FCE export for CC in After Effects

Horncastle

Horncastle

Well-known member
Any suggestions on the following would be greatly appreciated.
Dvxuser member Gohanto has kindly offered to do color correcting for our Timefest film Red Shoes. Problem: how to get the files to him and back again with no or neglible loss in quality.

1. We can use yousendit.com to send files of up to 1 GB at a time.
2. We are editing in Final Cut Express. Our files are DVX PAL, 720 x 576, anamorphic (squeeze mode), 25 fps.
3. Gohanto would be using After Effects for color correction.

My export tests show that the best image quality comes from exporting a frame size of 720 x 404 (16:9 ratio). 1024 x 576 (16:9 ratio) gives a lot more jaggies. The best format/codec seems to be a Quicktime movie with jpeg2000 encoding.

However, importing back into FCE requires a 1024 x 576 file - the 720 x 404 file requires resizing. (i.e. "capturing" a 720 x 576 squeeze mode file into FCE with DV/PAL/16:9 anamorphic works fine, but "import" requires a 1024 x 576 file (just like for a still) and this seems not to be compatible with best quality export).

Any thoughts?

Jason
 
I would suggest getting an FTP server, and one of you open up your ports for a direct file transfer.

http://filezilla-project.org/

This is a good FTP client. I have no direct experience with the server.

If not, try mailing around a removable hard drive. I know it wont be cheap, but when it comes to transferring large amounts of files like that, that's pretty much the only two ways I know of that work.
 
I've used Aim in ichat before to send files with no problem. What i did do was zip it before sending. Also make sure that you don't have sleep enabled on either machine.
 
Thanks guys for your answers. I think I've solved the problem in the meantime. I output a DV-PAL 25fps Quicktime file at the highest settings, 720 x 576, 16:9 ratio. This seems to be the PAL equivalent of a DV/DVCPRO-NTSC file and is native to Final Cut which recognizes the 16:9 ratio on reimport. As far as I can tell, there is no or very little loss in quality. The 6 minute final cut gives a 1.2 GB file which can be sent via yousendit.
 
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