Cineform and After Effects CS3

[Douglas Turner]

Righty-ho,

Before I download (1GB!) and install the latest and greatest AE CS3 Beta, I was wondering if anyone's tried loading up their Premiere Pro CS3 project (cineform presets) into it?

I'll be colour-correcting and adding filmic looks in After Effects using Magic Bullet Colorista and Looks.

Would I just need to copy the Cineform presents to the new AE CS3 folders like I did to get PPRO CS3 working?

Cheers, Doug.

[Peter Ferling]

Doug,

BTW, You'll need a AECS2 license in order to demo the AECS3.

I downloaded and tried AECS3, I did not copy the plugin's, the app was crashing and having issues upon startup. I also tried using the dynamic link feature between PPro3, and was given notice that I needed the production studio in order to use that feature. So be warned if you want dynamic link, you'll have to purchase the studio package.

Importing a vfw 444 CFHD avi into AECS3 turned out to be garbage. I didn't go any further, as I was too busy testing PPro3, and on real work. So I used AECS2.

I'm too busy with work at the present to do anymore testing, if you have the time, we (I) sure would like to hear about your findings.

[David Newman]

AE-CS3 has issues with our IO module, they upgrade a importer mechanism without telling us. :( To make it work you need to remove two new components from AE located in the "(media core..)" directory (something like that.) Find the *DirectShow*.prm and *AVI*.prm importer modules andmove them to your desktop. Now our CFHDIO.aex module will be used, and work correctly. This is the main CS3 issue we have, was we would prefer not to remove components to make ours work.

[Douglas Turner]

Wow - sounds like it's all a bit too Beta for me at the moment.

-I'll stick to PPRO CS3 and do all my FX work there...

[Peter Ferling]

OK. I might have some reasons to be using AECS3, if I'm going to upgrade anyway... no surprises... I'll sleep later.

[Peter Ferling]

AE CS3 is working with 444 p2k media. Not much to it, I just opened my AE 7.0 project with it, about 11 layers, 3 of them are CFHDs with keys, pretty basic AE stuff and it works fine.

Now, according to the warning message on the CFHD importer, it reads that some avi's might not work with that importer. (Though I can't see why I wouldn't just pre-render everything to CFHD prior to import). However, without the standard AE avi importer loaded (which was removed to the desktop to get the CFHD importer working), I can't bring in non cineform avi's.
Someone's gotta get that fixed.

[Douglas Turner]

Aha, so now I have a reason to use the AE CS3 beta trial!

- lucky enough to get some pro sound mixing on our feature for free, and they've asked for an OMF2 file. I'm not about to tell them that they should really be happy with my AAF, as they're already do us a favour...

Premiere Pro SHOULD be able to export this, surely, but hey, it doesn't, and I doubt any number of emails to "suggestTHIS@adobe.com" will help. (oh, and Automatic Duck have decided to scrap Pro Export Ppro?!)

So, AE CS3 to the rescue... I know AE7 can do it (almost there, but my PPRO CS3 project doesn't open in AE7).

Is there any trick to open a PPRO CS3 project in AE CS3? I've tried importing the pproj file, no luck - crashes. Anything to be copied over from Plug-ins or Settings folders to make it work?

Cheers, Doug.

[Douglas Turner]

Right, I'm stumbling at the first hurdle.

I can't import CFHD avis into AE CS3! File imports, but I get an upside-down image with vertical yellow, green, red lines - very messy.

I've just installed the Aspect v5 trial (I'm a paid-up v4 user), and that didn't help either - is there anything fancy I have to do just to edit CFHD avi's in AE CS3?!

PS - my AE 7 works just fine :)

[David Newman]

Fro compatibility with CS3 AE, you need to remove components.

Find the media core plugins folder (it is new.)

For Aspect HD remove the DirectShow importer .prm.

For Prospect HD also remove the AVI importer.

[Douglas Turner]

I need an OMF now - and AE CS3 isn't liking my CFHD avi files... so I'm having to resort to...

OMF Workaround #1295829:

1) Open my original CFHD PPRO CS3 project
2) Render out a DV PAL avi (cos their Pro Tools suite prefers DV PAL)
3) Create DV PAL PPRO CS3 project
4) Import CFHD PPRO CS3 project and above DV PAL avi
5) Open the CFHD sequence
6) Place DV PAL PPRO CS3 avi over (now no video should need rendering)
7) Unlink and delete from the timeline all the video now not used (not sure if required, but pretty sure it'll make for simpler OMF file)
7) Save the PPRO project, then import into AE CS3
8) Then open the main sequence (Composition)
9) CTL-M, Format: OMF, Format Options PAL etc.
10) Render out.

Has it worked? Dunno, cos this AE CS3 doesn't want to import it... I'll have to wait and see I guess. "After Effects:AEGP Plugin OMF: OMF file is corrupt or missing data"

Hmmm... bit crazy, and only just cos a) PPRO CS3 doesn't export to OMF, b) I can't get Cineform avi's to behave in AE CS3 and c) Automatic Duck have discontinued their Pro Export PPro plug-in! ...and d) it's 1am, and I have to have this done by the morning, so no time to work out why stuff isn't working that should.

Dontcha just love technology!

Update: unlinking and deleting other video doesn't look like it changes anything - the OMF files looks like it's just the main DV PAL video plus the sep audio tracks with handles etc.

[Douglas Turner]

Hi David,

I wrote my long post before reading your reply.

I rename ImporterDirectShow.prm to .bak and it refused to even import one CFHD avi file... "After Effects error: The selected file cannot be opened, it may be in the wrong format (86:25)" - the file opens fine in every other application.

I renamed it back to prm, and it allows the import, but the image is screwed up still.

Any other thoughts?

[David Newman]

You might need to active the CFHD AEIO module that we use in Prospect -- this requires the removal of the second prm. Yes the attached registry control to enable the CFHD importer.

[Douglas Turner]

Thanks David,

That helped somewhat - I renamed both of those .prm files, and used AspectHD_AEImporterOn.reg - this allowed me to import individual CFHD avi files -and add them to compositions etc...

But, when I open a PPROJ project in AE CS3 - it adds all the media fine and the main sequence looks good on the composition timeline, BUT I don't seem to be seeing any video while scrubbing or on rendering out I get neither video or audio.

Something's definitely wrong still! :(

EDIT! Scrap that - it could well have been a cropped title I was using to 2.35:1 letterbox the image - I've removed that from the PPRO proj and the import looks healthy now.

[Douglas Turner]

OK - all sorted now with that regs hack and prm removal!! Thanks.

But I'm not impressed by the OMF format - a 3.2GB file for a 2 1/2 minute clip (and only DV PAL at that) - ridiculous!

So now my OMF workflow is:

1) Import my CFHD PPRO CS3 project into AE CS3
2) Render as OMF
3) Be amazed at the size of the file for just a 2 1/2 min clip (and having read somewhere about a 2GB file limit, I'm getting worried about giving the full 90 min project to the post house)

[Douglas Turner]

Right, so I failed to realise that AE would not be able to export an OMF file with audio embedded - so this is useless to me for our export to a ProTools environment.

Has anyone out there had joy with exporting audio (including tracks, embedded audio and volume, fx handles etc) to a ProTools or similar post production audio editing environment? I'm stuck... and I don't feel like asking them to injest 10 separate .wav tracks, as this would make their job harder.