Try going to Red Giant Software's support site and getting their latest updates:

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/updates.html


They have the 512 error listed (though I don't know if this is the problem you are encountering):

Magic Bullet Suite Look Suite Xeon Crash (Error 512) Description: Fixes a bug with memory allocation where rendering Look Suite caused it to crash mid-render, usually in the middle of a very long render. This was found only on high end Xeon machines, over 3Ghz.

I tried that but it doesn't seem to work. I emailed them. It's weird though. I can convert 29.97 video to 24fps and do all of the other magic bullet effects(deartifact,look suite,etc) and I can also render this but only with the DRAFT mode. For some weird reason, it wont let me render in BEST mode so that I can have better resolution and quality.

I would like to try the demo of Magic Bullet Suite. The only problem being I don't have After Effects. Is there a free (or inexpensive) program that I can buy that will accept After Effects plugins?

Thanks!
Josh

lol Guess not?

You could try the after effects demo:

http://www.adobe.com/products/tryadobe/main.jsp#product=13

I'm a student making a film and just recently I found out that one of the labs has a copy of magic bullet we can use!

I did some messing around to get the hang of it - I shot 60i on my VX2000 (with lowered sharpness in the custom settings) and then followed the basic procedure outlined in the magic bullet manual.. I came across some trouble and I just had a couple of questions...

When I rendered the clip and tried to watch it using numerous different players on my computer, it played back extremely choppy and slow. Is this normal?

Also, if i edit at 60i at once in Premier first, then render the whole thing through magic bullet in the end, can I open it again in Premier to bring it back to export it back to DV?

"When I rendered the clip and tried to watch it using numerous different players on my computer, it played back extremely choppy and slow. Is this normal?

Without knowing the exact setting you used, it can be difficult to diagnose the problem.

I can tell you that odds are you had your composition setting incorrectly set in After Effects. In order for Magic Bullet to work correctly, the setting in After Effects have to be set correctly as well.

I don't have the manual in front of me, so I can't give you a spefic answer right now. But my first guess would be to check with the manual, and make sure you were importing your footage into the right kind of comp in AE.

"Also, if i edit at 60i at once in Premier first, then render the whole thing through magic bullet in the end, can I open it again in Premier to bring it back to export it back to DV?"

Are you asking if after you render out of AE can you bring that file back into Premiere for layout back to tape? If so, yes that shouldn't be a problem at all, as long as you are rendering out of AE into a codec that Premiere can recognize.

I hope this helps.

Danny,

If you are using DV source and rendering at Best quality, you're output will be an uncompressed AVI file. Those are pretty large, and limited hard drive speed/throughput or processing power won't be able to play this back smoothly.

If this is your scenario, you'll need to render as DV-AVI (adds a recompression cycle and potential loses quality), or work on a faster system.

Josh

Hello Forum,


In the manual for Magic Bullet it says to select no fields in the interpet footage window, and then your on your own after that.

I imported some mjpeg upper field first footage as they stated with no fields and then exported uncompressed mov. upper field first.

The results were very bad strobing and honestly, i have had better results with exporting with no fields.

Has anyone else had problems with this happening? and are there any tweaks to make the bullet even better, aprt from shooting, lighting, lense etc.

B.Sundry

If the reason (one of) for using MB is to do a de-interlace your
import should be set to upper first and the output to none, I'd
reckon. At least that is how it works on systems like Sony Vegas.
(I haven't used MB myself).

Otherwise it is always wise to keep the same setting throughout
the system. In this case you would maintain the interlacing and
need to set everything to upper first.

For your information, DV is lower field first.

There are three places to set field order. If you are deinterlacing, you need to...

AE Interpret Footage - No Fields
Magic Bullet - Upper Field First (MB shoul detect and set this in auto-config, it's lower for me)
AE Output - No Fields

Josh

thanks so much Josh,

I think this seemed to be my first configuration before i realised i better set my fields right.

Actually seems that i was right the first time.

