Hi

This has been baffling me for months, probably years now.  When we export a QTref out of Avid for Sorenson or After Effects and/or 3ds max we are getting some strange differences in the QTref file.. namely the size (dimensions) of the file exported.

We have two projects here, which we believe are set up exactly the same (25i project setting) but when we export one qtref with native dimensions and then look at the QT movie info it reads: Apple DVCPRO 720x576 (768x576) and the other one is Apple DV 720x576 (768x576)

Thinking about it now....  one was filmed on digibeta and captured with a digibeta deck via SDI (the one above that reads DVCPRO) and the other was filmed on HDV and captured via firewire with an HVR M15E sony DVCAM HDV deck.

So there is an obvious difference there but....  with the projects being stanard 16x9FH...  all project settings in Avid are 25i.. We can't work out why one when we import it into After Effects doesn't come in in 16x9 whereas the other one does.

Any advice most appreciated.

admo33:

Apple DVCPRO 720x576 (768x576) and the other one is Apple DV 720x576 (768x576)

I confused. What's the problem?  the number here are the same.

 the difference is apple DV and Apple DVCPRO, not the frame size

thanks

I'm confused too. You list both codecs are as producing the same frame size. Is that what you meant to do?

Thanks guys.. I will try and make this easy, it's quite hard to explain though without actualy having the footage in front of you to see.

Basicaly we have two avid projects, set as 25i in the avid settings.  They are both 16x9 projects.

When I export them to compress in sorenson or work in after effects etc I set the export settings to QTref, native dimensions.  Same for both projects.

However, when I open one of the QTref files in After Effects it isn't in 16x9 and yet when I open the other one in After Effects it IS in 16x9.

While we were trying to determine what was wrong we decided to open the QTref files in quicktime and look at the "show movie info" settings.  This is where we noticed the difference.  One of the files reads APPLE DV codec and the other reads APPLE DVCPRO codec.  But surely they should be the same as they are both 25i SD projects?

This has been an ongoing problem we have encountered for ages now... that some open in After Effects as 16x9 while other projects open as what looks like 4x3.  And for the life of us two editors here we can't work out what is the difference.

Any help really appreciated as we'd love to get this problem resolved...

Thanks

Ok. I'm going to take a stab at this.  I have seen some camera insert a 16x9 flag into the dv stream of footage before. The Flag is not read by avid, but can be read by other programs.

Footage brought in via SDI would never be able to have a 16x9 flag on it. So, I guessing the stuff you brought in via firewire you brought in native (ie; dv25) and it will show up in After Effects as 16x9.  but the stuff you brought in via SDI you captured at DV50 (hence the DVCPRO codec) and it doesn't have the 16x9 flag in it's signal.

is any of this correct?

Sounds logical... and is new to me.  So how do I work around the fact that the SDI footage doesn't have the 16x9 flag in it?  You were correct in that it's the SDI footage that is giving us the problem and the firewire footage seems ok.

Any more advice anyone?

I don't know.  When you make your QT ref, check your export settings.  do you have the Display Aspect Ratio set to 16:9 square pixel?

if not, try that. if that doesn't work, then just resize it once you get to After Effects. 

The answer about the different codecs is simple and has nothing to do with frame size or aspect ratio.  In the PAL world DVCpro 25 is a 4:1:1 codec, mini-DV and DVcam is 4:2:0.  One lot of media was digitised 4:1:1 the other was 4:2:0.

As to why AE sees them as two different aspect ratios I can only guess, but I think the answer above is probably right.  I would supect that the HDV downconvert comes in as 16:9 and the DVCpro doesn't.  If this is the case it's probably due to Avid not setting the anamorphic flag on the QT file.  The HDV downconvert is passed through as a reference/same-as-source, and the flag is set on that material.

But it's not really a mjaor problem, just more of an irritation.  You can set AE and Sorenson to interpret the footage as any geometry you like, including PAL 16:9.

 thanks guys, I'll have a look at that and will let you know

I've exported a Quicktime Ref from Avid of footage captured via firewire with HDV deck (and not digibeta deck SDI): it's still on the DVCPRO codec...so it didnt happen because of the capture via Digibeta deck....