[Michael Szalapski]

I think the Harry Potter thing could be done on a precomp that changes from month to web address. If you watch it frame-by-frame you can see the https://www showing up quite clearly before the blur even starts.
Possibly a couple different copies of the precomp fade up as the blur gets stronger, so it blurs, but stays pretty bright. Also, I think they may have been scaling up vertically too, not just blurring it.

There are always several different ways to achieve an effect.

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[Michael Szalapski]

Well, there’s always Knolls Light Factory Pro for producing great flares. I just did an advertrailer for a client that involved a lot of that. I love Knoll. You can have it as easy, or as powerful as you want it. A lot of the time, I just use the EZ option, but for several shots, it just wasn’t working, so I used the pro options and customized the ever-living cr*p out of them. (Well, that’s a little hyperbolic, but you get the point.)

As for getting your glow, there are tons of ways to get nice, tasteful glows. Adjustment layers with Stylize>Glow or Trapcode>Starglow adjusted to taste or on a precomp. They key to this ad (and to most luxury car’s marketing) is subtle sumptuousness. The graphic should look expensive without saying, “I’m expensive.”

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

If you’re exporting to the web, I believe square pixels would be the best way to go.
The quicktime animation codec should give you very good quality; check the settings for the codec.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

This is a well-made commercial with rather impressive tracking. The level of detail put into graphics that are on the screen for less than a second is a nice touch and truly only appreciated frame-by-frame.
To replicate this in AE alone? Very difficult. Nigh impossible.
I would say that this requires a separate 3d tracking tool (and lots of preplanning as well).
Also, for at least the brake/wheel explode/blueprint, you would use a 3d modeling program.
(I think some of the shots of the car were CG too, but no promises.)
Most of the shots have a perfect motion track. (one or two shots of the swimmer could have used a bit more compositing work, but this is a very minor issue and one hardly worth mentioning) This, most likely, required a number of people and a lot of hours of work.

However, if your goal is not to replicate, but to allude to the spot? Possible! However, it requires good planning.
Having graphics flow through a scene is simple enough if the camera stays locked down. Tracking x and y axis motion is quite easy in AE so you could track a graphic onto something moving horizontally through the screen.
There are a lot of different effects going on. The ease of copying it really depends on what you’re wanting to copy.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

As I understand it, if you have an iPhone, you can tie it to your MacBook Pro and use it for a numeric keypad. That way you could do it the “pressing 0 on the numeric keypad” way. However, I’m not sure about this as most of my AE experience has been on desktop PCs or Mac Pros and I do not yet have an iPhone 🙁

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

You could post this question in the Expressions forum. There’s likely a way to do opacity over time relative to a layer’s distance from a null layer.
I’m not good at the expressions like that or I’d give a better suggestion.

However, I tend to agree with Scott. It’s usually better to do this yourself.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

What output settings have you tried using, what codec, what settings on the codec?

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

Listen to Dave. Dave is right; there is a text effect in AE. Not a tool, like in Photoshop or never versions of AE, but an effect you apply to a layer. Trust us – we’ve used the older versions – it’s there.

No; there is no special save thing you should do in Photoshop. There shouldn’t be any flickering on the text of any Photoshop file. Is the flicker in your final rendered output or are you seeing it when you do a RAM preview? If you’re doing it in a widescreen comp and seeing it in the RAM preview, try rendering it out. I’ll bet the flickering will be gone. It’s an artifact of non-square pixel aspect ratios in a RAM preview.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

If you look around to the left, right, or top of this page, there is probably an ad for Digital Juice. They have had music and sound effect collections over the years and will probably have more as well. (I’m not up to date on their current product line).

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

If you have video shot against a black background because you were trying to duplicate the video (depending on the motion in it) you might be able to get away with applying an Echo effect, or something similar, and playing with the parameters (like number of echoes, for example).

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.