What are the primary differences in motion between Magic Bullet Suite and the DVX100a? (besides the obvious of real-time) Do the two yield basically the same result. I think I remember reading that Magic Bullet is a bit more shuttery, but I can't remember...

Thanks

"differences in motion "

well.. magic bullet deinterlaces, while the dvx is shooting in full res true progressive

to the naked eye, it may not be that noticable, but the native progressive footage will be sharper...

It's the difference between actually taking an image at 24 distinct moments in time (per second)... and trying to approximate that based on images taken after 60 other moments in time. At best it's an approximation, and will never be as accurate or as detailed as the real thing.

does anyone enable frame blending with magic bullet in after effects? it looks like it might provide a little bit of an added motion blur and may look better. what are people's opinions on this?

My experience is that it adds too much blending. It seems to blend a number of frames together. I'm not sure if it's configurable. It may be better suited as a creative tool, since it'll give a real slurry effect.

It's been a while since the Sony FX1/Z1's came out. Hasn't anyone tried Magic Bullet Suite with them? I hear about Vegas being a good NLE for the 24p conversion, as well as many others such as Twixtor and that Avi whatchamacallit, but I've yet to see any FX1/Z1 footage converted to 24p using Magic Bullet. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen any samples of FX1/Z1 footage converted to 24p. What's the holdup people? =)

What's the holdup people? =)

They're waiting for it to render :D :D :D :D

lol, nice one. I'm still surprised nobody has even tried. >.<

I recently tried to install MB for Editors (the trial version) but when I install it, it fails to install the presets. I asked my friend to download the trial and install it but it did the same thing on his computer.

Could someone sends me the presets? Or give me the settings forr at least Basic and Basic Warm/Cool presets? That would be really nice since I want to get an idea on the effect it gives on different movies I made.

Thanks, Maxime

PS: I'm using Adobe Premiere Pro

I had the same problem and im using Permiere as well. I downloaded a update I believe. Is that all you want to use in Magic bullet is the filmic look? Or what, because I dont think I got the other stuff to work.

Is there anything out there? I need a plugin for Adobe Permiere pro, I have magic bullet but was wondering if there is anything better out there. Magic bullet tends to be very very slow at rendering, I'm sure there is nothing that is faster though, correct?

Virtually everything else is faster.

What particular things do you want to do?

There may be ways to emulate Magic Bullet looks with Premiere's tools plus Synthetic Aperture's Color Finesse. They won't be exactly the same, and will not be as easy to use. However, you can accomplish lots of different things MB can't do. Use masking to isolate particular areas of an image (like power windows on a Da Vinci, except slower and better). Secondary color correction (affecting only particular colors). etc.

Problem solved, I installed the MB Suite for After Effects at my friend house, took some settings in note and used them in Premiere. The result is impressive!

Glad you got it working

Basicaly I'm just after the film look, was hoping something else was faster. Probably there are not a lot of plugins for permiere, or maybe permiere can do it all on its own.

Not related to Premiere, but others might be interested, VASST has a plugin for Sony Vegas called Celluloid. It uses Vegas' internal filters and is much faster to render than MB.

www.vasst.com/celluloid.htm

Try the color corrector and increasing contrast. Or use the curves function in it and make a s-shaped curve.

Thanks Glenn, anyone else have a suggestion?

Anyone here use Magic Bullet, and if so, have you used it with Premiere 2.0?

I've noticed that suddenly, there's an odd rectangle in the middle of my screen that is discolored. It's a LITTLE darker than everything else, and has perfect right angles. When there's a lot of action going on, it's not noticeable, but when you have a portion of solid color (like a wall),it's easily defined.

Has anyone else had this problem? How did you go about resolving it?

Is it always stationary, and in the same place each time? It could just be part of the Source/Project monitor interface. Unless it's also making it's way into your exported footage, I wouldn't worry about it.

Yes, it's always stationary, and it does make it onto the final footage.

It's the oddest thing I've seen. I was watching a burn of a DVD this weekend with someone, and POW, there it was. I can't figure out the issue, and no one on the Red Giant board has replied.

