Mark Whitney
Forum Replies Created
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That is pretty odd. It’s probably something simple but just being overlooked.
I’m trying to think of some tests that would isolate where the issue lies. In other words, is it with AE output or something in Premiere? Evaluating output on it’s intended medium is generally the best approach.
Is your output from Premiere clean to begin with when you simply have a track of footage w/o effects, titles, etc.? If not, then it doesn’t matter if the AE output is good or not. If it is clean out of Premiere then you can probably focus on an output setting in AE.
Jittery, I’m thinking there’s a field order, frame rate, or interlacing issue going on, but grainy tells me there’s something going on with output size or codec.
Good luck. Wish there was more I could offer to check.
Mark
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First, make a note of what your project settings that are working for you in Premiere are. You don’t mention any sort of capture hardware so I guess your working via Firewire and DV files of some flavor. Maybe create a fresh project using the default Preset that matches your system and then look at the Project Settings to see what it’s using. Do those match your actual project? Particularly note the codec it defaults to. When you bring a clip in to a layer in a new timeline, does it require a preview render? That’s the red horizontal line at the top of your timeline when the Enable Previews option is On. The clips that don’t are using a codec your system is best set up for and are usually just gray or green. Check the files properties to see the codec it’s using.
Next, make sure your AE comp size matches your Premiere project in resolution, frame rate, aspect ratio, field order, etc. When rendering, make sure your the best settings & that everything matches of course and pick the codec that Premiere prefers. I’m surprised you had issues with the Quicktime using Animation codec, so I suspect something else was amiss.
If your animating text, you might consider simply rendering to sequential tga’s. You then have the choice of using the rendered image or just the alpha.
Hope that helps.
Mark
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There really aren’t many options within Premiere for matte extraction software, largely because it’s an editing program. I can’t speak for FPC other than I’m sure Motion could do what you need certainly, but I’m not familiar with the workflow.
After Effects CS3 and higher comes bundled with KeyLight (from The Foundry) which is a very good keying plug-in. Although there are others you could purchase, I doubt you’d find them any more capable. I’m dating myself, but I used to work a lot with the hardware version of Ultimatte. Yikes!
Although I’m using the CS3 versions of both Premiere and After Effects, I don’t have the premium bundle which means I don’t have the Dynamic Link. Fortunately, the work around is pretty simple and I’d think would work for you w/o the CSx product.
I’ll edit in Premiere w/o doing any keying but allow tracks for background layer and a tracking layer. On the timeline, select the edited clip that needs keying and note the duration of the clip then simply Ctrl-C to place its info into the Copy buffer. Open up AE and create a new comp. You can set the comps duration to match the clip length OR just do a Ctrl-V to paste the clip into the new comp. It’s most likely off the screen in AE’s timeline so just select the clips layer and hit [ to bring it’s IN point to frame 0. Hit O to go to the clips OUT point then N to set the work areas end point. Trim the comp to match the work area and your ready to go. AE’s comp is set up, matching your Premiere clips IN and OUT points. You could import your BG layer as well or simply have a good substitute. Your NOT going to render out the final composite at this stage.
Set up Keylight as needed, and save a Preset if this is typical footage. Once your ready, all your going to do is render out the track matte then import it into Premiere above the target clip. Change the appropriate settings to use this new clip as a tracking matte.
Beyond that, I’d download the sample clips and study the tutorial scenes for Keylight.
Good luck,
Mark
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Once the file is open in the Quicktime player, hit Ctrl-I to bring up the information panel. That should tell you the codec used.
M.
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Right. That’s the SetUp icon I was referring to.
M.
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Sorry, but I can’t agree with you on that statement. The PPro levels tool as 20 separate controls where as the PS Levels tool is a simple histogram and sliders. If you select the Setup icon in PPro, then you get a similar control.
The Photoshop tool is a lot less intimidating for someone new to color correction.
M.
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I can’t say for sure if this is the problem, but check under:
Project> Project Settings> Capture> Properties, then check that the Desktop Preview Acceleration is set to None.
I had a similar problem with BlackMagic Design capture hardware on a MacPro running Windows XP and using the standard nVidia GeForce 7300 GT video card.
Mark
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Adjustment effects such as Levels in Premiere Pro isn’t anything link what you’re probably used to such as the Levels effect in Photoshop. Fast Color isn’t too bad to work with though and the ProcAmp will get you quite aways and is usually what I start with.
I upgraded my version of the Magic Bullet Suite a few months ago and found that the Looks effect is now my main go-to color correction tool. I don’t use the Presets that often but occasionally they are a good starting point. Well worth investing in.
Mark
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Rats! I’m running into the same problem using H.264 and was hoping to find a solution here on the COW. It renders to the very end of the comp, then errors with the same messages as you listed.
This is on a MacPro running XP Pro. I’ve only 2Gb of memory and have set AE CS3 Pro’s preferences to 90% Max mem use and 80% for max cache size.
I’ve tried the H.264 output option with the Quicktime format as well. It completed, but file size was huge and it looked like crap.
I also tried rendering using QT format and Sorenson 3 then using the Export to Web function within Quicktime Pro. It renders to completion and looks good, but the file size is still way too large for what I’m trying to accomplish.
Oddly though, if I use the same original clip in Premiere Pro CS3 and render using the Adobe Media Encoder, which is also using the MainConcept codec but has a different interface and more options, it renders out as it should, although not as small as I’d really like.
From the other reply to your post, it doesn’t sound as if an AE CS4 upgrade made any difference. I’m also puzzled as to why AE doesn’t have the Adobe Media Encoder option.
What my goal is, is to end up with size & quality as the tutorials found on Lynda.com. I contacted them to see what they were using, and they’re simply outputting to H.264 MOV files from Final Cut Pro. I’m going to ask a couple friends that are using FCP and try to get more details about it’s encoder.
Mark
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Ah. OK. So even though fields are referred to as “lines”, as far as AE is concerned they end up 1 pixel in height.
Thanks. That clears the confusion.
M.