exporting To mini dv from after fX
 

I've been doing some work in After Fx. I want to edit these clips on another system using Storm edit. What I need to do is export these compositions straight to my GL-1 without using any codecs. I want a clean and uncompressed clip on my Mini-DV tape. I cant find this option in AFX. I know you can export to tape in Premiere but you have to deal with sucky codecs.

DV is a compressed format (5:1). You would need to go to an uncompressed format like Betacam SP (analog) or D1, D5 etc. What are you hoping to do? You may not really need an uncompressed format.

you are going to have to export it and bring it to a NLE that can write to tape.

After effects won't write to a deck

I think what I'll do is render the work I've done in A FX to an uncompressed avi. Then open the clip up in Premiere and export to tape. I might just skip the whole tape thing because I just bought an external 120G HDD with an 8mb buffer. I'll just throw the clips on the HDD and take it to my friends where we are going to edit with Storm Edit. The uncompressed avi's will be huge but oh well, thats why I've got a firewire enclosure for the HDD.

OK. first off MiniDV is lossless. So it doesnt matter how many generations you do it will be as good as the first. Second, Why take it out of that compression when it will just be recompressed back into the MiniDV format? It is a waste of time for you to go from compressed to uncompressed back to compressed.
Keep it all the same format and it will work. in AE just select microsoft AVI. then goto format and select DV. that is it done render and move on. If you were going to keep it in the computer then it wouldnt matter how you wanted to save your project out but since it's going back to tape then keep the format the same through your whole project.

Rob:D

Not true. His work in AE might be uncompressed. Exporting to DV will cause a loss of quality. Renders in DV are not lossless. You lose quality with each render. Many high-end projects are converted to an uncompressed format and edited uncompressed. That way all the graphics, effects, etc. are rendered lossless (or near lossless, depending on the system). Then the finished project is exported to various formats (some uncompressed) for distribution etc.

I am not working with footage shot on a camera. I am putting together a montage for a short film I am working on. In the film the hero loads a CD into his computer which then tells of his next assignment. What we see is his digital briefing on screen. This "briefing" is made up of several PSD's and maybe some video footage which will appear to be picture-in-picture. So you see, Im not taking any real footage into A FX. WHAT IM DOING IN A FX IS ANIMATING ALL OF THESE PSD's. When I'm done animating them, I want to take them to a friends house and then edit them into the live action timeline using Canopus Storm Edit. When I'm done animating I was planning on render them out to an uncompressed avi using A FX, put them on my external HDD and take them over to Storm Edit. We are using Storm Edit because there is a lot of scrolling text within this montage; Premiere does a crappy job when it comes to text while SE does not. Let me know what ya'll think.

Thanks

Seth Peterson

OK, here's what I'd do in After Effects:

Send your final comp to the render queue. In the render queue, under Output Module choose "Lossless." If Lossless is already selected, click on it and in the dialog box, choose Quicktime Movie under format, and choose Animation under the compressor type. The animation choice doesn't actually compress your video if you have its format options set on "best."

Alternatively, you can choose Video for Windows and under Compressor, choose No Compression. Render out your final comp and dump it to your hard drive, done.

Just make sure your pixel shape of your comp matches the pixel shape you plan to use in your movie project (square vs. rectangular).

-Steve Vandergriff

I agree with Steve. I've had the best experience with using the Animation Codec in AE. You won't lose any quality if you follow Steve's work flow. You may want to do a test render and check your results in Storm Edit.

I would definately keep everything uncompressed for as long as possible until you are ready to output

I always thought sequencial TGA's were the way to go when redering out for best quality. That is if there is no sound. Let me know if I'm wrong because that's what I have been doing for the last 15 weeks of my internship.

I always did the same when working with 3d and graphics. Targa or Tiff. PSD's are just to big to keep that way. Sorry about my previous post. I was thinking lossless as the whole process...don't know why. Anyways how does that animation codec compare to Targa's to the playablility of the animation on the computer?

Rob:D

In general, uncompressed targa, tiff or pic sequence is definitely the way to go. You can then take this to virtually any machine/software - mac/pc/sgi and use the sequence. The same can't be said about AVI/mov or any kind of generic compression codec, lossless or not. Always keep footage at the highest quality you can for as long as you can. Only compress at the final output stage if you can.

I know that it is probably irrelevant for your purposes, but it is a good habit to learn and will maintain maximum compatiblity, I would always put a .xyz (that is tga/pic/jpg/tiff or whatever)suffix on the exported filename. PCs do this automatically but macs tend not to. Macs keep this information somewhere in their resource forks. Also keep an eye on how the file padding works. That is how many numbers in the filename - file0001.xyz and where the '.' or '. . . ' are (if that makes sense). This can confuse some systems. Admittedly the size of all these files can get a little large, but storage is cheap nowadays.


What Steve says about pixel aspect ratio is very important. DV doesn't use square pixels and much graphics software is not really aware of this. Despite a frame of PAL DV being 720x576 it really displays at 768x576. People preparing artwork or footage often miss this, meaning that all their footage is either squashed or has to be resized. This resizing reduces quality. After Effects is aware of rectangular pixels - check out 'pixel aspect correction' in the manual.

As an aside, has anybody used 'echofire' from Synthetic Aperture:

http://www.echofire.com/

Its primary purpose is to output the AFX preview window via firewire - but I think I think you could use it to output movies to tape. For your application it is still not as good as a tga sequence however.


simon