“Blindsight” - Norton, Martens, Rehder & Bates - DVC15/UWOL Charity

Robert Martens · January 13th, 2009, 12:21 AM

The CineForm player is their video decoder, which is available free of charge; if Lorinda was rendering using the CineForm option in Vegas, you'd need the decoder installed to view the files.

You may be able to save the disk space and transfer time of large intermediate files, however, because according to Adobe's Knowledge Base, After Effects 7 does support MPEG-2 files, in several formats. It's "not recommended for import", of course, for the same reason it's not ideal for editing, but from the sound of that article it should work.

By default, however, the Vegas settings I had Lorinda use to send me the files produce .m2t transport streams, video and audio together, which the article doesn't specify as being supported by AE7. Lorinda, you could always render separate elementary streams (video as .m2v and audio as .mpa) that might work. The instructions would be the same as before; Render As, then choose MainConcept MPEG-2 as the file type and HDV 1080-60i as the template. This time, though, you'd click Custom and go to the System tab, then check the box up top that says "Save as separate elementary streams". As long as "Enable no-recompress long GOP rendering" is enabled (at the bottom of the General tab of Vegas' Preferences dialog), you'll be doing a straight copy operation, with no effect on the quality of the video. Once you're finished, send along the .m2v and see what happens.

As far as the aspect ratio, without the actual files you were using I couldn't say for sure, but remember that the source footage in this case is HDV; it's stored anamorphically, as 1440 by 1080 which with square pixels is 4:3. If After Effects, or any other software, doesn't set the aspect ratio correctly, you'll need to do it yourself. Either set the display aspect ratio to 16:9, or the pixel aspect ratio to 1.3333 (it's a repeating three, technically, but most programs only accept three or four digits after the decimal). If you've done that and it still doesn't work, I couldn't say for sure what's going on.

Lorinda Norton · January 13th, 2009, 01:27 AM

Excellent stuff here, Robert. As my Japanese grandma would have said, “You…smart boy, huh…” :)

I’m saving this and if Ken wants to tackle it again we’ll give it a try. Plus it’ll come in handy at other times, too! Thank you!

Dale Guthormsen · January 13th, 2009, 09:16 AM

Good Morning,

Besides the simple pleasure from all your A-team's work I have absorbed a lot of useful information from this thread!!!!

Curiously, How big were the files you were emailing about the globe? Do they have to be win zipped (can you even do that with video?).

I can see a challenge down the road , international group challenge, where partners from within Dv/uwol group have to form a group of three, produce a video on "Insanity".

Well, any topic would do.

Lorinda Norton · January 13th, 2009, 12:11 PM

Hi Dale,

We had files over 100MB and used various transfer methods. Ken and I uploaded to one of his friend's ftp. Björn zipped his and transferred via Skype, and if I remember correctly (it's a bit of a blur) Robert and I just sent those huge files by Skype as well. I'll let Robert chime in with some other free methods he uses.

Your "insanity" sounds like lots of fun! :)

Robert Martens · January 13th, 2009, 08:05 PM

Yes, Lorinda's correct, the .m2t files were sent directly to me via Skype. The five .m2ts she sent (three background plates and the two elements for the blind) totaled two hundred sixty one megabytes. I was able to compress HDV2-format MPG files to send back, so the final composites were the same size. It's a good thing, too, 'cause the uncompressed targa sequences coming out of combustion for those three measly shots total over five and a half gigs. Interesting bit of trivia, that's only for one version of each shot; between the precomposites involved in this, and the various revisions I rendered of the finals, there's over twenty-four gigabytes of images on my render drive. The preliminary tests, combustion workspaces, original files and Avisynth scripts total less than nine hundred megs.

Dale, all compression, video, audio, file or otherwise, is the elimination of redundant data. Different methods can occasionally produce additional reductions, but generally once it's done it's done (try running the result of a video compression back through the same compressor with the exact same settings; the file will barely change size or quality, if it does at all). The biggest reasons to zip video and audio files is to either collect several files into one archive, or bypass a webhost's file extension-level restriction on allowed file types.

The results of my compositing effort went up on my website long enough for Lorinda to get them, but lately I've been using SendSpace for files under three hundred megabytes. You don't need to pay to register an account, and you can upload files even without one.

I can't remember if it was this board or not, but I recently saw someone using drop.io for file transfers. It's only up to one hundred megabytes, and I haven't used it myself, but it seems simple enough.

