importing original 2D animation HD footage

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paulfierlinger

Mirage 2D animator
This from Safe Harbor:

Real-time image sequence playback


If you have original HD footage or a LightWave animation as a targa sequence, SpeedEDIT’s intelligent use of meta-data will give you immediate clip playback, in full resolution. This also means while browsing, you can double-click on a targa in a file folder, and get real-time playback of the sequence. Fast and easy.

Does this mean that I would be best off as a Mirage 2D animator to export my projects as TARGA sequences rather then QT files?
 
I highly suggest a video format. That is one of the things that our SpeedHQ codec excels at.

It is able to store an alpha channel and is very clean for the file size. Not many compressed formats are able to hold an alpha channel, but SpeedHQ is 4:2:2 with an 8bit alpha.

Your performance will improve greatly over image sequences, especially HD sequences.
 
Thanks, John. So if I understand, you are saying that SEHQ should be the format of my choice. So then when it comes to scanning my finished film onto 35 mm film in some completion house, will their software/hardware recognize SEHQ? This is my blind spot down the road. Or do I use the SEHQ codec to create an *.avi for the SE timeline, therefore any outfit that recognizes the extension avi will be happy with my material?
 
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They would need the codec, that's true.

Anywhere that you are working in-house I would use SpeedHQ though.

When working with other facilities you will need to work out a good common ground.
 
a good common ground
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I suppose my next question is reaching past the SpeedEDIT sphere of interest, but I must ask anyway: what do you consider good common ground; QT uncompressed? MPEG 2? Is QT Animation sufficiently good?
 
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MPEG is very universal as long as you don't need an alpha channel.

QT Animation works fine in SpeedEDIT, although I would rerender to to another format, such as SpeedHQ for editing.

QT Animation is a very hard format to work with so you will more than make up for the render time in realtime editing performance.
 
Ah, this is sounding interesting now and getting more confusing, and also thanks for your patience. Will my Mirage see SpeedHQ? I doubt it. Instead of grilling you, could you please tell me how I should work this out? My Mirage projects are all 1080p but I doubt SE will run this size with my computer at real time but I know it will handle 720p just fine.

If I render out of Mirage into SE using QT Animation, are you saying that I should convert each QT clip to SpeedHQ before I begin editing, and then convert that to MPEG 2 before taking it all to completion? Isn't this going to create some loss with each conversion?

How would you recommend I handle this?
 
For maximum quality, if money is no object, the new 4:4:4 avi uncompressed format in SpeedEdit would be great, but you need a BIG and FAST array to handle those files at 2k. That would give you outstanding quality worthy of theatrical release. Or you could try going for a lossless compression format such as HuffYUV, but I'm not sure if that is 4:4:4. Of course, I would try several alternatives before commiting to one, and because you're working with drawings instead of live action, you might get away with certain compression techniques that would otherwise not be suitable for the quality requirements.

Btw... I've heard mpeg2 is not a good codec to work with for the big screen.
 
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If mirage is on the system with SpeedEDIT, it will use the codec just fine, as will AfterEffects, Fusion, LW, etc...

I'm sorry if I confused you. I was speaking of transferring data between yourself and the company that does your film transfer. As much as I hope that they will buy SpeedEDIT and have a cool codec like SpeedHQ, we can't count on it ;)

If you are simply working between SpeedEDIT and Mirage, use SpeedHQ all the way through. It will be fast and look great.
 
John Perkins said:
If mirage is on the system with SpeedEDIT, it will use the codec just fine, as will AfterEffects, Fusion, LW, etc...

I'm sorry if I confused you. I was speaking of transferring data between yourself and the company that does your film transfer. As much as I hope that they will buy SpeedEDIT and have a cool codec like SpeedHQ, we can't count on it ;)

If you are simply working between SpeedEDIT and Mirage, use SpeedHQ all the way through. It will be fast and look great.
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Both will be on the same system so this sounds good. Perhaps if I buy the transfer company SpeedEDIT, they will be able to work with it just for me. This doesn't sound too preposterous, does it?
 
cholo said:
and because you're working with drawings instead of live action, you might get away with certain compression techniques that would otherwise not be suitable for the quality requirements.
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That is my case and my drawings are very 2D with no modeling textures.
Btw... I've heard mpeg2 is not a good codec to work with for the big screen.
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I guess the transfer house would have a favorite codec. I certainly need to get in touch with one beforehand.
 
