Unexplaineed Loss in Resolution

[Moseph]

I'm working with HDV 30F from an XH A1, captured to ProRes 422. When I export from After Effects CS3, even with the correct settings so that the finished movie files can be dropped right into my FCP timeline with no rendering, I get this strange loss in resolution. There's also some aliasing. To a certain extent, the raw footage in my viewer and comp look a little lower res when in AE, but I have nothing to compare it to, whereas in FCP I can quickly go back and fourth between the original and the finished shot.

Here's a quick before and after, viewed at 100 percent in the FCP canvas.


I did run a search, I didn't come up with anything.
For the output module, all I changed from lossless was the codec (to Prores 422) and the audio output. Before, I had the stretch option checked to ensure that the aspect ratio didn't come out at 4:3 since HDV is 1440x1080, but turning that off had absolutely no affect on the video, aspect ratio or the resolution. I left everything alone in the render settings.

Converting the footage to DVCPRO HD before importing it to AE did seem to solve the problem, but does anyone know of a better solution than that?

 

[Martti Ekstrand]

Yup, export from FCP using the good ole 'Animation' codec. ProRes has all kinds of weird stuff like automatic edge enhancement going on when re-encoding it plus built-in colour manglement that throws the gamma by it's tail all over the place. I avoid ProRes as much as possible. It really only works OK when just capturing to FCP and in there doing real-time colour correction and cross-fades with no rendering and then doing live output to tape.

 

[Moseph]

I don't think it's got anything to do with Prores 422 actually. Even when I capture as raw HDV, I still get the exact same artifacts. The only thing I can think of is that AE just isn't used to progressive frames in 1440x1080 or something along those lines.

XDCAM EX works also, and significantly better than DVCPRO HD too since it's full raster. I'll go with animation going forward though, unless there's any drawbacks to that which I'm not aware of.

 

[Martti Ekstrand]

With this added description it sounds like you haven't set up the footage interpretation properly. In the project window right click on a footage file and chose 'Interpret Footage' > 'Main' to open the sub-window. There under 'Fields and Pulldown' set the interpretation to 'None' if your footage is progressive.

The only problem with Animation is that since it's uncompressed file sizes are large but if you use it on a final edit it shouldn't be much of a problem. A big advantage is that you 'lock' your edit to a file that can be back-upped elsewhere and no matter what happens to your project files you always have your work so far safe.

Hope that helps.

 

[Moseph]

Yup, changing the interpretation did the trick. Is there any way to quickly make it work for footage that's already in the comp so that I don't have to basically redo the project?

 

[Renee]

By clicking on the footage in your project window and changing the interpret footage settings it should update the footage in the comps you created automatically.

 

[Moseph]

I figured out why it wasn't doing anything - I accidentally replaced the original footage with the final product that I had rendered out earlier (must have given it the exact same name as the source). You're right, it does change whatever is in the comp.