Mike Jackson
Forum Replies Created
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Yup, as I said above, I *am* working in 32bit. I came across that suggestion a few places, but it still doesn’t seem to change anything. It’s as though AE throws out the superwhites before it does any other processing / interpretation of the footage…
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I don’t know how the results would stack up in standard-def, but recently on several projects I’ve had to convert 60i HD footage down to 23.98… and I’ve gotten nearly flawless results in After Effects CS5.5, using ‘pixel motion’ frame-blending. Even shaky handheld footage has come through very nicely, and the only artifacting I’ve seen has been slight aliasing on thin horizontal lines because of the de-interlacing.
I suppose the question is – Would progressive 29.97 give it enough temporal data to reconstruct and blend frames smoothly? Or am I only getting good results because it has twice as many (half)frames to work with from the 60i? Probably worth a test one of these days…
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(frequent reader, rare poster)
It is SO nice to see this issue stated so clearly: Elegance, not Simplicity. THAT is the mark of truly excellent software that is both powerful and a joy to use. Thank you! FCP classic hit the sweet spot on that, whereas it’s why I can’t use FCPX (too simple), and get frustrated by Avid (inelegant).
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An excellent and thoughtful article. Thanks! I’ve been enjoying your other postings as well.
And I’m glad to know I’m not the only editor who frequently uses sequences as scratch pads. 😉
I think the musical instrument analogies are very apt. Our tools become our instruments, and we learn to excel with them. I’m sure someone could’ve handed Jimi Hendrix a synthesizer, told him it was the future, and with a bit of practice he could bang out a serviceable tune… but man, he SCREAMED with that guitar.
I *can* learn other software, and I will. But I won’t become a virtuoso overnight. And if I have to retrain anyway, I may just skip that synth and move over to the bass or the banjo, since they still have strings and work in the way I like.
Y’know – with dual monitoring and non-magnetic timelines.
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Yeah, compatibility and market share really is the key question for me. In a year’s time, what NLE software are the majority of companies and clients going to be using? Will Avid regain its dominance at post-houses? Will documentarians and lower-budget clients be embracing Premiere?
I have a nasty feeling we’re facing a real splintering of the industry, and for the next couple of years the average freelancer is going to have to be equipped and familiar with EVERYTHING, including both old and new FCPs.
Until Apple discontinues the MacPros of course 😉
And who knows what the ‘standard’ will be by then…?
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That’s a good question Patrice. Basically it was a grand experiment, with the goal of saving a ton of time and money in the sound mix. After the 90 was cut and mixed, we could then recut that master and send an audio EDL to the sound house, preserving all their previous work and just leaving a few transitions to clean up.
Added bonus was not having to re-render all the color-correction, which takes about 30 hours (I’m using some pretty hefty filters).
Not sure if we really saved much time in the end, but hey, we gave it a shot…
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HA! YES! Deleting the timecode track in QT did the trick! I still get the ‘reel’ mismatch error, but every picture frame is where it’s supposed to be.
I’ll count my lucky stars that the previous clip’s TC started at 00:00:00:00 rather than the 1 hour mark. 😉
Thanks a ton Bouke, you’ve saved me from hours of tedium and frustration!
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If you change the length of the QT by as much as a frame…longer, shorter…then things won’t match up.
That was the very first thing I checked. Both sequences are EXACTLY the same length, to the frame. Timecode matches perfectly as well. Hence my pulling out my hair…
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Definitely not a reference movie. Both self-contained, and as far as I can tell, identical in every way except the color of some pixels.
I *am* starting to regret not using copies of the original sequence now, though there were good reasons for it at the time. I’m all about keeping the project flexible, as you describe… As so often happens, something meant to save time and trouble at one stage, falls apart at another…
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Well, still not sure what CAUSED the problem, or if it will be back… but a friend installed a new version of iStatPro, and we discovered that one of my two processors was just… OFF. It wasn’t doing anything, even when I ran a job in Compressor, specifically telling it to use both cores.
Then, after a couple of reboots (which I do every night anyway), it just came back, and everything works fine. For now…
Spooky.