[Mike Smith]

Sure.

Your ordinary DVD / CD writing software – Nero, Gear, Roxio whatever, *should* let you set up a DVD ROM data disc, and copy files exactly as they are from your hard disc to the DVD.

What you don’t want is a “smart” DVD copying programme recompressing your video files for you.

I don’t know Sateira, but from what you’re saying it’s recompressing your images before burning? The Avis are good before burning, but are less good / smaller files on DVD ? I would think there would be a way – maybe not using the drag and drop facility, but maybe starting a DVD session – where you could get it just to give you an exact copy of your files. But I don’t know what it is with Sateira …

[Mike Smith]

You’re checking the DVD+Rs with windows explorer, right ..?

[Mike Smith]

Are you saying that the file as it comes in to PPro looks worse than you expect, or that it looks fine coming in and goes bad when you render out?

Do you have same pixel aspect ratio settings (widescreen, standard video or square) for AE and PPro …?

Is the text used full screen, or are you keying it – if so, is there a problem with the alpha channel … have you tested some text on an AE background / no keying, to try to eliminate that as a source of problems ..?

PS just remind me why you are using Quicktime as the format and Animation as the codec of choice for your reel ..?

[Mike Smith]

For standard definition uncompressed editing with PPro, you will need a large, fast RAID for data storage and a card like the Aja Xena or Decklink Extreme – and a capable enough system to support all that.

For output to DVD, your footage is going to be compressed to MPEG 2 at rather less than DV quality.

Graphics from AE losing quality could be the DV codec compression, or it could be the result of your not observing PAL / NTSC safe colors and saturation : you are being careful to keep your AE RGB levels between 16 and 235, even after effects processing? Of course, as an experienced editor, you’d not miss that one.

So the amount of degradation you’d be seeing is from uncompressed RGB in AE to compressed 8 bit 4:1:1 or 4:2:0 YUV in DV: that’s what you live with for real time DV editing, whether in PPro or anything else. It’s the DV format.

As a workaround, of course you could render a DV proxy for realtime editing and an uncompressed file to lay in on another (PPro) layer, disable the uncompressed file(s) or turn off the layer when editing, and re-enable it when compressing to MPEG 2. You may struggle to spot the difference in your final MPEG 2 file, though.

For encoding, the built in MainConcept encoding is pretty good for MPEG 2, though no doubt you are also aware you may get better results by using Procoder or Cinemacraft and tweaking the settings to taste.

[Mike Smith]

You really do need to keep your render lower fields first setting. If your footage is going back to video then it will need appropriate field settings to match the rest of the video source – rendering without fields won’t help you (unless the video edit is in a progressive frame format e.g. 24p).

What you need is a version of your photoshop file that has enough data for its movement to look smooth when field rendering is turned on.

You could try rendering out just your tracked Photoshop layer as a footage – just the layer with alpha channel (all other layers turned off), setting your comp’s frame rate to double your comp’s normal frame rate, and rendering with no fields. Then re-import this as footage, and double its speed, and try rendering again with field render enabled …..

[Mike Smith]

Neat advice, Steven. Of course, as a serious editor, jwedit might want to duplicate his work system at home to save him having to struggle with remembering two interfaces.

[Mike Smith]

Your print guy wants a fixed price deal, and I think we can understand that – it makes for nice, easy, clear selling pitch and buying decisions.

Buyers want quality and value, sure – they also want to know what they’re getting into, and most want to be sure they can control their costs.

We, on the other hand, want a fair rate for the job. And we know that jobs vary. A lot.

So – you can walk away, and watch your printer use another contractor (s/he will, if there’s someone else around, and it fits better with her/ his general business branding approach).

Or you can try to work with her.

Why not offer a couple of fixed price packages – basic, and deluxe – with clearly specced e.g n days prep, m hours shooting, x location, y hours of editing?

Then CONTROL YOUR PRODUCTION. The client doesn’t get to extend the shoot / prep / veto the location / extend the edit without your agreement and paying extra. They get the best you can give them within what they’re paying for, and everyone should be happy …. no?

[Mike Smith]

Are we tolerating suggested ripping off of commercial music on CCow these days ..?

Just about all commercially-released music is protected by copyright, and should not be used for editing without paying license fees to the rights holders. There is (much cheaper, but also not famous) library music available, with quite a variety to choose from.

Or you could contact U2’s record label and ask about permission to use.

With your (short) track legal and in place, you’d perhaps want to design your sequence (paper, head, and assemble relevant visuals in PPro. You could then copy and paste your PPro timeline to AE to work on the effects.

[Mike Smith]

There’s not really any such thing as uncompressed DV25 – DV25 describes a compression scheme. DV25 is a broader, “family” term for the DV/DVCAM/DVCPro compression schemes using data rates of 25Mb/s (see https://www.dvcollections.com/support_dvcompress.html if you like.

Your DVX 100 records DV format, in 24p (progressive scan) or PAL 25 fps / NTSC 30 fps.

You can capture it using PPro via a standard firewire (also called IEEE 1394, iLink) connector and edit in the normal way. The capture-to-edit-system process does not affect what’s recorded, so shouldn’t cause you any quality drop.

Poor quality on output could result from poor footage, from using low-quality effects or using effects badly, from rendering out to an intermediate compressed format before output, or quite likely from the settings in your final compress to MPEG2 for DVD use.

[Mike Smith]

I feel your pain. It’s a b*** when you take the trouble to try to help, and find it was a waste of keystrokes. But I guess Gus must be feeling his / her way – first time keying and all that.

Hope the sun’s shining in Idaho!