Digital Video

[mschoenhals]

Hi all,

I'm doing a project that involves rotoscoped video with animated characters. I've found that AM will not accept DV AVI's and when I use cinepak or indeo to compress the video, upon rendering in AM the digital video turns out terrible - get lines all across the screen.

 

Any suggestions on how I should bring the digital video into AM and then render?

 

Thanks,

Mike

[rusty]

Mike,

 

I should probably stay out of this, I don't consider myself an expert although I've fought with this stuff for enough years. However if I stumble forward perhaps someone can straighten us both out!

 

What you have are cowboys and Indians and if you try to simply put them together (with out a 'peace treaty') you get undesirable results.

 

Cowboys -- the video you're probably rendering from AM is:

1. A progressive scan

2. Square pixies

3. Aspect ratio 1.0

4. 30 fps (or at least some even number)

5. Resolution... whatever -- probably 640x480

 

Indians -- video created by your video camera is:

1. 'Interlaced' with either the Upper or Lower field first (which I won't try to explain except to say its the method used to paint a TV screen),

2. Non-square pixels

3. Aspect ratio 0.9

4. Probably 29.97 fps, drop frame

5. Resolution probably 720x480

 

You can see the problem -- their different and just enough to make people just starting out crazy. I'm not even getting into the audio part. But don't fear...

 

Peace treaty -- what you need to do is:

1. De-interlace or 'interpret' the camera video

or

Render with the settings of an Indian.

 

As for all the rest... I think it takes care of itself!

 

I de-interlace my video in Adobe Premiere because I capture my video using that program. I'm not sure what you can use but someone will chime in and tell you or maybe you know. I'm not sure how to handle this in AM alone and I'd like to know.

 

Cheers,

Rusty

[John Bigboote]

Wow...Rusty, you have OUTDONE yourself! Cowboys and Indians??? Get down to your local community college and start teaching! THOSE kind of analogies are PRICELESS! I love it!

 

I suppose this picture could be painted with 'cops' and 'robbers'...

 

Mschoenhals--- for most 'professional' results rotoscopes are usually left as guides in A:M and then composited in another app like AfterEffects or Premiere...Vegas...

 

IF you want to use A:M as the compositor you will obviously have to find a compressor that renders right...so experiment. Try 'No compression'...what are you using to convert your video compression?

[mschoenhals]

thanks guys for your responses here!

 

I'm using Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 to convert my video. I understand interlaced video (in simple terms that is) so I'm going to give that a try now.

 

Thanks again!

M

 

Wow...Rusty, you have OUTDONE yourself! Cowboys and Indians??? Get down to your local community college and start teaching! THOSE kind of analogies are PRICELESS! I love it!

 

I suppose this picture could be painted with 'cops' and 'robbers'...

 

Mschoenhals--- for most 'professional' results rotoscopes are usually left as guides in A:M and then composited in another app like AfterEffects or Premiere...Vegas...

 

IF you want to use A:M as the compositor you will obviously have to find a compressor that renders right...so experiment. Try 'No compression'...what are you using to convert your video compression?

[itsjustme]

Virtualdub is a free video editor for Windows that can also deinterlace for those that don't have Premiere.