After Effects Workflow

[Gnurpf]

Hey there,

I downloaded a few files of original gh1-footage to test the workflow primarily using after effects but I fail to remove the pulldown. When I use AFX to remove the pulldown I get problems very similar to what is described in this topic: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=171841 Some frames a repeated, on other frames I see seperate fields. But it happens completely random. Even when I jump to another time in the composition an back it’s not the same frame which is messed up but another frame close to it. The problems stay when I export the footage.

I also tried neoscene but this leads to a few other problems. First, I think the cineform codec slows down AFX and provokes instability. Playback of clips is rather fast but simple activities like open menus take longer when neoscene files are imported. I had an early version of the neoscene player installed but removed it because AFX crashed nearly every time at startup. This has become a little better but is still a problem. Furthermore, AFX doesn’t work well with the footage: it recognizes a framerate of 23,9761 and if a proxy for a cineform-element is created, there is a little offset in time which makes compositing impossible. And in general, I hate the idea of loosing quality by recompressing the footage.

Is there another way to remove the pulldown which I could try or has anybody an idea why AFX can’t cope with the gh1-files?

Thanks a lot!

edit: Why have the separations between paragraphs been removed? Strange ...

[MikalZ]

Voltaic HD is the other option, although I find the clips it makes run slower in the Adobe apps then neoscene clips do. btw, what's your process for making cineform proxies?

[Gnurpf]

Voltaic HD is the other option, although I find the clips it makes run slower in the Adobe apps then neoscene clips do. btw, what's your process for making cineform proxies?
I tried VoltaicHD and I've got the feeling that After Effects works a lot better with its clips. But I recognized that there is visible quality loss compared to the original in terms of block artifacts, as seen in the attachment. And again the framerate is interpreted slightly wrong, it's 23,98 instead of 23,976. Before somebody asks, AFX tells the difference.

I tried sevaral ways to create the cineform-proxys in AFX. I created it automatically in AFX by right clicking at the footage but also used Adobe Media Encoder to convert the file and set it as a proxy manually. Same result ...

[MikalZ]

I've been comparing the output from neoscene and voltaic, and will be going neoscene for the issue you mentioned: the block artifacts. I'm not seeing this in the neoscene clips. And the 23.98 framerate thing is annoying as well.

[Gnurpf]

Here is something if found out after a conversation at the adobe forums.

Perhaps, someone can verify what I wrote:

Finally, I found out what the problem is! After Effects isn't able to separate the fields of an (GH1-)avchd clip. If you separate the fields either by removing pulldown or not, the playback and the export is broken. If you import it as progressive video, than export it e.g. as a tif sequence (with separate fields again) and than reimport it and remove the pulldown, everything works perfect. Exept the case that you lower the comp resolution. If you do that, you get fouled frames again but that happens even with clips completely created by after effects where you have a pulldown applied at rendering.

So there is a workaround without recompression in after effects but it contains two render-procedures if you want to work in lower comp resolutions (1. encode to another format with progressive interpretation and 2. remove the pulldown) before you can start to work. Thats quite a waste of time and disk space.