple or whoever does finally bring something rivalling to the table then maybe Adobe won’t lose as many unhappy customers to them!

AE7 Pro – Nucleo – Mocha v1.2.3 – PS CS3 – FCP 5.1.4
MacPro Quad 3GHz / ATI 1900XT / 8GB RAM / OSX 10.4.11
30″ ACD / Decklink SP / SONY PVM-20M4E/ Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / XServe / United Digital RAID
———————————
Production Studio CS2 – Combustion 3 – Mocha v1.0.1
Win XP Pro 32 / Intel Core2Quad Q6600 / 2GB RAM / NVidia Quadro570 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5s / Sony BVM-20G1E / 2 x Dell 2007FP / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 320GB boot/800GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

You could try Gridiron Nucleo on your old PPC/AE7 system…that will allow AE to use both of your cores and give 3GB RAM to each. This probably won’t help the lag on moving layers in a single frame (you need faster clock speeds – Mac Pro Xeons – to help that) but Nucleo + 6-8GB RAM will help preview and render speeds. That extra 2GB RAM should let you keep other apps open too while you wait for renders…Though you could probably do with a quad to use other apps effectively while you render.

Forget GFX cards. In my experience open GL does nothing but slow down or crash AE!

AE7 Pro – Nucleo – Mocha v1.2.3 – PS CS3 – FCP 5.1.4
MacPro Quad 3GHz / ATI 1900XT / 8GB RAM / OSX 10.4.11
30″ ACD / Decklink SP / SONY PVM-20M4E/ Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / XServe / United Digital RAID
———————————
Production Studio CS2 – Combustion 3 – Mocha v1.0.1
Win XP Pro 32 / Intel Core2Quad Q6600 / 2GB RAM / NVidia Quadro570 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5s / Sony BVM-20G1E / 2 x Dell 2007FP / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 320GB boot/800GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

Wouldn’t it just be easier to buy a mac pro, install Adobe s/ware & nothing else on there…Then get Adobe to recommend any additional hardware configs and agree to support it as per your Linux suggestion? They could have an online feed to your system to make sure you have nothing else installed. You install the current Render Engines that ship with AE (or just fire up the same project on several machines with full AE version on and render skip frames)

This way they don’t have to re-write the whole suite for Linux and they can keep tabs on what’s on your machine for conflicts. You’ve got a 64-bit OS there…they just need to write 64-bit versions of the apps and you’re away! 😉

What can Linux offer that OSX can’t? That’s not a baited question – I’m just curious having never used Linux.

AE7 Pro – Nucleo – Mocha v1.2.3 – PS CS3 – FCP 5.1.4
MacPro Quad 3GHz / ATI 1900XT / 8GB RAM / OSX 10.4.11
30″ ACD / Decklink SP / SONY PVM-20M4E/ Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / XServe / United Digital RAID
———————————
Production Studio CS2 – Combustion 3 – Mocha v1.0.1
Win XP Pro 32 / Intel Core2Quad Q6600 / 2GB RAM / NVidia Quadro570 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5s / Sony BVM-20G1E / 2 x Dell 2007FP / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 320GB boot/800GB RAID-0

[Jimmy Brunger]

Just to throw something in…I’ve done numerous adverts/programmes (in PAL) with interlaced SD footage and progressive GFX overlaid – works fine on any type of TV that I’ve seen.

We also down-rezzed 1080i to SD PAL 50i no problem all the time, with no field probs. We used a HDCAM vtr to play the HD master out via SD-SDI to the drives. Maybe the vtr handles downscaling interlaced footage better? We always used to shoot on HDCAM for future use, but always captured and edited at SD res.

As a side, don’t forget HD is square pixels and SD PAL/NTSC is not. Just directly scaling down GFX means you’ll get a very slight distortion when output on a TV. Watch circles are still circles..!

AE7 Pro – Nucleo – Mocha v1.2.3 – PS CS3 – FCP 5.1.4
MacPro Quad 3GHz / ATI 1900XT / 8GB RAM / OSX 10.4.11
30″ ACD / Decklink SP / SONY PVM-20M4E/ Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / XServe / United Digital RAID
———————————
Production Studio CS2 – Combustion 3 – Mocha v1.0.1
Win XP Pro 32 / Intel Core2Quad Q6600 / 2GB RAM / NVidia Quadro570 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5s / Sony BVM-20G1E / 2 x Dell 2007FP / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 320GB boot/800GB RAID-0