[Paul]

Hi,

I am having this problem too but I’m thinking it is because I’m playing back the video using a compact flash video player and I set my MPEG2 settings at 15mb data rate CBR. It has a stutter playback so I’m going to try VBR and maybe lower the data rate.

Let me know if you get to the bottom of this.

sincerely,
Paul

paulfecht@hotmail.com

[Paul]

Ed thanks for your response. I was just trying to get the best quality MPEG2.

I will try what you said… for some reason I wasn’t getting audio and then my output files were saying ” This is not a movie file” when I would try and open them.

[Paul]

I’m using a CF video player that only uses mpeg 2 or divx mpg4 so I’m going with mpeg2.

It sucks and can’t get audio with it.

help… pleeze…

[Paul]

One last question and I’ll leave you alone. By the way, you’ve really helped out.

Ultimately I’m headed to 16:9 or landscape. Is that going to cause headaches when I take the 4:3 footage into it and stretch it too much?

Anyway, there’s so much to learn.

Thanks again.

[Paul]

I’m using CS2 apps so I will go in and see if that filter you mentioned is in there.

My workflow is:

1. capture best green screen possible ( camera on manual, manual exposure, aperature 2.0f, manual focus, tons of lights, big screen good audio)

2. unfortunately caught on DV25 cam.

3. Capture infor FCP or Premiere as a SD comp.

4. Edit on timeline

5. export as Microsoft DV AVI uncompressed. When I just play this back in Media Player or Quicktime here’s where I see the fields. IS THIS BECAUSE I’M VIEWING ON THE COMPTUER AND NOT A NTSC TV? The Uncompressed option without that Microsoft descriptor don’t play back.

6. Open that uncompressed footage in AE 7.0. Use Keylight and adjustment layers, garbage mask.

7. Render out of AE using the Animation(lossless) codec to a video file.

8. Slap that baby into Compressor and give it the best MPEG2 settings that I can.

Does that sound about right?

By the way.. space isn’t really a consideration as I have at least 100GB of space on my 10K hard drives.

Thanks for your tutelage on this.

[Paul]

Thanks for all your help. I’ve got a couple more questions and I still hope that you’re getting posted on this.

We shot the greenscreen and pulled a pretty good key. I noticed..(how couldn’t I) that the DV footage almost looks de-interlaced when previewing back on the computer. If the person doesn’t move then it looks pretty good but movement shows lines every other line…much like de-interlacing.

I read a little about this and am trying Chroma smoothing using an adjustment layer but just wanted to hear what you had to say on this.

Also, any advice when capturing the DV25 into a NLE (Final Cut or Premiere – have both) and then export settings?

Definitely learning a lot on this one.

sincerely,
Paul

[Paul]

Kevin,

Thanks for the response. As always I learn something when talking to COWS. So am I to understand that “normal” or consumer level DV is DV 25? The standard DV handycam? Then my next question is what is the 25 or 50 designation but I could google that.

When you say adding a little noise to you mean with an AE filter.

As for compressor.. I have that. So render out of AE in the Animation (Lossless codec) and then compress with compressor?

Any quick settings ideas that will give the best possible results for a non pro?

Thanks for your help 🙂

[Paul]

I was hoping someone a lot smarter at AE would respond by now… but. Stroke was one of the filters I was thinking about too. In the past this sort of thing was done with motion math(ick). I think I remember you saying you didn’t want to use a plugin but I think that trapcode has a nice plugin that will generate keyframes from music.

I know I’m not helping much but here’s what I’d do if I didn’t want to buy the plugin. Search the COW archives, search tutorial websites… I do remember Steve Holmes doing something like this with a line in the total training videos but those weren’t free.

Head on over to the AE expressions page and maybe someone like Dan Ebberts or Aahron will respond. I’m by no means an AE guru. Just wouuld like to be.

That’s about all I can say unless I tried to do it myself.

Also, there are many tuts on creating equalizer type animations… how about customizing one of those?

cheers,
Paul

[Paul]

Hi there, I think that this is the same post as over at the flash forum. A quick idea would be to make the text as outlines in illustrator and then bring it into AE.. just copy and paste. Then use write on or I can’t quite remember which effect and animate it with that.

Just a quick thought.

paul

[Paul]

Another thing… which format are you exporting your video as and which codec are you using?

Another thought:

The problem (in my case) was related to the DirectDraw (DirectX) acceleration. In the QT preference tab, I turn those off and used the GDI method instead.

I had trouble viewing the H.264 format until I got the latest update for quicktime.

cheers