After Effects and Cineform

[Art Guglielmo]

How is everyone dealing with AE? Are you importing into a 1920 x 1080 comp, stretching, then stretching back to 1440 x 1080 for render? (To see proper aspect during AE work)

Or are most people just working at 1440 x 1080 in a 4:3 format until output ? (Looking at the wrong output aspect while compositing)

[Steven Gotz]

It is easier for me to use 1920 and then squish it back down.

[Jaromir Pesr]

I've found strange behaviour after I installed Cineform 3.0 (demo).I've tried to import a 1440x1080 50i (captured from my Z1 with HDLink) clip to After Effects 6.5.1 Professional but I've got just green solid instead of video picture. Then I realised I cannot import even common DV files either because it pretend to be encoded by cineform codec too and it shows just some digital noise. But it is not the strangest thing. I've looked at properties (summary) tab of various AVI files on my system and found out that almost every single clip shows strange HDYC compression instead of its native format (eg Microsoft DV). But when I uninstall Cineform 3.0 import to AE is possible and this behavior disappears. Does anybody noticed this? What can I do with it?

Thanks for advice... (And sorry for bad english)

PS: I tried it on several systems with the same result. And notice: With Cineform installed AE says the clip is just Cineform Codec, with Cineform uninstalled it says Cineform HD Codec V1.2

[Steven White]

I just changed the initialization profile in After Effects to include a 1.33 pixel aspect ratio, and make native 1440x1080 compositions. Supposedly Aspect HD introduces this automatically, but it can be done by going into the

After Effects 6.0/Support Files/intepretation rules.txt

file, taking the bottom line:
# 0, 0, 0, "0000", * = 10/11/"Custom Aspect", *, *, *

and changing it to:
0, 0, 0, "0000", * = 4/3/"Custom Aspect", *, *, *

Ta da!

[Steven Gotz]

Doh!

I followed directions to do that in Photoshop, and completely spaced on the idea of doing it in After Effects.

Thank you so much for the info. Brilliant!

[David Newman]

This unfortunately is an After Effects bug / limitation. CineForm adds special features to the AVI importer/exporter, however we don't support all AVI compression types. We do the same thing in Premiere, and Premiere will use the CineForm importer for our AVIs and their own importer for other AVIs (this is how it should work.) After Effects doesn't do this correctly. The AE engineers didn't imagine AVI could enhanced, and never plans for supporting multiple importers.

Fortunately there is a workaround for DV users (the main format that doesn't work.) The CineForm plugin for AE is optional in Aspect HD (it isn't in Prospect HD.) Simply delete the CFHDIO.aex file from the AE plugins directly and After Effect will handle DV correctly again. To work around the 1.33:1 pixel ratio (that the CineForm module fixed) you can do what Steven suggests in this post (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=43362.)

[Jaromir Pesr]

Yes, thanks, it seems it could work. But my answer is why is impossible to work even with your AVIs in AE after propper installation (if you already know about what I wrote above) and why almost all AVIs in system shows false codec info after installing cineform (I mean XP system info not the AE one). I've just purchased a copy (it's on its way to me), because I believe it's a realy best way to edit HDV format and I know you've done a great work. But do not tell me that this is JUST AE bug... It's doing a realy wierd things...

[David Newman]

You are correct, I missed that part of your question. It should work fine with CineForm clips in AE (it does here.) If that is not working there with the purchase version, there is an install issue that support would know the answer better than I. We will be to the bottom of this problem.

[Jaromir Pesr]

Thanks for quick statement. I'll try the purchased version right when it'll come to me (I hope within the week), but I still not sure if it's solve this wierdness. I tried your advice (5 minutes ago) and it realy works fine. I do not understant why there is AE plugin at all. And the aspect ratio: I can resize the picture by size feature right in the composition as well as the AE interpreting footage feature does. Or am I wrong? Is there a difference?

[David Newman]

The plugin does automatically convert the 1.33:1 pixel to a square pixel 1920x1080, this is just a convience feature. The plug-in also gives you quality controls on the output -- this is its primary advantage.

