Vertical lines on my video, thanks to AE
 

Hi all,

I recently shot a movie on miniDV with my Panasonic AG-DVC30P. The video was interlaced, but to give it a more film-like appearance I ran it through Magic Bullet in After Effects. It gave me the film look, but it also gave me these horribly ugly vertical lines on my video. See below (and please ignore the bad lighting, etc.):

Before: http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k2.../ps1before.jpg

After: http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...r/ps1after.jpg

Further investigation showed that every time I exported video with After Effects, Magic Bullet or not, I still got these.

I exported the video as a DV-quality AVI, and chose the very same settings when exporting from After Effects. What gives? It's driving me up the wall and I could desperately use some help.

Do you mean you exported the video twice? What is your work flow exactly?
Maybe it is because of the codec, can you try exporting as AVI uncompressed?

Hi Benjamin,

I did export the video twice, yes. Here's the workflow:

Shot on miniDV
Capture in Adobe Premiere as DV-quality AVI
Export from Premiere as DV-quality AVI
Import into After Effects and apply Magic Bullet filters, etc.
Export as DV-quality AVI

Here's the thing, though: I can export, tweak, and re-export my video from Premiere alone as many times as I like without any quality loss, so why would AE mess it up?

I recall trying to export as an uncompressed AVI and that helped, but that's totally unfeasible for 90+ minutes of video. Surely there's another way?

There are many factors that can play here but I am not in front of my machine for testing.

If you don't do things too complicated, you can avoid one recompression by importing your Premiere project into AE.
Note that Premiere may not recompress the video if the video is untouched (no filter, only cuts, etc.).

You could try another DV codec. I remember there is a Microsoft DV codec (not very good), but don't remember if Adobe provides one. If you have a Canopus software, they also have one. And probably others.

Do you want to deliver your movie as a MiniDV? If not, why not using the delivery format.

When I export from AE, I usually export as uncompressed or use a lossless codec. But I never did a 90 minutes video, that's true!
The lossless codecs I know are: Lagarith, MSU.

I am sorry for these suggestions thrown at you but I am just trying to guess what's wrong here. I will be able to do a few tests later today.

Thanks for being willing to give it a test! It's greatly appreciated.

Sadly, importing directly into AE isn't an option. I need to do a lot of work in Premiere before I get to that stage. However, I don't think the issue is with Premiere, as I can re-export video from Premiere over and over again without any apparent quality loss.

The delivery format is generally DVD.

Man, I had no idea that the Microsoft DV codec wasn't very good. :-( I guess I learn something new every day. I've tried exporting from AE using the Panasonic DV codec, though, with similar poor results. Incidentally, what's the difference between an uncompressed and a lossless codec? Unfortunately, I expect both are still not feasible for so much video.

It's one of those cases, though, where I feel I couldn't possibly be the first person with this problem. :-)

Sorry for the double-post. Apparently I'm part wrong. It looks like I do indeed get those vertical lines if I tweak the video in Premiere. That's baffling, though! I can understand a slight amount of quality loss when adjusting video, but obvious vertical lines? I've never heard of that.

I made the test and there was nothing wrong with my rendered video neither with Premiere nor with AE.

So now you have to find where the problem occurs. Try to render a small portion of your video in uncompressed avi and with other codecs. Compare the results.

It may be a problem with the color space. Apply the Video Limiter effect (CS3).


A lossless codec compress the video but without losing any information. With DV, mpeg codecs you will lose some information (color, luma) at each compression. With a lossless codec, you will have the exact same video after decompression.

Thanks, Benjamin. The problem seems to occur anytime I tweak the video and export as a DV-quality AVI (I've tried Panasonic's DV codec and Microsoft's), whether from Premiere or AE. Which means if I adjust the brightness/contrast in Premiere, then use Magic Bullet in AE, it's compressed twice and looks ugly.

I did try the Lagarith codec, and while it works beautifully the video is about 5x the size as DV, which isn't optimal for long films (but will be great for shorter stuff since it's still about half the size as uncompressed, so thanks!).

For reference, I'm using the EXTREMELY low-light video clip seen in those stills, and I suspect that it makes the issue more noticeable; I figured I'd try a "worst-case scenario." However, if I send you the 2-sec clip I'm using, would you be willing to run it through Premiere & AE on your end to see if you see anything? I don't mean to impose, so no worries if you can't.

I'm suspecting that it's an issue that's always there, but not noticeable with most well-lit, properly exposed video. :-)

Sure, you can send me an email via my public profile.

Ed, I got your clip. I imported it into AE, it was normal. I exported it as DV and it was still normal. I adjusted the brigthness, the levels, etc. and it was still fine.

Are you sure it's not something (an effect?) you do in AE? It's the only possibility I see now.

Hm, darn. Any chance I could see the clip you exported from AE?

I don't think it's anything I've done to it, as I see the lines as soon as I put the clip in a new Composition. I've even turned off the standard de-interlacing that it does automatically. Is there any other "default" effect that might be applied with to an imported clip and/or new composition?

Thanks again for all the help.

I think the only thing AE does by default is converting the video to RGB. But I am not sure.

I just sent you 2 emails with the clips.

Bizarre! Yeah, yours look great.

I tried calling Adobe tech support yesterday, and their first suggestion of updating my video card drivers wasn't any help. I'll try them again today.