[Roland R. kahlenberg]

AE isn’t able to read RGB values on a per pixel or group of pixels however that group may be defined other than using histogram with Levels. Therefore this precludes the existence of any automated adjusment to suit your needs.

The best alternative is to eyehball the Info Window for RGB values as you move the cursor over the Comp Window. Then use Hue/Saturation to select a group of colours and then desaturating those colours.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

HDV is a video format. There are different CODECs that suport this the HDV format. It’s evident that your PC doesn’t have the CODEC.

Your options are to look for a HDV version of the CODEC for the PC. OR transcode/export from FCP into another CODEC which the PC can read. Photo-JPEG at 96% should set you up pretty file interms of a manageable filsize and visual quality.

Additionally, you really do not want to work with HDV encoded files from within AE. It’s painfully slow.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

OK. Let’s see if this makes sense. If part of the width is thrown away, then it must also be true that part of the height is thrown away. This is the case for letter-boxed broadcast of 16:9 over 4:3.

If you’re talking about pan & scan, then you will not get a letter-boxed view, then there is a strong possibility that pixels were thrown away. And of pixels were indeed thrown away, then it could happen to either or both the width and heigths of the footage.

Take note that the whole idea of pan & scan is to trim 16:9 footage to fit into 4:3. The end-result being no letter-boxing and a loss of the widescreen effect.

If this is the case, then it is truer to say that the 16:9 image has been panned & scanned during some pre-broadcast process (because that is the best way to ensure that nothing major gets panned off) rather than pixels being thrown away at say, from dead centre during broadcast.

In short, you’d still have to provide a full 16:9; 1024×576, non-anamorphic or 720×576 anamorphic so that they can do what it is that they do. If you were to cut anything off before delivery, then their setups will have to be changed for your case, which will likely not happen.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

I understand your issues with precomping the 3D layers. But your matte should be precomp-able. No?

Well, for Set Matte to work, the Matte layer has to be precomped if it was created within the same composition as the fill layers. Fill layers are those that use the matte.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Nothing gets thrown away. It’s just an issue with square and non-square pixel aspect ratios. One way to fit 16:9 SD to 4:3 is to shrink it to fit proportionally until the widths are equal. For this to happen you need the full 1024pixels. Anything less would result in distortions or cutoffs.

HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Thanks for the clarification Mark. Jerzy, did you try the Vegas route? Changing the extension is one way cos the MXF is essentialyl a container. But in this case, it’s more than a simple wrapper cos there will be crucial metadata that’s embedded into the MXF.

Again, it would be interesting to hear your exploits with a trial version of Vegas.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Dude! You obviously have a complex issue to solve but your input here doesn’t provide much info. Perhaps an image link/post/embed here may help.

FWIW, I know that Syntheyes allows for manual tracks to be added once your 3D auto track is done. Perhaps you can try that and see how it works.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Lots of ways to do this effect. Apologies for the PR BS, but we’ve just done up a great FREEbie for our users. Take a look at the info and video link here – https://www.broadcastGEMs.com

Everything’s done in AE.

We might just let it go as a tutorial, albeit much later, at the COW.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Hi Jerzy

Perhaps a visit and/or note to Sony and Panasonic may help. MXF is essentially an MPEG-2 wrapper, AFAIK. Kinda strange that thqa aforementioned companies do not provide for a freely available transcoder seeing and knowing that MPEG-2 encoded files, especially, at HD rez are a nuisance to work with natively.

I would look at Vegas, for now, to see if they have a solution. Download a working/timeout version and perform your transcodes there if possible.

This is of course total BS coming from the acquisition stage and leaving folks high and dry as to having a viable way to work with it. And yes, It’s On Location that I was referring to. Sorry for the “lost in translation” bit on my part.

And give Adobe a shout too.

Once in a while I notice a few less than capable, sitting on an ivory tower, albeit pushing boxes and not much else, yet getting in the way of pure production bliss.

The COW’s Ron Lindeboom and/or Tim Wilson should have a pretty good idea too.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

The old DVRAck which Adobe purchased was supposed to convert MXF to PremierePro readable files. CHekc the Adobe Ultra docs if you have it.

Then there’s this –
https://www.itbroadcastanddigitalcinema.com/mxf_links.html

Good Luck
Roland Kahlenberg
https://www.broadcastGEMs.com – Adobe After Effects project files
https://www.myspace.com/rorkrgbspace