[Mike Procunier]

Hi,
I’m trying to do the opposite of this expression. I’d like to take a HEX value from a text layer source and have the expression return an RGB value for a Fill effect. I found a hex to rgb expression that you posted in another forum and tried to adapt it for my purposes but its not working. Any ideas?

function hexToColor(theHex){

theHex=thisComp.layer("^COLOR").text.sourceText;

theHex = parseInt(theHex,16);

var r = theHex >> 16;

var g = (theHex & 0x00ff00) >> 8;

var b = theHex & 0xff;

return [r/255,g/255,b/255];
}


[Mike Procunier]

I was having the same problem yesterday. Every clip I tried to capture from HDCam experienced ‘timecode breaks’. I gave the tape to another editor and he had no problems. I’m pretty sure its a disk speed issue. My buddy was capturing to a fibre-connected Rorke, while I was trying to capture to a temporary internal array, since my fibre-array hasn’t arrived yet.
Perhaps your drive is too slow, fragmented, or there’s some kind of bottleneck in your connection to the drive. Maybe run some kind of disk speed test. Its worth a try.

[Mike Procunier]

Most MPEG formats use interframe compression (sometimes called Temporal compression, or GOPs) Basically, instead of compressing each frame, groups of frames are compressed together. They are processer intensive and in my experience give PPro CS4 a very hard time. I’d convert the raw footage to uncomressed HD files or a format that doesn’t use interframe compression. I may be wrong, but something with M-JPEG compression would work if you don’t want to do uncompressed. Also, I’ve had problems properly converting MPEG’s to uncompressed formats in Adobe Media Encoder… try After Effects, Quicktime Pro or something else if available.

[Mike Procunier]

I’m having similar madness. I started with a 6 minute file (Blackmagic 10bit YUV NTSC) I razored it up in a sequence, created a subclip for each chunk then dragged them into bins. When I play each clip, it starts at 00;00 of the original 6 minute clip.
One thing to note: the file started as an MPEG-2 and I converted it into an AVI in Adobe Media Encoder.
I found 2 ways to get them to play (sort of). The first is to right-click on the subclip and change the Speed/Duration to 99.9%, this caused the clip to be noticeably darker. The second way was use a Blackmagic NTSC DV sequence. I guess I’ll be editing in DV.

[Mike Procunier]

Aha! Thank-you!!!! I had my reservations about using an 8 year old OS. I’m hoping we switch to Windows7 soon. I hear its pretty solid.

[Mike Procunier]

I’m having similar problems with CS4. I recently started at a new company and they put me on a Boxx workstation with dual Xeon 5130 2Ghz(4 cores total) system with 6G of RAM running 64bit XP. (I’m a Mac guy, so I’m not sure where this system ranks on the awesomeness scale, my guess is not nearly as awesome as my old 8core MacPro) All the content and previews reside on a 3.5TB eSATA RAID. Also using a Blackmagic HD Extreme card. My main issue is that Play/Pause randomly becomes unresponsive. Sometimes it takes a second or so to stop. Sometimes it doesn’t stop until it hits the end of the sequence. Very annoying when you just want to review an edit. Sometimes it doesn’t play. I’ve tried reinstalling the Blackmagic drivers, stopping unusual processes in Task Manager, swearing, cursing etc. I’m hoping there’s a solution other than reinstalling CS4, because the IT deparment will probably put me out of commision for a day. I’m reallllllyyyyyy busy right now.
Any ideas?

[Mike Procunier]

As mentioned Pre-rendering some of your elements will help immensely… also reduce the scale and resolution of your Composition window and temporarily turn off layers you’re not currently working with. Also temporarily turn off effects that you’re not currently working with. Turn everything back on when you’re ready to wait for a decent resolution preview or render. Accurately trim the in and out points of all of your layers as well. It is my understanding that a layer that is obscured by another layer, out of frame, or that has an opacity of zero still uses processing power. It sounds like this project would be a bear even on a MacPro running CS3. My condolences and good luck.

[Mike Procunier]

Try increasing your buffer size in AE’s “Audio Hardware” Preference. I set mine to 1024 and its been fine for the last couple hours.

[Mike Procunier]

This just started happening to me yesterday. I upgraded to Leopard the day before, so am thinking that might be the culprit.

[Mike Procunier]

AE might not be your answer. You might want to take a look at Imagineer’s products. Look at the Mocha|Mokey|Monet|Motor forum here on Creative Cow.