Has anyone else noticed this issue with Premiere 2.0 and Magic Bullet?

That's pretty odd. I've used Magic Bullet with Premiere 2.0 and I haven't noticed any abnormalities. Does this happen with every Magic Bullet filter?

So I exported from Premiere 1.5 with the Huffy codec (29.97), then imported in AE 6.5 and did what the MB manual says:
--use Interpret footage window to set Separate Fields to OFF.
--drag footage to Comp Window, set frame rate to 23.976 in Comp Settings
--Add MB, auto setup worked fine (now configured to convert NTSC footage to 24p)
--I have Do Interlace checked, source video NTSC, lower field first, motion detect at default 20.0000, detail pattern default 4
--I changed deartifact from None to 4:1:1 (DV, DVCAM)
--Add to Render Que
--Render settings: Best (frame blending on for checked layers, field render off, 3:2 pulldown off, use comp's frame rate 29.97...), lossless, errors only, output to comp name

After it's done rendering, I tried to play it, and it looks deinterlaced, but there is no audio at all. If I reimport to AE, there's no waveform.

Couple questions:
1. Any insight into why I have no audio?
2. Do I have to export my audio from Premiere separately and add it to the deinterlaced footage in AE?
3. Do my settings look correct?

Thanks!

What codec did you render to? Was audio selected?

Your settings seem fine but you should bring your audio in separately from the video or strange things can happen. Check the Magic Bullet manual for the correct audio settings.

Yes, by the way, for future forum searchers, the reason I had no audio was b/c I'm a bone head. I'm new to AE as well and in my output module I didn't have the audio output selected.

Since then, however, I have been importing my audio with the video and not having a problem thus far. Hopefully that will continue!

Hi Everyone,

Quick question that is bothering me now that I demo'ed Magic Bullet Suite 2.1. When I output 60i NTSC footage to 24p via After Effects and Magic Bullet, should the framerate that shows up in my NLE for the rendered file be 23.976 or 29.97? All procedures to deinterlace and convert 60i to 24p are being followed as per Magic Bullets Manual.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thank you,
Juan Oropeza

In the final exported video file from After Effects, after rendering out some Magic Bullet Look Suite filters, there are anomalies in the video. In the darker footage (HDV by the way), there seem to be very short blasts of grainy brightness or certain colours. Anyone got any idea what's going on??

Additional information:

When I use DV Film Maker I get a avi with a framerate of 23.976 (as expected).

In addition, when I use WCinemantiQ I get a avi with a framerate of 23.976 ( as expected).

So why is it that I am getting 29.970 framerate when I use magic bullet and after effects?

Juan

Hey Folks,
I have a feature Im cutting in Vegas and doing color and stuff in After Effects. I want to know if I should take each individual clip into Magic Bullet and render it out 24 frams and re-assemble it in vegas, or should I do the whole movie? Also, should i change the audio playback rate or let it be? I would think there would be some offset.

Michael

Michael,

It all depends on your workflow. Some people prefer to convert their raw footage and edit in pure 24p. Others just complete the project and run through MB at the end in one pass, it certainly cuts down on processing time that way. You can get away with this with MB, because it has decent scene detection (sometimes cuts do selectively bleed through to each other, though). Other 24p convertors, like DVFilm Maker, don't do such a good job with cuts, and will give you a blended frame or two.

One thing to note. If you edit in 60i with the intent to convert later, then your transitions, titles, effects, etc. will be rendered in interlaced, and won't look as good in the end as they would have if they were done in pure 24p. One option is to edit everything but the transitions, title, etc. and MB your 60i, take it back to editing for one last pass to add that stuff as pure 24p.

Josh

It's easy to Magic Bullet-ize the final edit when editing in Premiere, because you can open up your Premiere projects right into After Effects, and the clips appear as layers on the timeline. This avoids the blurred cuts/transitions problem, because you can apply Magic Bullet to each clip from within After Effect. I did it this way for my feature film, and it worked out great. Everything was edited in Premiere and then ported into AE for color correction and Magic Bullet-ing. Then exported as a hi-res QT file.

