After Effects and FCP P2 Converted Files

MrGlory

MrGlory

Active member
I've got footage imported into FCP (Quicktime DVCPRO HD files) that I've copied over to a PC for a guy to manipulate in After Effects but the footage is not coming up. Is it possible to get the DVCPRO HD codec for the PC's somewhere, I keep coming up with discussions on Raylight, but these files have already been converted to Quicktime...
 
Looks like there's quite a few of us Military folks here. You sure this PC guy has QT 7 installed on his computer?

How did you convert them? To what QT format?

CaptM
 
It's not going to work. While there is QT 7 for Macs and QT 7 for PCs, the particular codec Apple is using is specific to FCP installs, NOT to QT in general.

Apple has reasons to NOT want the codec to be cross platform.

While there are DVCPRO HD codecs from Avid and others for Wintel systems, I don't expect it to read the QT versions natively. It might be possible to "rewrapper" the files in some fashion, but since the native file format of P2 is, I THINK (NOT sure) MXF based, and the Mac/QT ones are already converted to QT, I think your guy may be hosed. Transcode to some codec they can both read, like Animation, JPEG2000, JPEG, BlackMagic, Sheer, etc.
 
Hooah! ;)

I imported the P2 cards into Final Cut, which creates Quicktime DVCRPO HD files to edit with. The PC guy has a brand new copy of After Effects and the latest Quicktime, but it's only displaying a white screen in the viewer (even though it pulls up the properties of the file correctly inside Quicktime). He's got the P2 Viewer and can view MXF files, so I can't figure out why the Quicktime files won't display.
 
MikeCurtis said:
It's not going to work. While there is QT 7 for Macs and QT 7 for PCs, the particular codec Apple is using is specific to FCP installs, NOT to QT in general.
Click to expand...

This screws our plans royal, first you have to import the MXF files, convert them to "Apple" DVCPRO HD, and the Convert them again in order to work on a PC, for hundreds/thousands of clips? That negates the "time saving" factor of P2, actually blows it out of the water in this case, and means archiving is almost improbable in terms of space in a multiplatform editing bay.
 
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MrGlory said:
This screws our plans royal, first you have to import the MXF files, convert them to "Apple" DVCPRO HD, and the Convert them again in order to work on a PC, for hundreds/thousands of clips? That negates the "time saving" factor of P2, actually blows it out of the water in this case, and means archiving is almost improbable in terms of space in a multiplatform editing bay.
Click to expand...

Actually, this does doesn't only pertain to P2, but DVCPRO HD in general..Even Varicam footage would have this issue. And I will agree that it is darn stupid for the DVPRO HD codec to only be Apple specific. After Effects is faster on a PC, and most professional Effects Houses have it on PC.

What you will have to do is export the footage using the ANIMATION codec, which is a lossless cross platform codec (albiet HUGE file sizes). That should work fine.
 
LOL -- Kai - Shane's a good buddy of mine...

(though that might give you more occasion to go after him...)

Let's just agree that MrGlory should buy a Mac and put AE on it for his PC guy... even though it might run slower. hee.

BTW -- Mike -- thanks for the mention on your website!!!

CaptM
 
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Shane Ross said:
Actually, this does doesn't only pertain to P2, but DVCPRO HD in general..Even Varicam footage would have this issue. And I will agree that it is darn stupid for the DVPRO HD codec to only be Apple specific. After Effects is faster on a PC, and most professional Effects Houses have it on PC.

What you will have to do is export the footage using the ANIMATION codec, which is a lossless cross platform codec (albiet HUGE file sizes). That should work fine.
Click to expand...
I moved my topic to the HVX Workflow section and it's developed there: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=60871

What's annoying is that on Panasonic's site, they refer to the DVCPRO HD Codec as theirs and that it fits right into any DVCPRO workflow. Which directly contradicts reality, in that DVCPRO HD belongs to Apple apparently, and DV100 is an Avid codec, and neither can edit the other? Which doesn't even begin to address the issue of After Effects, as we have also found After Effects to run faster/smoother on PC. We're looking forward to the Mac Pro towers, but our main issue lies in our need to store multiplatform editable files on a multi-agency media server and our plans based on believing Panasonic's workflow claims are now stalled until further development.
 
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