Hi, I recently captured some 720P 25fps footage into Premiere CS3 and then exported a portion to a MS DV AVI file (assuming that this is pretty much the native format).

When imported into After Effects the footage is pixelated and for some reason (despite the composition settings) is displayed in 4:3. Does anybody know why this is?

I am trying to export a portion of my Premiere timeline in order to use the vastly superior Keylight plugin (as Premiere's is weak) for chromakeying. Should I be using a preset in Adobe Media Encoder, I assume I really want an uncompressed output but I cannot seem to do this.

I will read up on the Adobe link functionality as this might solve the problem, however I still would be interested to solve this if possible.

Thanks

DV is a low quality codec, and doesn't support 720p. If you have no better options, choosing MS AVI and then "None" under compression with 720p framesize will give you the highest quality results. The downside is that the files are huge. Compression options like Cineform can help cut the filesize and increase the performance.

You should be using dynamic link. It will chose the correct settings for you.

I use Quicktime Animation, Photo JPEG or PNG (Anim and PNG can store alpha channel) when moving between AE and Premiere. MS DV AVI is for PAL or NTSC only and is compressed. It's good for cuts-only workflows but try to avoid it when moving between apps for compositing or color grading.

Dynamic Link will slow down your workflow as it doesn't cache its results. It's basically just a frameserver that displays AE comp in Premiere. It's handy for simple animations, lower thirds and so on but you will probably be better off rendering your comp in AE and then importing it into Premiere.

Thanks for all your answers. In the end Dynamic Link seemed simple enough to use and saves so much time...

I am still seeing my preview window in 4:3 in AE even though it shows fine in Premeire.

Doe anyone know why this might be?

Don't worry I sorted this.

I found a little button at the bottom of the preview window that seems to stretch the preview out. I assume that this is a square pixel thing.

Alex