January 13th, 2009, 01:27 AM	#32
Lorinda Norton Wrangler Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Southwest Idaho, USA Posts: 3,066	Excellent stuff here, Robert. As my Japanese grandma would have said, “You…smart boy, huh…” :) I’m saving this and if Ken wants to tackle it again we’ll give it a try. Plus it’ll come in handy at other times, too! Thank you! __________________ Lorinda

January 13th, 2009, 09:16 AM	#33
Dale Guthormsen Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 3,048	Good Morning, Besides the simple pleasure from all your A-team's work I have absorbed a lot of useful information from this thread!!!! Curiously, How big were the files you were emailing about the globe? Do they have to be win zipped (can you even do that with video?). I can see a challenge down the road , international group challenge, where partners from within Dv/uwol group have to form a group of three, produce a video on "Insanity". Well, any topic would do. __________________ DATS ALL FOLKS Dale W. Guthormsen

January 13th, 2009, 12:11 PM	#34
Lorinda Norton Wrangler Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Southwest Idaho, USA Posts: 3,066	Hi Dale, We had files over 100MB and used various transfer methods. Ken and I uploaded to one of his friend's ftp. Björn zipped his and transferred via Skype, and if I remember correctly (it's a bit of a blur) Robert and I just sent those huge files by Skype as well. I'll let Robert chime in with some other free methods he uses. Your "insanity" sounds like lots of fun! :) __________________ Lorinda

January 13th, 2009, 12:21 AM	#31
Robert Martens Major Player Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Miller Place, NY Posts: 820	The CineForm player is their video decoder, which is available free of charge; if Lorinda was rendering using the CineForm option in Vegas, you'd need the decoder installed to view the files. You may be able to save the disk space and transfer time of large intermediate files, however, because according to Adobe's Knowledge Base, After Effects 7 does support MPEG-2 files, in several formats. It's "not recommended for import", of course, for the same reason it's not ideal for editing, but from the sound of that article it should work. By default, however, the Vegas settings I had Lorinda use to send me the files produce .m2t transport streams, video and audio together, which the article doesn't specify as being supported by AE7. Lorinda, you could always render separate elementary streams (video as .m2v and audio as .mpa) that might work. The instructions would be the same as before; Render As, then choose MainConcept MPEG-2 as the file type and HDV 1080-60i as the template. This time, though, you'd click Custom and go to the System tab, then check the box up top that says "Save as separate elementary streams". As long as "Enable no-recompress long GOP rendering" is enabled (at the bottom of the General tab of Vegas' Preferences dialog), you'll be doing a straight copy operation, with no effect on the quality of the video. Once you're finished, send along the .m2v and see what happens. As far as the aspect ratio, without the actual files you were using I couldn't say for sure, but remember that the source footage in this case is HDV; it's stored anamorphically, as 1440 by 1080 which with square pixels is 4:3. If After Effects, or any other software, doesn't set the aspect ratio correctly, you'll need to do it yourself. Either set the display aspect ratio to 16:9, or the pixel aspect ratio to 1.3333 (it's a repeating three, technically, but most programs only accept three or four digits after the decimal). If you've done that and it still doesn't work, I couldn't say for sure what's going on.

January 13th, 2009, 08:05 PM	#35
Robert Martens Major Player Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Miller Place, NY Posts: 820	Yes, Lorinda's correct, the .m2t files were sent directly to me via Skype. The five .m2ts she sent (three background plates and the two elements for the blind) totaled two hundred sixty one megabytes. I was able to compress HDV2-format MPG files to send back, so the final composites were the same size. It's a good thing, too, 'cause the uncompressed targa sequences coming out of combustion for those three measly shots total over five and a half gigs. Interesting bit of trivia, that's only for one version of each shot; between the precomposites involved in this, and the various revisions I rendered of the finals, there's over twenty-four gigabytes of images on my render drive. The preliminary tests, combustion workspaces, original files and Avisynth scripts total less than nine hundred megs. Dale, all compression, video, audio, file or otherwise, is the elimination of redundant data. Different methods can occasionally produce additional reductions, but generally once it's done it's done (try running the result of a video compression back through the same compressor with the exact same settings; the file will barely change size or quality, if it does at all). The biggest reasons to zip video and audio files is to either collect several files into one archive, or bypass a webhost's file extension-level restriction on allowed file types. The results of my compositing effort went up on my website long enough for Lorinda to get them, but lately I've been using SendSpace for files under three hundred megabytes. You don't need to pay to register an account, and you can upload files even without one. I can't remember if it was this board or not, but I recently saw someone using drop.io for file transfers. It's only up to one hundred megabytes, and I haven't used it myself, but it seems simple enough.