It occurs to me just now that to follow this course I will have to completely rerender all my existing scenes into SpeedHQ and reedit these in SpeedEDIT before I can get back to animation -- a price I am hoping will be worth paying for the improvement SE promises to be from Vegas 7. This then also means that I will have conducted a pretty thorough comparison test between the two systems, seeing how long the editing process will take me and how better or same or worse the playback of 720p at 24 fps will be. Another interesting experience should be that I had to learn Vegas from scratch because I bought Vegas just to edit this film, which my previous NLE, Velocity 8 couldn't handle, my film being in an HD format. So I will be able to also get a good picture of how the two learning curves compare and lastly, how the product support and user forums compare... Hey NewTek, watch out!!:D
 
paulfierlinger said:
It occurs to me just now that to follow this course I will have to completely rerender all my existing scenes into SpeedHQ and reedit these in SpeedEDIT before I can get back to animation -- a price I am hoping will be worth paying for the improvement SE promises to be from Vegas 7. This then also means that I will have conducted a pretty thorough comparison test between the two systems, seeing how long the editing process will take me and how better or same or worse the playback of 720p at 24 fps will be. Another interesting experience should be that I had to learn Vegas from scratch because I bought Vegas just to edit this film, which my previous NLE, Velocity 8 couldn't handle, my film being in an HD format. So I will be able to also get a good picture of how the two learning curves compare and lastly, how the product support and user forums compare... Hey NewTek, watch out!!:D
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Well Paul, again...you may not need to rerender...out of Mirage....try using your existing sequences...directly in SE...or use SE to rerender them to the format you wish...(that includes resolutions)...See what a clip looks like converted thru SE butted up with one done at 720...you may not see the difference...but if there is....you could setup Mirage to Render out over nights...while you sleep rather than take away precious creation time...

Cheers,
 
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radams said:
Well Paul, again...you may not need to rerender...out of Mirage....try using your existing sequences...directly in SE...
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This would be 720p QT clips using the Animation codec. What I understand is that if I rerendered from scratch for SE I could do better than that with, let's say SpeedHQ so it would be stupid of me not to rerender if I'm going to be working with SE, no?

or use SE to rerender them to the format you wish...(that includes resolutions)...See what a clip looks like converted thru SE butted up with one done at 720...you may not see the difference...
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Maybe I won't see the difference on my monitor but what about the big movie screen down the road? Should I take chances?

but if there is....you could setup Mirage to Render out over nights...while you sleep rather than take away precious creation time...
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I don't see how that could be done. Each clip goes from it's own file into another unique place and besides having to set that up through the export panel there are a whole number of other steps to take which the export file isn't equipped to do in an automated fashion. Or is there?
Cheers,
 
paulfierlinger said:
Thanks, John. So if I understand, you are saying that SEHQ should be the format of my choice. So then when it comes to scanning my finished film onto 35 mm film in some completion house, will their software/hardware recognize SEHQ? This is my blind spot down the road. Or do I use the SEHQ codec to create an *.avi for the SE timeline, therefore any outfit that recognizes the extension avi will be happy with my material?
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Paul what output format are you using at present?
2K full aperture in Mirage gives 2048 by 1556, does the film scanner software scale the footage?

Maximum Resolution for Speed Edit is 2880 by 1920 (What format is that guys?)

Your existing 720p footage is 1280 by 720, I suppose what it comes down to is work flow and reuse.

It may well be that existing clips will reuse with the minimum of re-renderering with both Speed Edit and Mirage working in the background.

It really depends on how line quality is scaled and maintained across three programs, Mirage, SpeedEdit and the film scanner software, A couple of quick short technical tests using a combination of footage, codecs and resolutions would find the best work flow.

Since I don't have my copy of SpeedEdit yet, I can't test it for you, Its rare for me to currently do anything but analogue or MPEG-2 on my VT setup.

My Guess is that if the hardware can stand it work as close to final resolution all through the pipeline, if you don't see pixelation in your 2x scaling from 720p to film, you might get away with reusing the existing clips without the re-render
 
My Guess is that if the hardware can stand it work as close to final resolution all through the pipeline, if you don't see pixelation in your 2x scaling from 720p to film, you might get away with reusing the existing clips without the re-render
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I have since found out that someone else in Mirage has been doing just what I've boiled down my options to: 720p to film, drawing at 1080p in Mirage, with excellent results. All I need to do is to compare SpeedHQ to my existing QT clips and I think I'm on my way. I'm waiting for my SE as well.
Thanks
 
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