Very Computer

Hi all,

I'm a Max teacher at Fanshawe College in London ON.

Yesterday I had a little problem, and I was wondering if anyone could come
up with alternative solutions to my own.

After shooting some Camera Match footage, the video was imported into our
server over a firewire card (pinnacle DV300).  The footage could not be
loaded into Max (Bad AVI file message) so I re-rendered the footage as a TGA
sequence.

Oddly, the TGA sequence could be brought into Max (Enviro background and
Viewport Background)on some computers, but not into all of them (all
identical hardware and even ghosted from the same machine).

Finally, I re-rendered the DV footage as a Deinterlaced, Uncompressed AVI,
and used that , it worked well.  The Max scene was rendered as uncompressed
and then re-rendered on the machine with the DV codec to the Pinnacle DV
format, and then out to tape (I know it's a long process, but I have 2
firewire cards for 26 computers).

Questions:
Will I get better quality if I use a lower field first uncompressed avi? and
then render the Max file to uncompressed (lower field first) and then out to
the DV codec (lower field first)

Why would the TGA not work on some computers?

Is there another possible solution..i.e. rendering bmp sequence,
uncompressed QuickTime etc?

Thanks for your help.

Rich Brouwer

im not sure about TGA but i always render to TIF-sequences
couse im using severel codecs for different purposes
(avi,asf,qt,pinnacle...) and never had troubles with any machine.

why are u render (and capture) to fields and not to full frames??

jm2c
sonic

R Brouwer schrieb:

Quote:> Hi all,

> I'm a Max teacher at Fanshawe College in London ON.

> Yesterday I had a little problem, and I was wondering if anyone could come
> up with alternative solutions to my own.

> After shooting some Camera Match footage, the video was imported into our
> server over a firewire card (pinnacle DV300).  The footage could not be
> loaded into Max (Bad AVI file message) so I re-rendered the footage as a TGA
> sequence.

> Oddly, the TGA sequence could be brought into Max (Enviro background and
> Viewport Background)on some computers, but not into all of them (all
> identical hardware and even ghosted from the same machine).

> Finally, I re-rendered the DV footage as a Deinterlaced, Uncompressed AVI,
> and used that , it worked well.  The Max scene was rendered as uncompressed
> and then re-rendered on the machine with the DV codec to the Pinnacle DV
> format, and then out to tape (I know it's a long process, but I have 2
> firewire cards for 26 computers).

> Questions:
> Will I get better quality if I use a lower field first uncompressed avi? and
> then render the Max file to uncompressed (lower field first) and then out to
> the DV codec (lower field first)

> Why would the TGA not work on some computers?

> Is there another possible solution..i.e. rendering bmp sequence,
> uncompressed QuickTime etc?

> Thanks for your help.

> Rich Brouwer

As I understand it, DV standard uses lower field first.  I thought that by
maintaining the lower field first throughout the process, I waould maintain
a higher quality.  By Deinterlacing the fields during capture, or during a
subsequent compression, I figure that my DV card would re-interlace the
footage when I'm ready to export out again, thereby losing a step of
quality.

I'll give TIFF a try next time

Thanks,

Rich

Quote:>Questions:
>Will I get better quality if I use a lower field first uncompressed avi?
and
>then render the Max file to uncompressed (lower field first) and then out
to
>the DV codec (lower field first)

Yes!

Any video clip destined for an interlaced format will flicker somewhat when
any fast motion is apparent.. I always use fields (even tho many will argue
that you dont need em)..

To prove it, just do a test...

render out a 30 frame animation of a sphere moving around very fast.. even
apply motion blur if you want. render one with fields using your dv codec,
and then render one without.

Youll find that the one with fields will look far smoother..

Im not sure how the codec works on the dv300, but it should be similar as my
dv500..

Good luck!
--

3D Animation - Digital Media Design

 Also just an idea here, but what about trying a Canon XL1 in frame mode?
May eliminate a step or two.

http://www.canondv.com/

Just don't get your fields the wrong way round - because then it will
look worse!

Matt :)