Automatic Duck might make a program that can move Vegas projects into After Effects like this. I know they make a program that does this for FCP. Otherwise, it seems as if your options are either to Bullet every clip and edit 24p in Vegas, or deal with the slight blurring between cuts if using a single AVI/QT file in After Effects. Neither sounds like much fun, to be honest.

Audio playback rate remains the same regardless. Never had any issues with this.

Good luck,
Ryan Graham
Director, "Livelihood"
www.livelihoodmovie.com

Audio playback rate remains the same regardless. Never had any issues with this.True. We don't use 24 fps in NTSC countries for video. We use 23.976 fps. That lets us do the 3:2 thing without any slippage.

60i is 59.94 fields/s
60p is 59.94 frames/s
30p is 29.97 frames/s
24p video is 23.976 frames/s in NTSC land

It all scales nicely.

BTW, 60i used to really be 60 fields/s, back before they added the color subcarrier to video.

I realize this is probably not the most appropriate topic for this forum, but I'm afraid I've grown desperate in my search for a solution.

I'm Having some trouble installing the Magic Bullet suite. When I get to the part where I'm supposed to click on the "auto setup" button, nothing happens. My suspicion is that it is partially installed in the wrong directory, as portions of other files are missing. Perhaps somebody could tell me where their magic bullet files are located in the After Effects directory? Or maybe there is another solution.

If you know anything about what I might be talking about, please respond. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I've just recently managed to aquire an FX1 for some future productions I plan on filming. I use the adobe premium production studio for all of my post work. Last night I sat down with some footage I shot for testing and went to work trying to make it look like film. The 24p problem was the first obstacle to overcome, since I shot in 60i. Just for the hell of it, I imported it into a premiere project with the settings at 25 fps. A little color Correction here and there and in my opinion it looked great!

Am I just blind to the fact that it actually looks bad? Everything that I've read online says that you have to go with a program like Magic Bullet to convert it into a true 24p format. Is there that big of a difference between the bulleted 24p footage and the result that premiere produces when you drop it into a 25fps project? Perhaps some of you with a more trained eye could tell me.

I sort of agree. I've done some simple experiments with this at various points (I mix a lot of PAL and NTSC footage regularly and have gotten quite adept at handling issues) and think a much better 60i -> 24p workflow - if it looks/works for you - is to create 25p with what you've got instead.

To my eyes, 60/30/25 conforms a lot smoother than 60/30/24. The fields being reconstructed in 24p to take into consideration motion and time just look sketchy and bad (end up with that slight hyper real motion) whereas no real temporal reconstruction is needed with 25p. Yeah, there's a tad of judder, but for whatever reason it's a lot less noticable (maybe as everything is divided 'evenly' by 5 throughout the process the eyes glaze? - theres no introduced 'break' in motion) than using a 24p process. To then get 25p->24p I do the slow down.

I don't use Premiere (all Final Cut) but I routinely mix 60i, 50i and 25p footage to end up with 24p finished work. It's a lot of effort and a bit convoluted, but I think the result is (depending on the context and requirements) occasionally a little better.

i just wished that they would just merge all video standards so we wouldnt have to be like "if i have 60i and 24p and wanted 908fps what do i use to convert to pal 1068p"

I recently snagged a copy of magic bullet suite for after effects,and had some videos i recorded with a sony dsr pd100a and am using magic bullet for 24p conversion when i follow it into after effects and covert into 24p it doesn;t seem 24p and i use ntsc video. I shoot at 60i, and set after effects project files to 23.976fps. i apply magic bullet which inferences deintrlacing, with a lower field, Motion detection 20, and detail pattern 4. also deartifacting is 4:1:1 dvcam. can anyone help me?

i think i may be having a similar problem my footage just doesnt look like it is deinterlaced so i dunno if anyone could help that would be great.