[Walter Soyka]

I’d only upres and replace the video clips, not the entire comp. To preserve detail on the vector art and text, you could try nesting the DV PAL comp in an HD comp, scale it up, and collapse transformations.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

Let me know when the stereoscopic option comes out for that, and I’ll pick up a couple myself!

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

[marvin latimer] “They want it in DVCPRO NTSC dv 720 x 480”

DVCPRO comes in two data rates: DVCPRO25 and DVCPRO50. You’ll need to find out which they want. DVCPRO50 is far superior to DVCPRO25, but if you’re working entirely in DV, you won’t see a benefit. If they want DVCPRO50, you should re-render any effects, color correction, and graphics in uncompressed or natively in DVCPRO50 before your final output.

[marvin latimer] “How can I render the file in the proper format for them to have it uncompressed on a mini dv tape for them???”

Like Dave said, you can’t. MiniDV is a very similar, but slightly different format than DVCPRO. (Also, neither format is uncompressed.)

[marvin latimer] my video guy says in pinnacle studio 12 we can just render to tape and pinnacle will shoot it to the record to the dv in the camera. I didnt see a tape option in AE.

AE doesn’t have a record-to-tape function. You would need to use an NLE, and Pinnacle would probably do it, but it wouldn’t make my short-list. You would need a DVCPRO deck to record your project in DVCPRO. If you output to a MiniDV camcorder, you will get a MiniDV tape.

[marvin latimer]Any idea plugins to make DVCPRO render to data DVD just in case?

MainConcept makes one.

If your program is more than roughly 20 minutes long (or 10 minutes at DVCPRO50), a DVD will be too small and you might consider delivering on an external hard drive instead.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

[Graham Quince] “I’ve heard that DV Cam is better for chromakey than MiniDV. “

I know you’ve already resolved your question, but to clarify, the difference between DVCAM and MiniDV is the track pitch on tape; DVCAM increases robustness and sacrifices tape length compared to MiniDV. The color space, compression, and data stream are otherwise the same.

In other words, DVCAM and MiniDV are equally unsuited to chromakeying.

The DVCAM format does reduce the likelihood of dropouts, though. Also, DVCAM camcorders, geared more towards professionals, tended to have better sensors and optics, so they produced marginally cleaner images.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

Yes, a distribution amplifier is the way to go. Do you intend to use VGA or DVI from the Mac Mini?

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

Ok, given your constraints, I’d suggest you consolidate & collect files (see Adobe’s online help on the topic) from your project onto an external drive. Make an identical clone of that drive (same volume name, same directory structure, same footage) and attach it to the second computer. Work in the new project file that Collect Files will save. Now you will only need to copy over that AE project file and start the render on the second computer.

If your footage is constantly updating, then you can keep your working project as you are right now, and just collect files onto a fresh drive every time you’re ready to render.

Just a warning — it can take a time to collect, depending on your footage.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

What do you have available to get the computers working together? Shared storage? High speed network? External drives?

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

One thing to add to Keith’s good advice to really help sell the shot — don’t just focus on the fireball; also be aware how the fireball would interact with its environment. If you rewatch the clip you linked to, you’ll see the fireball seems to cast light on the actors and throws off heat waves.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

I’ve posted a little information on network rendering with AE recently.

You could share one of the external drives over your network, but it might too slow to give you any real benefit once all the machines start accessing it. Without fast shared storage, it might actually be faster for you to consolidate your project and put an identical copy on local storage on each machine, then manually render a different segment on each machine and recombine them.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

You can press Caps Lock to disable refresh.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production