Very Good 24p in AE tutorial...

UncleBenji1977

Well-known member
I have been reading up on this subject for sometime. I work in commercials and I have been trying to accomplish 24p in After Effects or Premiere. This tutorial will stick to AE 6 at the moment. I have to say that this idea is also based on many other tutorials that I have read over this forum and I've added my new little tweeks and moves to get this thing looking as good as possible. This in my opinion is the best way to accomplish 24p in after effects thus far. I'm going through this assuming you have some knowledge of AE. If you don't, I'll go into more detail later.

What you want to do is import your footage that you wish to alter. But you want to import 2 copies of the same file. Don't try and cheat and just drag the same one twice, YOU NEED TWO COPIES IN YOUR PROJECT WINDOW!

On one of the two files you need to right click and then go to interpret footage main. This brings up a new screen with several options. Where you see a frame rate of 29.97..... Change this number to 23.976 Also make sure seperate field is OFF. Click OK.

Now, go to the other clip and right click on it. You want to make sure this clip stays on 29.97. but under fields click lower, and then click that little box that says: Preserve edges (Best quality only) Click OK.

NOW, drag your 23.976 copy to your comp window. Now you need to go to your comp settings and make sure the frame rate in the comp matches the frame of the video you just dropped into the window. 23.976. Once you have that, you have one more thing to do to this video. You want to go to your effects menu, then go to TIME, and then POSTERIZE TIME. This should bring up your effects window, and it should have the number 24 in the posterize time effect. Leave this like this.

Now take your regular 29.97 clip and drag it so it lays over the other clip. In other words, you want your 29.97 clip to be the top layer. You will leave everything as is on this video except one little detail. Go into the timeline on the top layer. Click transform and some more options should drop down. You want to change the properties in Opacity. instead of 100%, you want to click and type 99%. Leave it at that.

Now your close to rendering your project. Go to composition, then MAKE MOVIE.... Name your project. Then go into RENDER SETTINGS. You want to make sure the comp is BEST and FULL. Then on Field Render, you want to set this to LOWER. And then on 3:2 you want the very last setting, WWSSW. Click OK and render away. Look at your results on a full screen monitor. Looks pretty amazing right?

Now there are some minor issues. I personally noticed in some shots, there are some tiny little jaggies in the background. I was able to remedy this by simply softening up the shot later. Film is going to be softer than video anyhow, so maybe go ahead and do that. However if someone knows how to get rid of this while mantaining the motion that's created in this tutorial, PLEASE UPDATE THIS!

Hope everyone enjoys this, and give me some feedback or questions.


- Uncle Benji
 
And i still don't like the slight jaggies. I really am trying to remedy that better. Looking for some ideas if anyone has any.
 
You have to love linguistic ambiguity:

Very Good "24p in AE" tutorial...

or

"Very Good 24p in AE" tutorial...

?

=D
 
Rapier. Not really sure what's causing the jagged edges.... It only seems to be in the background. It's probably the 29.97 layer, but not entirely sure.
 
UncleBenji1977 said:
David... How does it work in Vegas? Is it accurate 24p?

With V6, you do exactly this.

Drop a 60i clip onto a 24p timeline.

Render as 24p.

Done.

It's more complicated in earlier versions.

It's accurate, yes. Looks pretty good. Not as good as something dedicated to doing exactly that and only that, but good enough that I've never had a complaint.
 
Well, the main difference here though being that Vegas is an editing app, and AE being a compositing/effects system. Alot of things in AE take many steps to accomplish.
 
kai said:
Well, the main difference here though being that Vegas is an editing app, and AE being a compositing/effects system. Alot of things in AE take many steps to accomplish.


Ditto. Of course AE is expecting you to have all your ducks in a row before you start in it.
 
"Better" is somewhat subjective, based on numerous things.

If you're looking at end result only, there's a comparison of 24p conversion with dedicated film-look software -- Magic Bullet, DVFilm Maker -- and with Vegas in the articles section, and Vegas comes out last (doesn't mean bad, just not as good as the others). I haven't seen your AE results, so I can't compare.

If you want EASY with acceptable results and not vast render times, as well as inexpensive, Vegas does quite well.

Does "easy" mean "better"? Not necessarily. But being more complicated doesn't automatically make it better, either. After all, tools exist in order to make work easier, and if you get as-good results from a less-complicated procedure, it's at least an argument towards it being a better tool.

There are those who shy away from "easier" because they think they will not have as much of a level of manual control. Well, that's not the case; with Vegas, you can have as much control as you want, if you want it.

Now, as for handling 24p "effects" the best, if you mean working in a general 24p environment, then yes, I believe it's best.
 
UncleBenji1977 said:
So most would agree Vegas handles 24p effects the best?


Everyone here would agree to that, though Vegas is limited when it comes to some things AE can do, not to mention when you incorporate third party plug-ins.

AE is a great package, but much of what a lot of people use it for can be accomplished in Vegas (color correcting, grading, and general video tweaking).
 
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