[Seth Parker]

It’s interesting that you were required to use -pix_fmt when encoding to x264. My build, by default, automatically selects the yuv420p format. Glad it works!

[Seth Parker]

I actually just figured it out. There was a 10-bit version of x264 lingering on my computer. After I got rid of that, the 8-bit one I linked to worked just fine.

Thanks for the link! I’ll be sure to keep that handy!

[Seth Parker]

Here’s what I’d do: Convert the mp4s to ProRes and edit those ProRes versions. In a week, when better versions come in, unlink the ProRes versions you’re using in FCP and relink it to the better versions.

This assumes that the high quality files you’ll get in a week are exactly the same as the mp4s you currently have, save for the compression type. Clip length, frame size, and frame rate need to match exactly or it’ll cause even more problems.

In terms of using mp4, Rafael summed it up nicely. It’s just a container that can utilize a multitude of streams. Still, the most common mp4 codecs (MPEG-4, H.264) are great for final distribution, not really for use while editing. Now, if you’ve somehow managed to get an mp4 with, say, AVCIntra, well that’s a totally different story. 🙂

[Seth Parker]

You’ve probably google’d this at this point, but I’ve used https://www.pro8mm.com/ and was very pleased with their service and results.

[Seth Parker]

You can’t go straight out of Final Cut to my knowledge. Those formats are all post-DVD multiplexing formats, or rather they represent bit-for-bit copies of the final DVD. Final Cut doesn’t do the multiplexing and formatting required to make those files.

You’re still going to have to use DVD Studio Pro, but you don’t have to burn it to a disc. In DVD Studio Pro, run Build and Format. For your destination, select Hard Drive as your output device. Output format then becomes selectable, allowing you to pick .img or a DDP file.

Alternatively, every time you run Build in DVDSP, the Video_TS folders will be created in the Build folder. I prefer to deal with single img files than a whole folder, but that’s up to you.

If your goal is just to get your videos onto a DVD as quickly as possible without menus, I’d setup a single track DVDSP project you can use as a template. Short of getting another DVD Authoring program or multiplexer, there’s no real way.

[Seth Parker]

First, I tried re-keyframing my animation so that it started at a focal distance of 30000 and ended at 15000. Visually, this achieved the same effect (not really sure why 15000 is foreground in focus, though. Maybe I’m not doing this right?). However, this did not fix the issue.

Walter, I’m not sure what you mean by verifying that my depth layer is “clean.” It’s a precomp and the only thing in it is grayscale solids with masks applied to them.

I did find a couple of solutions, but each one has its concession.

Switching to 8bpc did make the bars disappear, but of course then I’m working in 8bpc. Probably not a huge deal with this clip, but not ideal if this happens for footage that it does matter with.

Adding noise to the z-depth layer also worked, but with a very minor, half-consequence. For reference, I added Noise to an adjustment layer inside my precomp. A setting as low as 0.5 worked. However, unchecking Use Color Noise created a weird speckling back in my main comp. Strange, but a moot point, as leaving it checked works. Also, slightly increased render time, per frame.

Finally, switching the interpolation back to linear also worked. The obvious concession here is that the timing of my animation is now slightly different. For my clip, not a big deal, but it could be in the future.

Thanks for your guys’ help!

[Seth Parker]

Ahh nevermind. This seems to be a bug in webkit/chrome: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=73234&q=html5%20video%20colors&colspec=ID%20Stars%20Pri%20Area%20Feature%20Type%20Status%20Summary%20Modified%20Owner%20Mstone%20OS

[Seth Parker]

The webm is grey in Chrome but white in Firefox. It does make me think that the html5 video player needs to be adjusted through CSS but none of the style elements I’m finding are adjusting the area that is “behind” the video.

[Seth Parker]

I’ve tried both an ogv and a webm video, though I think it’s defaulting to webm in Chrome. I heard from a friend earlier today that the webkit media engine that Chrome uses has a default light grey background, but I can find no CSS or styling code that seems to affect it.

[Seth Parker]

I’ve had this happen a couple of times myself. I would make changes in the original AI file and when I went back to AE the layers would be in different positions. What I figured out was that the changes I was making in AI would change the layer size and thus change the anchor point (usually the center of the object) in AE. When that layer would reimport, the old position coordinates would be used with the new anchor point, throwing everything out of whack.

So the key is making all your AI adjustments AND keeping your layer sizes the same, no easy task. I’ve yet to find a workaround; I ended up just recomposing and keeping all my following AI adjustments minimal.

I was just thinking though, it’s possible that when you import the AI file, instead of importing the layers using layer size, use the document size instead. That way all your layers will be the size of your AI file and anchors will be document center. As long as your artist doesn’t expand the artboards or anything, that should work I think.