[Steven White]

The plugin does automatically convert the 1.33:1 pixel to a square pixel 1920x1080

This confused me. Here's what I'm hoping this means:

1. I shoot HDV 1080i on an FX1

2. I capture with Aspect HD - this captures the 1440x1080i 4:2:0 15-GOP MPEG-2 transport stream, and converts it to a 1440x1080i 4:2:2 (8-bit) 2-GOP Cineform wavelet compressed file.

3. I import this file into After Effects and create a 1440x1080i composition with a 1.33 pixel aspect ratio. (option included via Aspect plugin, or if necessary, hacking the interpretation rules.txt file).

4. I plunk in the CF file and do my typical After Effects magic - and in the end have a 1440x1080i project with a 1.33 aspect ratio, that I can stretch as I see fit on export.

Is that right? Or is there really a conversion to a square pixel project somewhere in the process? I would really want to avoid all scaling till the final render.

-Steve

[Jaromir Pesr]

I do not understand term "quality controls on the output"
I thought, After Effects handles all clips as RGB and within this color space all modifications are done. It doesn't matter what format is on input. I just realised that after deleting the CFHD plugin and after tweak the interpreting rules.txt (# CineForm HDV Codec 1440 x 1080 is 1.333 aspect ratio, upper-field first 1440, 1080, 25, ".AVI", "CFHD" = 4/3, U, *, *) I can work in literaly pure 1920x1080 square pix composition and do a pure 1920x1080p uncompressed output (for HDCAM mastering or film recording). But I still do not see the difference when I do it this way or simple do a unconstrained resize raw, 1:1 pixel aspect Cineform AVI imported to AE. Is this true? What I want is uncompressed 1920x1080 file on output (do no matter if its AVI or bitmap sequence) which is material for next processing.
Waht is elusive that AE probably cannot interpret HDV fields properly. In some complex motion areas I could find big stripes (comb) artefacts and there is no way to remove them unless I use Magic Bullet plugin. Neither AE interpreting nor Fields Kit help. And this is really time consuming...

[David Newman]

Steve, Yes you are correct.

Jaromir, "quality controls on the output" just mean when using CFHD as an output format you can set the output quality and video format (overriding the default -- although the defaults work fine.) Sounds like you have a good mastery of AE (better than I do), I'm not sure why you are having interlacing issues.

[Jaromir Pesr]

Dear David,
interlacing issue in AE is really strange. It's not easy to unveil, because it's being visble only within some kind of movement and there is a trained eye necessary. But it really IS there (Of course I'm talking about situation when I need to deinterlace this footage - by AE interpreting feature or other techniques - only Magic Bullet works fine - when I leave footage as it is - mean WITH fields, I really get clear interlaced picture...). I think it should be partly AE limitation, because AE is probably not ready yet for this kind of footage (mean 1140x1080i 1.33 par), but it might be a Cineform bug as well (I do not know how your avi is defined and how it is treated by various applications and why). When I import uncompressed 1080i footage from another source (say HDCAM) everything is just fine. The issue is the same with or without your .aex plugin. I'll be really happy if you could talk about it with your specialists, please...

Try this:
http://www.intimate.cz/files/hdv/interlaced.jpg
and this
http://www.intimate.cz/files/hdv/deinterlaced.jpg

It's a crop of 100% HDV composition, it's really weird...

And my second question is:
I've just received a copy of Aspect HD. I'd like to install it instantly but I've realised that activation is hardware dependant. So I'll wait, I'll have a brand new machine within a week and I'm affraid if it'll be possible to activate it again. I really don't want to run Aspect on several systems but I'm curious if there is a chance to trasfer licence from system to system. And it'll probably not be so uncommon need in our posthouse, cause we are still finding a place for efficient HDV workflow.
Thanks

[David Newman]

If you email me a frame (please compress) or make a 2 frames CFHD AVI and email that to me (first initial last name @ cineform.com.) I can check into the interlacing.

Aspect HD can be installed on anything for 15-days without requiring activation, so I can simply put it on your old PC into your new one arrives. Plus if you do active on a PC then later wish to move that activation we do have a de-activation proceduce (email support@cineform.com) that allows you to move licenses as needed.