Eric, I can't disagree with the opinion. I've been using AME since CS Production Suite 1.5 or so. It's definitely evolved since then. I've got CS6 so I should be set.
Thanks -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __________________________________________________ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Eric Lampi Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 7:12 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Rendering to video and formats Hey Joey, I have to say the one program that has hands down beaten every other app to encode video is Adobe Media Encoder. It's very straightforward to use, and all it does is convert and encode video. It comes with a whole list of presets for every flavor of HD, various devices, formats, broadcast and web standards, mobile devices like iPhones and various tablets, presets optimized for web video services like Vimeo or Youtube. Of course, you are free to make as many custom encoding presets as you need. Drag and drop all your files, select the output format and hit render. It has made the headache of encoding a lot simpler and I really can't praise it highly enough. Most important, it gives you really great looking video. I am not sure what you're planning to do, but if you need a application to take a stack of renders and convert them into multiple formats for different uses, say for broadcast TV, the web, optimized for mobile devices, you really can't beat it. If you don't already have it, Adobe offers a 30-day free trial. Eric On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:38 PM, <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi Joey I won't comment too much about frame-rates, other than saying I'm lucky we have 24p / 25p / 50i in Europe - North American frame rates are such a mess. For resolution, 1920by1080 (=full HD) is really the defacto standard. It is quite effective as a universal master format, covering pretty much anything broadcast, as well as 35mm film and BlueRay transfer. If you don't need 2k or up, you can't go wrong with 1920x1080 - and it has beautiful square pixels. I haven't done standard definition in a decade now - but at the time, I always preferred rendering/compositing at 768x576 square pixels PAL, and converting to 720x576 non square pixels after finishing. Yes, at first full HD can be quite expensive for rendering compared to standard definition at ~6 times the amount of pixels - but you can compensate some in the sampling settings: Standard definition, with non square pixels and interlacing is quite problematic for small details, and requires decent sampling - eg. in mental ray terms min1 max3 was standard for me - and sometimes 2 / 3 or double res rendering. I find that full HD / progressive frames alleviated the sampling requirements - and for me standard sampling is now min 0 max 2 contrast 0.05 mitchell 4 or gauss 3 - the need for double res never occurred for me (in software rendering), very occasionally 1.5 times the res. On the opposite, I find that sometimes you can get away with lower sampling as well: -1 / 2 / 0.075 for example - something that would look quite bad on SD / interlaced. This, together with inevitable progress in hardware, makes that I don't find full HD rendering today any slower than rendering SD was in the past. IMO, longer rendertimes today come from higher expectations put on content. Your mileage may vary - and 1280x720 (=HD ready) may be adequate - it is a big improvement over SD - but personally, I would find it a shame not to go full HD anno 2013. For playback - depends on the situation. When doing CGI, I'm used to playing less than a minute at a time - from a local non raid disk or from a server - playback software like RV or Framecycler handles this very well, and flipbook is no slouch either. For more critical situations, such as monitored playback, and editing with a client - get a turnkey NLE station, with decicated graphics, video I/O and raid array and most importantly software that offers guaranteed performance at full HD (oh how I liked flame and DSHD way back when... ) If you put consumer software on a regular PC, don't expect the performance of a high end NLE station - even if things have certainly come a long way. Just my 2 cent and random thoughts. From: Byron Nash<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 10:16 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: Rendering to video and formats Most of the stuff we work with on the commercial side is 1920x1080 - 23.976fps because that is the resolution and frame rate most commercials are shot with. On rare occasions we work in 29.97 and 1280x720. Youtube and Vimeo support 1920x1080 these days so I just prefer to go full raster even if the target is web use. On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 12:57 PM, Stephen Davidson <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi Joey, Most of my stuff ends up in broadcast. I use 1280 x 1080 1.5 pixel aspect ratio and 1.7778 picture aspect ratio (16x9) I use this because it conforms to DVCPRO 100 specs. I use After Effects to composite my animation layers so I can dial up the final output format there, depending on what edit system is being used for the final edit. I also stick to 29.97 unless strobing motion is an issue. If it is an issue, then I render 60fps and deal with either the motion blur or field interlacing in After Effects. I hope this helps. On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 12:31 PM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi folks, Its been several years since I've had to deal with this so I thought I would ask what the current practice is for most folks now that HD has really taken hold. For the record I have experience with standard def video going back to 1 inch type C and U-matic almost 30 years ago. In recent time we had a fairly decent workflow rendering to D1/DV resolution and compositing to DV QT/AVI for efficient video output. However, I'm not sure what the standard practice is today regarding a similar workflow with HD. Further I'm finding the high end 1080 formats to be quite expensive regarding render time, disk capacity, and playback efficiency. So the questions I have are: 1. What is the most common rendering resolution you use for 3D? 2. What video format/hertz are you targeting/using? 3. What is the best or most efficient HD format for compositing/rendering straight to a video playback file which can then be read into a non-linear editor, in my case Premiere Pro or Final Cut? In general I'm looking for a silver bullet approach similar to the old: 720x480->QuicktimeDV->Final Cut approach. (720x480->MS DV AVI->Premiere Pro for the Adobe folks). I expect everyone is using 16:9 today and 4:3 is obsolete so how does this translate to a modern HD format and for that matter which HD format. I realize all of this today is dependent on whether your focused on 720 or 1080 and may also be dependent upon the broadcast production equipment you are using. What I'm mostly interested in is what is the most efficient render format to quickly get me to a native non-linear editing file and maintain long term viability. I'm also interested in anyone thoughts regarding hertz as well. As an OLD video guy, I'm inclined to gravitate towards the 30/29.97 fps. But frankly don't have a clue what the accepted standard is these days in HD since at one time 60p was the holy grail. I'm not currently limited to a specific video hardware platform as we have no specific dedicated broadcast equipment. Everything is delivered via multimedia at the moment, however, there may come a time when editing in a dedicated editing suite may become necessary. Thanks -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __________________________________________________ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. -- Best Regards, Stephen P. Davidson (954) 552-7956<tel:%28954%29%20552-7956> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Arthur C. Clarke <http://www.3danimationmagic.com> <http://www.3danimationmagic.com> -- Freelance 3D and VFX animator http://vimeopro.com/user7979713/3d-work<http://www.3danimationmagic.com>
