[Rafael Amador]

To Preview in RAM 20 minutes film (depending of the preview quality) you would need few hundreds or thousand of Gigabytes in your RAM. You must record on disk.
Go to preferences. Memory & Cache. Enable Disk Cache,
Like that the result of the RAM rendering is recorded in your disk and you can preview longer time that with only the RAM capacity.
salud,
Rafael

[Rafael Amador]

[glenn chan] “Chroma on the other hand is “proportional” to luma… higher luma values need higher chroma values if you are to maintain constant hue and saturation/chromaticity.”
Yes, very confusing.
And I think we add more confusion, mistaking concepts
Chroma and Luma are completely different magnitudes and independent.
To say that higher luma needs higher Chroma values is wrong. Needs higher COLOR values. We can have the higher Luma values allowed (1) with Chroma=0. That is a WHITE.
When you put in your screen a white (R=G=B=1) you got Y=1. So the two “color difference” parameters R-Y and B-Y will be =0 because R=B=Y= 1, So R-Y=1-1=0. And B-Y=1-1=0 So I=0 Q=0 in NTSC and U=V=0 in PAL. The same happens if we have a 25% gray (R=G=B=0,25) etc.
This was one of the premises of the old analog TV. In the gray areas of the image there are not Chrominance at all. Just have a look to your any B&W picture in the Oscilloscope. The wave-form monitor will shows you the Luminance level, but when you have a look to your Vector-scope, you find there NOTHING because there is not any chroma to show. Grayes are pure luminance.
So in any picture (Colored or B&W) when we rise the value of the Luminance, we are rising the values of RGB in the same proportion. But Chroma it doesn’t change.
All this talking about the old analog concepts of Luma and Chroma. In the digital world we are working with Luma, but the Color Components (Cr and Cb) are magnitudes completely different that the “Color Difference” vectors used in the analog world.
Salud,
Rafael

[Rafael Amador]

Hola Daniel,
I don’t know much about the new TV distribution systems (Cable, satelites, etc) but with PAL and NTSC, if you brodcast a 16×9 programm, only the people that have TV sets where you can select the aspect (4×3,16×9) could see properly the image. The people who can only watch in 4×3 would see the image distorted. So the TV stations must broadcast programms tha has been already letterboxed when formating the film, or have to letterboxe in the studio, right before broadcasting.
In my country, like in Mexico, they just prefers letterboxed, because like that don’t risk to forget the right set-up when airing the film.
Salud,
Rafael

[Rafael Amador]

Are you exporting with alpha-channe (Millions+)l? Is the AlphaChannel properly recogniced in the Brownser? To see if your imported file have an A-channell just double click it in the Brownser to have it in the Brownser window. Pick the right one of the three buttons that are in the top of the window. Select RGB+Alpha, or Alpha, and you will see what you’ve got.
Salud.
Rafael

[Rafael Amador]

Hi RJ,
There are few books about FC but mostly about how to manage the very programm as a tool. Normally this kind of books do not treat issues related with codecs, compression, color spaces, etc.
What you’re looking for mis more related with pure video. Digital and analog. Focal Press they used to have the best technical publication in Europe. In the web you have also a lot of information but quite dispersed and some times confusing or even innacurated. Some manuals of certain programms (FC, Compressor) also give some useful techtnical information.
Many manufacturers and developers webs sites contents are very good too.
Salud,
rafael

[Rafael Amador]

Corruption.
I’f you can not open your file in anyway, I think the only solution is start again.
If you can open it, you can try like that:
– open your project.
– open a new project.
– Select everything in the Brownser of the first project. Drag and drop in the brownser of the new one.
– save the new project with a different name.
for me this system has work evry single time whenever I’ve got the funny GENERAL ERROR!
If this happens often to you, trash the preferences.
salud,
rafael

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Nell,
The truth is that my “realworld experience” can be very little typical. I live in Laos. 600 milles away from the closet SONY (my camera is ) service and 2500 milles from the Apple one. Last year to up-date my G5 I had to pick my lap-top, cross the border to Thailand. Download the up-dates in an Internet-cafe, and bring the packages to the Big Mac. Now, thanks God, Internet is a bit faster, so I can ask in the forums about any question. I’ve bee working, mostly as a video editor, since 1985. but when I decided trying to make video here (2002) I had not idea what a codec was. I’ve been up-dating my self in the digital domain just digging in Internet. Even I couldn’t buy books from abroad because desapear in the post.
About the time and the money I can not think and act as if I would be in other country. Here there is not market, not industry. The most part of my custoners are NGOs and some international aids agencies or so. Here the average wages are below 100$ a mounth. So when somebody ask me for aquotation I know that my computer and me will work many hours without been paid. But if is the only way I can try to open a market.
Although this of expending more time working than you have planned, is not only a matter of the production. I think is the tramp of the digital video. You can allways change something to improve your film, until you export. And there are always small things to touch. Editing on tapes you can not work like that. You must finish the things before putting something new in the tape. To go back and change something many times is just imposible. You just must redo everything. With the digital you can always change , but there is a monet that you must say yourself: OK thats goog enough.
But back to the standards comvertion, thanks God I get very little footage in NTSC. If I would bring the NTSC footage to my PAL time-line in FC, my customers they wouldn’t complain, because they don’t not much about. The problem is that my self can not be happy when I know that I can get it better. This week I’ve being doing some animation in AE 6.5, but the images I did slowdown in Shake. I spent few hours but the result is amazing. In the end is my self the one I need to please. I think about all this “waisted time” like a king of “on the job trining” for my self. So when I work for somebody, I want that my my customer thinks that my time it’s worth, at least, the same that his time. But when I seat in front of my screen and I spent hours and hours doing something that I really like, I think that my time is mine. Because in the end is the only thing we own.
Hope all this doesn sound too freaky.
Salud,
rafael

[Rafael Amador]

That interesed me too. Thanks Jeremy.
Salud,
rafael

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Rich,
I’ve got the best results with Compressor. Although the process, if you are very exigent with your set-ups, can be killing slow.
salud.
Rafael

[Rafael Amador]

Hi Mick,
Just import them to FC and make sure that the set-ups in the Brownser are correct. I know that people find some problems because the files are high definition when they try to set thenm in a lower definition time line (Is happens the same when you import to FC a very big still).
I never used such a big files and I can not tell you how to do it in the best way. But there are few articles in the web about “Downconverting HD to SD”. This is what your looking for.
salud,
rafael