[Xavier Bonet]

Hi, Jeff, thanks a million for your response! It’s really been useful. Not in the way of fixing the issue, as I’m now convinced it was a software/hardware error, but in the way of fixing my workflow and probably giving back to my life many, many hours I would no doubt continue losing in the future.

I had read from a pretty reputable source that the values I had were a bit overkill for YouTube but, overall, probably the best for keeping a master copy of videos that are not meant to be professional videos (i.e., in my case, best-possible-quality for the video originals I upload to YouTube). In fact, there I had read that the built-in YouTube export presets were not good and not to be trusted. Thanks to you, I’ve just proved that wrong.

I exported the trouble-segment 4 times after your answer: 1) Using the built-in “more-is-not-always-better” ???? YouTube 1080 preset; 2) Using my previous values but un-checking both Max options; 3) Using my previous values (Max options checked) and upping the Max bitrate to 35; 4) A control using my previous values as-is.

So, first of, none had the horrible pixelation issue. Which lead me to believe that it wasn’t really and issue of the scene or its complexity, at least per se, but rather an error of the software/hardware that occurred when it was rendering that part or that part’s complexity when it had already been rendering 70% of the video (i.e., the tired-computer syndrome, I guess one could call it…)

Next, to my surprise and chagrin (for all that time I had wasted waiting for my 2GB+ videos to export) the best output was… the “more-is-not-always-better” YouTube 1080 preset… ???? Yes, I inspected the details and it had more definition, especially in the borders of things. Which is really surprising, as it has a little over half the bitrate, no Max options checked, only one pass, etc., etc. To my mind, there’s no reason why it should be better, when every value chosen for output is worst than every value I had preset. But that’s where your phrase comes in: “More is not always better;” in fact, in this instance, it’s worse. Not only were the other three exports worse than the YouTube 1080 one, but the one with a higher Max bitrate was in fact the worst of all. Between the ones with the Max options checked/unchecked there was really no distinguishable difference, which corroborates your assertion that in my case, at least, it makes no difference, except stretching out rendering time.

So although I have yet to understand why and then fix the pixelation issue, I can tell you it’s the last time I’ll use anything higher than the YouTube 1080 option for my videos destined for YouTube.

So thanks again for your invaluable help!

[Xavier Bonet]

Thanks for the corroboration, Dave!
(Annoyed — but not surprised — face directed toward Adobe…)
Yeah, fortunately I think like you: I haven’t uninstalled CC 2015 yet. I’ll try and see if a new update fixes this. But I can confirm that as of yesterday afternoon (when I downloaded the installers, that is, used their direct download links available in the Adobe website) the bug hasn’t been fixed.
The bad thing is I’m mid-project already in CC 2017. Bummer.
Found something else: the playback is all wrong… it buffers and plays (sometimes) once correctly and then it starts playing back slower, and slows down the audio as well. So it’s very hard to sync audio with image when animating. Is this a bug, too? Or is it a new “feature” that’ll get on our nerves?
Thanks for the input!

[Xavier Bonet]

Hi, Peter,

It has a new battery and no cables between the mic and the H1.

I’m not saying that there’s surely an issue… my expectations for this mic may be higher than they ought to be. But I would like to discard there being an issue; especially with my not-so-good experience with the first VMP.

Cheers!

[Xavier Bonet]

As I kept on thinking about this, thinking about “as if the same shape, at some point, just changes color”, I’m thinking that a possible solution will be to simply recreate that. That is, create both colours as individual and then just add the outline shape as a mask. This will perhaps solve my problem, and I’ll try it out and post the results here. But, still, I feel it’s rather a workaround… as AI should work seamlessly. It seems to me like a shape, duplicated right on top of itself, should perfectly hide the bottom shape. The fact that there’s some bleed makes me feel like AI is not compensating for the pixel display, even if one’s working with vectors, which in theory have no pixels until they’re displayed.
I don’t know… perhaps I’m demanding too much of the software here.

[Xavier Bonet]

This is indeed a sad, sad day for me… ????

Thanks a lot for both your responses, guys. I’m afraid it’s one of those instances where you know what the answer is but you don’t want to accept to is…

Now, when you both say only for the part where it’s zoomed, what exactly do you mean? Because the re-rigging of the puppet is what’ll take me ages, and be it for the entire project or just for that segment, the re-rigging will be the same… unless I’m missing something.

This is what I’m thinking of doing to make my life a lot easier: The zoom has to be somewhat fast anyway (it’s a zoom into the character’s chest, whereupon and x-ray view will open up and we’ll see the heart beating… yes, I know! where do I get these unique ideas never before been used in the history of cinema? …) anyway, I’ll make it as fast as possible so as to hide the fact that I’m going to fade in onto my character’s torso a 3D-shape-layer version of the same torso, which I’ve managed to set up as close as possible to the real pre-comp’d one. So it’ll be a fade-in, fade-out sort of thing and, hopefully, in the end no one will notice. ????

Thanks again, as always, for taking the time to answer!

[Xavier Bonet]

Thanks a lot for both of your replies! I’m currently in the middle of a difficult project whose deadline is… well, yesterday! So I’ve downloaded Keysmith as recommended by Walter and will be playing around with it once I finish this project. For now, I’ll be trying out Darby’s recommendations (btw, thanks a lot for the two shortcuts given!) and see how I fare with that. Again, thanks a lot for taking the time to answer! Cheers!

[Xavier Bonet]

I’ve just seen a video of someone performing a real-world test of the data transfer rate of the G-Drive and it was at around 150 MB/s, so really it should be No. 1 in my list, according to what I’ve read about it and its price.

[Xavier Bonet]

Never mind… I found a way to rescue back the original edits. I don’t know if there’s an easier, more direct way, but I exported the AE project as a PPro project and from there I was able to copy back the original edits.

[Xavier Bonet]

UPDATE: Closing and opening PPro didn’t do the trick, it seems. 5 minutes into editing again I had the same issue. So I’ve closed PPro, followed again the same procedure, and am now crossing my fingers I can continue editing without any more inconveniences! PLEASE HELP!

[Xavier Bonet]

Hello, Roei!
A million thanks for your answer! I guess this falls under that category of VERY dumb mistakes one makes when one is overworked and very tired! I can’t believe I missed it… Now that you’ve pointed it out it seems to me to be the first thing I should’ve checked! I guess I didn’t check too thoroughly.
Anyway, I’m glad I uploaded the question and extremely glad you were so kind as to take the time to check out the matter, because this fix comes just under deadline and I’ll be able to be on time.
So thanks again for your kind help!
Have a great day!