I'm doing some effects for a buddies film, the problem is that I have a PC using Premeire Pro and After Effects and my buddy is on a mac using final cut. He converted the footage to a quicktime .mov file because he said he couldn't do a .avi file. The file was really choppy and not full video quality even though he put it in 720 X 480.

They are shooting in MiniDV

Anyone know a good way to convert video better then that??

you could always export to mini dv, then recapture on the PC. Then the PC will have it in the best available format

The problem is we are a couple hours away from eachother!

The problem is we are a couple hours away from eachother!

If the file is choppy on his side of the computer connection, it's simply a bad encoding.

If the file is only choppy on your side of the computer connection, it may be because he encoded it in H.264, and that takes a lot of processing power - which you might not have.

If that's the case, take his H.264 .mov file and do a straight-up conversion to an uncompressed .avi file.

The file he gave me was about three and a half minutes long and was only 88 megs when I did a uncompressed avi it was like 500 megs. I think he mussed have compressed it and not known.

What is the file for (what are you editing with)? It only needs to look good in that program, I'm not sure what you are watching it on, but just cause it doesn't look good in quicktime (for example) doesn't mean the file is not full quality and wouldn't look great in after effects.

I was using after effects and Premeire to look at it, If I zoom in at all in after effects it gets pixalated really quick (which shouldn't happen with a high quality file) and since the film is going to be shown at a movie theater (not just a tv or computer) everything has to be the best quality.

I was using after effects and Premeire to look at it, If I zoom in at all in after effects it gets pixalated really quick (which shouldn't happen with a high quality file) and since the film is going to be shown at a movie theater (not just a tv or computer) everything has to be the best quality.

There are 2 things that could have happened. He should check on the top left of his timeline where it says RT. In this drop down menu make sure everything is "dynamic" so that the quality is high. Safe should also be checked as opposed to unlimited.
Or he may have selected quicktime conversion when exporting, and compressed the video.
Now that the quality is dynamic in Final Cut go to file, "export quicktime" (NOT quicktime conversion!) Check "make movie self contained" do NOT check "re-compress" or whatever it is. This will quickly export a video as uncompressed as it can be from FCP. He will have a "FCP movie" that can open in quicktime. It is a .MOV but may not have that extension, he should type that in for your pc to recognize the file type.
The only thing I'm not sure of is if PCs can play these FCP movies, but I work with PCs sometimes and don't remember this ever being a problem.

Thanks Man I will give this a try!