Editing QuickTime Screen Recording in After Effects CS6

Hi,

I'm doing a project that is based around using footage from Google street view. I've collected my footage at the highest quality setting using QuickTime screen recording and imported it into AfterEffects CS5. However, when I render my clip (only 20 seconds at this stage) even at Best Quality settings the quality was drastically reduced from looking almost HD to soft around the edges. Even selecting 'Lossless', which is less than ideal, was not much better.

Would really appreciate some advice!!

Thanks,

Richard.

Sorry, it's CS5. How do I find out the codec? Is that like DV-PAL? Also I didn't export from Quicktime I just imported into after effects.

Cheers!

ok I'll do that now. While I wait for it to download, I just tried re-importing it but this time as specifically a quicktime movie file, whereas before it was MV4. Do you think this might have any effect?

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Sorry not MV4, MPEG

report attatched here

acearchie said:

Are you setting up the composition correctly in after effects?

Are you actually doing any effects work? If not, why are you using After Effects?

Did you render out the sequence or actually export the composition? What settings did you use to export?

Click to expand...

I used the standard composition settings but with NTSC D1 Widescreen. I'm required to create a film that is 16:9 ratio; is there a better preset to achieve at a good quality? And I just checked and saw that resolution is set to half, should this be full?

Yes After Effects work is central to the piece.

I rendered out the composition at:

Quality: Best

Resolution: Full

Output Module> Video Codec : DV25 PAL

Format: Quicktime.



Sorry if I'm a little hazy on the details, I've only been using after effects for a few months on and off! I appreciate any support. Cheers, Richard.

handsome pete said:

Is there a reason you're trying to export as DV25 PAL?


From the looks of it the footage you captured is heavily compressed to begin with. What are you using to capture your footage? Can you up the quality there?

Also, your footage is being captured at 1280x800. That's not 16:9. How are you incorporating your footage into your comp? Scaling? Cropping?

When you say the resolution is set to half, is that in the output settings or the composition window settings?

Click to expand...

I'm using QuickTime Player "New Screen Recording" option in the toolbar. There's no option to up the quality, however when i play the file before I put it into After Effects the quality is pretty good, so all I want is for it to be the same after I have rendered it.

I am scaling it so that the image fills the frame, masking off some parts of it.

resolution is set to half in the comp window settings. In the output it is full. Does that make any difference?

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boch82 said:

So are you saying the footage looks soft in after effects or on the rendered comp?

Just because you set the output settings, that only effects a rendered comp.

If your footage is soft in After Effects then you probably are using a low resolution viewer setting.

Click to expand...

Footage is soft in both After Effects and on the rendered comp.

Even with the viewer setting resolution on full it is still soft in after effects.

Also I forgot to mention that not only is the footage lower quality, but so is a (high quality) scanned line drawing which i am overlaying.

Which makes me think it must be a problem with the composition set up or the render settings.

Do you think it could be to do with the preset selected?

handsome pete said:

Is there a reason you're trying to export as DV25 PAL?


From the looks of it the footage you captured is heavily compressed to begin with. What are you using to capture your footage? Can you up the quality there?

Also, your footage is being captured at 1280x800. That's not 16:9. How are you incorporating your footage into your comp? Scaling? Cropping?

When you say the resolution is set to half, is that in the output settings or the composition window settings?

Click to expand...

Also, no there is no real reason apart from in a tutorial I had at Uni they said that might be a good preset for beginners. What you would recommend instead?

boch82 said:

First off....no reason to use PAL unless you are from a PAL country...

Create a new comp with the settings attached....render out a lossless (animation codec) quicktime....the use that quicktime to convert to whatever delivery specs you need....

the ntsc-pal conversion/framerates could be causing the issue

Click to expand...

OK thanks very much boch82, I will try that.

Just quickley though - I'm from the UK which is I believe a PAL country - but this is only really going to be shown using my macbook pro so does that matter?

And also, doesn't rendering a lossless file create a huge file size that lags in playback?

boch82 said:

PAL/NTSC doesnt matter for digital playback....if you need to create a DVD then it will matter...but you can do the conversion when converting to MPEG 2 to burn. The only change i would make to my settings is going to 25 fps instead of 30. That will give a better encode for a PAL DVD since there will be no frame rate conversion.

It will create a large file and shouldnt lag. However, if you have quicktime pro or even adobe media encoder, you can convert that file to an mp4 with the h264 codec that will reduce file size with very minimal quality loss. Better to alway start with the best quality and compress from there.

Click to expand...

hi, thanks so much for all your advice ive now got a high quality film that I'm ready render. Im expecting it to take a very long time and be a huge file... so how would i go about compresisng it once its done? thanks! richard