[Johannes Schwarz]

The misery continues…

Some trouble shooting done:
1) I said up top: I tried m2v with mpa. Then I tried simple mpg. NO LUCK

2) I tried dynamic link in encore but get bad quality even if I manually control the settings on the encoder of encore. Plus: the stutter is not gone in all files

3) i tried shortening the video sequence to the problem area. Problem arises in the precise same place in the video. So it is no timeline issue in encore

4) I tried putting one of the videos having stutter in a new encore project just by itself. Problem persists – so it is not the encore project per se

5) i tried video only (removing audio) seeing if the audio could be the culprit. No. Stutter still there.

6) I tried re-encoding an mpg2 with a third party software – just for fun. Stutter gone (but quality is bad naturally).

So, I’m beginning to think that the problem is in how the file comes from Premiere or the Media encoder. It does not show in VLC or WMP when played stand alone, or even in Encore Preview Mode. But somehow it will not come out right once it went through the BUILD process despite being set to “Don’t transcode”

Anybody an Idea how I get my video files out of premiere using something other than the Adobe Media Encoder (MPEG2-DVD) to make it usable for encore?

[Johannes Schwarz]

Thanks for the input Daniel, but I have eliminated these potential problems before posting. Just had an Adobe Rep work on my screen. He could not solve it either.

Maybe it is a freak thing, that nobody has experienced?

In case someone did and solved it, please enlighten me 🙂
Thanks

[Johannes Schwarz]

Thanks Bill, for the input.

The whole point is that I am inexperienced at this. I’ve never tried to put 7 language tracks to one video (nor 2 for that matter). I’ve always had wiggle room on the video side. And since I can understand your frustration with in-experienced directors this is why I posted here. 🙂 I’m inquiring about how to do things that need to be synched (or at least timed); about what voice talents require to do their job.

Ok.

So you’re basically saying: send the video, send the script, all will be fine, because you guy’s know what you are doing and can work fine with just that. Rewinding, going back and forth until you know the video sequence and nail the timing is just part of your job. No reason to worry. Sounds great to me, because it means no additional work on my end.

Or would you consider a general time code of the individual parts still desirable – I just shouldn’t go apes with flashing color cues for obvious things?

Note: I will not be there to direct (or bug) people. Voice talents will have to work in their own studio and send me the finished file.
I have to trust them.

Lastly, a more general note: On the “understanding the text” part from a director’s side. I have worked with voice talents and I have found that understanding the language and words is not the same as understanding what they mean – at least when you leave the realm of every day things and venture into more specialized fields (as is also the case with this project). Working once before on a series on philosophy and theology I came to learn this the hard way. My english voice talent read things beautifully – with a cute british accent and all – but only the historical parts were good. To the target audience it was clear from the intonation and emphasize that the narrator did not really know what he was talking about in the other parts. So when you say “The narrator will UNDERSTAND what you are saying” at times this may be true as an expression of hope rather than fact.

Thanks,
Johannes

[Johannes Schwarz]

Thanks, that’s reassuring.

Side-Note: I’m actually an Austrian living in Liechtenstein, but I gladly subsume the positive qualities the attribute “German” seemed to carry in your post. 🙂

Cheers,
Johannes

[Johannes Schwarz]

Hi Jean-Christophe,

thanks for your detailed and encouraging response.

Ok. After all the helpful tips I received in this thread, this is what I come up with and hope you experts approve:

1) a video with colored time code (count down)
I did a rough sketch here: https://vimeo.com/50244233 (Password: beta3mc)
At 1:50 I use a color cue for the timing of specific words.

2) plus: the paragraphs (and also specific cue points) of the script will be colored in red and blue, so if you have the video in the corner of your eye while recording, you know if you are on track or need to do the last section longer or shorter.

What do you think? Provided I have good translations/adaptations, would this be usable for the voice over talents? Or am I still asking for super human abilities?

Thanks,
Johannes

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[Johannes Schwarz]

Hi Richard,

well it isn’t lip sync-ing, which would indeed be very demanding on both the translators and the voice talent. But there are no characters talking.

What I do have however are hands pointing. So the VO talent needs to say “like these two examples over here” at the time in the animation the hand is showing. So I need some kind of timing. If the hand comes in at 34 seconds and the speaker has taken 39 seconds to say things up to that point, then I can’t really fix it (without degrading audio by speeding it up while preserving the pitch). If it took him only 30 seconds I could add some pauses maybe but even that could be a little unnatural.

That is why I need sync-ing.

[Johannes Schwarz]

Hi Ty,

thanks for the reply. No, I don’t need lip syncing either, just VO.
The remark about breathing space is a helpful one. I guess, given that German is usually one of the longer versions, I might cut the video to that and send it along to the VO talent for timing.

Generally the episodes are about 3 minutes long having 10-15 scenes.
It’s just that there are 70 episodes in 7 languages, that makes all of this a rather huge thing to put together.

[Johannes Schwarz]

Hi Richard,

I see you are on dvx as well as on cow 🙂
Thanks for your reply. In fact the base language of my project is German and I too predict it to be the longest – even though out of German, Italian, French, English, Portuguese, Spanish and Polish, I might be in for a surprise here and there.

So if this is the way to go, then I might send my “cut-to-German” videos over to the VO talent (how have their own studio) and let them record, then cut and fill in.

Greetings,
Johannes

[Johannes Schwarz]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I’m gonna give them a try.

Johannes

[Johannes Schwarz]

Thanks Stephen,

I’ve been playing with the settings, but was not satisfied. I decided to do shoot some test samples outside the studio and use the method I described above. It is a more painful process to work with layers of duplicated and differently treated RAWs, but the result is definitely worth it.

Johannes