[Kevin Reiner]

Serge and Jon,

perfect. thank you. just needed to think a little different on that one.

I would love that ae file, Serge. Although I like doing things myself, it would be beneficial to study your settings. I’m still new to Invigorator.

Thanks guys,
Reins

[Kevin Reiner]

nope. Sorry I didn’t give my specs.

I am running on a MacPro octocore with FCP 5.1 and AE CS2.

[Kevin Reiner]

I am having the same problems. I emailed Boris to ask for a BCC 4 link. They told me to try to use the AE installer to install it on FCP. This won’t work because the new AE BCC 5 installer doesn’t install to FCP. I was going to try to copy the plugins from AE to FCP, but I thought they changed the architecture. Quite honestly, I don’t understand what I’m saying write now, and I am very confused.

Can anyone answer me this question:

How do I get Boris Continuum Complete to work on FCP 5.1.4?
(I don’t care if its BCC 4 or 5)

Thanks,
Reins

[Kevin Reiner]

Yeah, your images are way too big. Are you zooming in on them? If so, only make the image size as big as it needs to be on your closest zoom. Make sense?

example: I work in 720×486 at 72dpi. If I have an image and I know that I am going to zoom into it at a scale of 200%, then in photoshop, I make sure that the image size is doubled to 1440×972 at 72dpi. This ensures quality of image without going overboard.

Another tip I would give you is to apply a little bit of a blur to the image. Since you’re scaling it from such a large image, you might experience buzz from the small lines. Just a dab of blur will do, but not too much or the image will go soft.

My 2 cents,
Reins

[Kevin Reiner]

Thanks to everyone for their input. I’ve looked into the service at DG Fastchannel. They let you upload your spot to their FTP as an mpeg2 file using pretty strict compression standards. Then they distribute the file to the stations. The file usually comes in at about 120MB. I haven’t quite figured out their price structure as it is somewhat confusing. They say that 95% of all broadcast stations in the nation use their service. I live in Nebraska, so I’ll be surprised if some of our more rural stations use it.

Here’s the question that keeps popping into my head – why the middleman? I mean, I understand having a quality-control buffer before the station gets a spot, but why can’t I just upload these files to my own company’s FTP and have the station download from there. Seems like a sneaky way to make a buck, if you ask cynical old me.

Any thoughts?
Reins

[Kevin Reiner]

Thanks Wayne,

There is really no format that seems to be the majority (They are all equally a pain in the butt.) That is why I thought I’d just first run them all through compressor to a SD 4:3 common format. It doesn’t look great on many of them, but I can at least do a quick offline that doesn’t require a render after each edit. Originally, I thought my next step would be to replace them in FCP and then start on the graphics. However, there will be a lot of animation and compositing going on – that’s why I’ve taken that AE path. As far as choosing AE, its simply because I’m 20 times faster and more competent in AE over Motion.

Oh and good question on the timeline – They need it in 2 weeks. Anyone know of a nice strong coffee?

Thanks,
Reins

[Kevin Reiner]

Thanks Jeremy

Thats the problem. We don’t have access to the original tapes. Just video files on a firewire drive that was compiled by a 3rd party. I think there were numerous shooters all with different cameras.

So we’re stuck with what we’ve got. I am going to try that anamorphic idea. That might work if we want the footage letterboxed, but what if we want it croppped? We would have to resize it horizontally, resulting in image quality loss, correct?

Thanks,
Reins

[Kevin Reiner]

Thanks Shane

I just can’t believe that there isn’t an easier way to convert all of this footage in FCP, compressor, or QT. I don’t want to change my entire system just for this one project, albeit a very important project. The other 99% of our projects work fine in FCP using the Kona card. What is killing me is that the batch export out of FCP should be the answer, but I believe there is a bug in its settings that doesn’t allow for an export with letterbox.

Does anyone know of a way to make this work?

Thanks in advance,
Reins

[Kevin Reiner]

We’re having the same problem right now. We received hours of footage on a large firewire drive. It is in multiple formats (6 different frame sizes and frame rates!) So we don’t have the option to downconvert during digitize. When we try to batch export to a letterboxed SD 720×486 10-bit QT files, batch export ignores the size request of letterboxing. Everything comes out sqeezed instead of letterboxed. When we do the same process with the Quicktime player, it comes out correctly. I don’t want to send it through QT for 300 files though. We’re trying to do it in compressor, but that it is being overcomplicated. I wish we could just edit multiple formats directly into the timeline, but that takes tons of rendering time and we’re getting the interlacing image that santellavision report on the DVCpro HD stuff.

To tell you the truth, we’re having so many problems just getting this project rolling that I don’t even know where to start with asking questions.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
-Reins

[Kevin Reiner]

Any ideas? It’s looking like Compressor might be my only other option.