[Roger Matthews]

Update – turns out SSE3 is required, so my very old Pentium M is insufficient. I’m going to ask my client if they can re-render the project in DV. Ouch.

I was going to buy a new machine anyway, but this just solidifies my leaning towards getting a Mac with an FCP setup. Very useful for dealing with other clients.

[Roger Matthews]

Ah, sorry, not sure how I missed those posts. I was searching last night on here, Google, Adobe’s Help Form, etc, but obviously I missed those.

Regardless, that codec is not working too well for me. My footage is 1080i HDV, so I did try “Calibrated{Q} XD Decode: For viewing Apple XDCAM HD, XDCAM EX, XDCAM HD 422, and HDV QuickTime Movies.”

I’ve had strange results. First, viewing the files directly in Quicktime Pro crashed. I restarted, and it played fine. I then loaded the XML project in PPro CS4, and it crashed. I tried loading an individual HDV .mov file from the FCP project in PPro, and I got working audio, but no video. Restarted. Tried playing directly from Quicktime Pro again. Crashes Quicktime Pro now. Tried reinstalling the codec. Still crashes.

I uninstalled the codec, and Quicktime Pro no longer crashes, so it seems there is a problem with the codec and my system. (I am using QT Pro 7.6.5)

I will send this query to Calibrated Software as well, but I have found the Cow to usually be very quick and helpful in replies as well.

Thanks,
Roger

[Roger Matthews]

Hmm, I thought I responded before, but it seems my post is gone?

Anyway, I was asking before if there was any way for me to salvage an FCP project that uses any such FCP only codecs? I do not own a Mac, and it would be a huge timesaver to make the files readable on Premiere Pro, instead of asking my client to render the footage in a different codec.

I am using an older HD project as a testbed right now, and am getting the ‘Generic’ video error message, with no actual details when importing. I am guessing the project was in HDV, but I was never actually told by the production team what codec it used in FCP.

Thanks for any help,
Roger

[Roger Matthews]

John,

Thank you very much for running those tests! I have read that Premiere Pro has its own problems exporting progressive as well.

That confirms that there really isn’t much I can do. For now I converted my existing renders (using Vegas) from Lower Field First to Progressive, so all the footage plays well together.

In the future it seems I’ll just have to work out a different workflow (use Premiere Pro and AE together, etc). A bit disappointing/frustrating, but I must admit I am very relieved I wasn’t missing something obvious. It was driving me crazy trying to get this to work, haha.

[Roger Matthews]

Sorry, I should have specified that the original footage is also using DV compression. So while lossless would be true progressive, it would then require me to convert that render into the DV 29.97 ‘Progressive’ format I originally shot my footage on with my DVX.

That would work, but obviously would be very cumbersome/time consuming.

The DV format might not be ‘true’ progressive, but within Vegas my footage is soon as either progressive or interlaced. Rendering within Vegas creates files seen as ‘progressive’, whereas AE render files consistently return ‘Lower Field First’. AE reads these files the same way.

Would using different DV codecs in AE solve the problem? I believe Sony uses its own DV codec in Vegas. Perhaps using that would solve the problem?

[Roger Matthews]

“This is not a Vegas issue and there is nothing Vegas can do about it.”

Thank you. I was having some difficulty getting that point across with some people in the AE basics area. I do not see the point in blaming the NLE when AE is obviously rendering the files in a different format. Unfortunately when I have Googled this issue, however, I haven’t come up with much.

The ORIGINAL footage is 29.97 progressive (30p). In AE I make sure I Interpret the footage as proper progressive. In the Render Queue I am using the following settings:

Quality: Best
Resolution: Full
Field Render: Off
Pulldown: Off
Format: Video for Windows Movie
Output Info: Microsoft DV

I have also tried Export -> DV Stream. Here, there is an EXTREMELY clear (simplified) dialogue box where I can specify Interlaced or Progressive in very simple terms. The results are still interpreted as Lower Field First when imported back into AE (and obviously in Vegas as wels).

Hence why I am quit baffled, and for now will probably just be forced to convert the Lower Field First footage into Progressive inside Vegas, just so I can edit the footage without dealing with any realtime conversion lag.

Any help is greatly appreciated, though! 🙂

[Roger Matthews]

Dave,

Thanks, good idea. As much as I like Vegas, I am getting sick of its lack of plugin support/public exposure, haha. Hence me branching out into AE, and probably new NLES as well soon.

Thanks for the quick replies.

Roger

[Roger Matthews]

Dave,

Well, exactly. No matter what you call it, the rendered footage is still not in the same format as the original footage, so my NLE has to either convert the footage in realtime (my computer is not fast) or re-render all of the footage to match (ridiculously inefficient).

What I am doing is rendering all of the raw footage from a B camera for a wedding to have it re-inserted into a larger multicamera project. It’s just simply more efficient to have the new footage match the existing footage from the A camera, so Vegas doesn’t convert the footage in realtime, on my admittedly slow machine.

If I was making a final render I wouldn’t care, but in this case I’m using AE just because it has vastly superior color correction plugins available versus Vegas, and is needed. And most importantly, I want to have an efficient workflow for future projects that doesn’t force conversion AFTER a render.

And while I could just pre-render the timeline, I am tweaking multi camera edits spanning about two hours, so that would be a major pain. It’s all about efficiency here.

[Roger Matthews]

Dave,

I see, that’s interesting about the proper definitions of certain words. Definitions in language can get mangled through popular use, huh?

That aside, when I import the new renders into AE, AE reads out specifically “Separating Lower” (Lower Field interlaced). The original clips are not marked as ‘Separating Lower’ (since the project was shot in progressive ‘interlaced).

I also tried rendering in .dv format, but I still got Lower Field interlaced footage as a result. AE confirms the footage as Lower Field interlaced. So AE is definitely converting the footage into Lower Fields interlaced despite me disabling fields (or enabling psf) both inside the ‘Interpret Footage’ menu and in the Render Queue.

Really stumped here. What else can I do within AE to make sure the footage is rendered properly?

EDIT – forgot to mention, when I chose Export to DV to make the .dv file, I specifically was given the option between Interlaced or Progressive (or ‘psf’) and chose Progressive in a very simple menu. What gives?

[Roger Matthews]

Hi Kevin, thanks for the quick and thoughtful reply.

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I’m rendering using the .avi container, which is what Vegas accepts natively (and the format the rest of the footage for the project is in).

I also forgot to mention that when importing the RENDERED footage (created by After Effects) back into AE, it is still interpreted as interlaced.

I’m now trying that file->export->dv stream option, but AE warns me that I should use the render queue instead, so we’ll see what happens. Not sure if Vegas accepts .dv natively, but I guess we’ll find out.

However, my money is on something going on in After Effects that I’m just missing. I’ll post if I can come up with anything else. Thanks again for responding so fast.