Jump to content

Pause a movie file


Neil Stratton

Recommended Posts

Hey all-done a little research on this already but thought I would throw it open.

I have an awards show coming up where all the content is created in After Effects. Each line of text is an animation and the correct way to do this would be to render each piece out as a seperate file.

However I was wondering if anyone had a way of avoiding this as there are many awards and not so much time. I would love to be able to render each section out as one movie file then add Pause Control Cues at the appropriate points to hold for the next build.

Has anyone ever done this? It would save a mountain of time but so far my experiments have shown the file to slip a couple of frames after the Pause Cue kicks in.

 

Neil Stratton

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...
  • Member

I am guessing that a software like Adobe Media Encoder that doesn't have "I Frame" settings would want M and N frames set to 1? Trying to find information about M vs N vs I frames is very difficult online because those are the names of Oakley sunglass frames, Searching for I-Frame turns up a wiki on I, B, and P frames but zero reference to M or N frames...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Member

The information I found says that M frames are the number of B frames between consecutive I frames... so M frames wants to be 0?

 

N frames is the number of frames between I frames... I'm guessing again that this should be 0?

 

Media Encoder will only allow these values to go to 1... does that mean that no matter what I do with Media Encoder I am going to end up with 1 B Frame between each I Frame? Or will M and N set to both 1 result in all I frames?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderator

Unfortunately I have to work with what my clients have and calling AME not a "real" encoder doesn't help.

 

If the provided movie is not appropriate to the task,

then your only choice may be to re-encode the movies your client provides to correct those shortcomings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Member

I have rendered out 32 different MPEG2 videos with various M N and GOP settings... the results show that AME is indeed capable of encoding MPEG2 with no B or P frames.

 

It seems the GOP settings aren't as important...

 

M:1

N:1

GOP:1

=All I-Frame MPEG2

 

M:1

N:1

GOP:100

=All I-Frame MPEG2

 

M:1

N:2

GOP:100

=50% I-Frame, 50% N-Frame MPEG2

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Member

If the provided movie is not appropriate to the task,

then your only choice may be to re-encode the movies your client provides to correct those shortcomings.

 

Thanks I understand this. That is an extraordinarily large amount of recoding time for most of the shows I do and logistically impossible most of the time. My best work flow is to have the content houses deliver appropriate videos from the get go and save a ridiculous amount of time. When I am dealing with 20 hours of 10,000x1080 (final total pixel count) video (or bigger) having to recode all that because its wrong is impossible in the time frames I have to work in.

 

I have not encountered anyone that has Episode in-house. Almost everyone I work with has the Adobe CS5 Production suite or newer which includes Adobe Media Encoder. Episode 6 may well be better... I heard that of Sorenson Squeeze as well though I am personally unimpressed with the quality of the output from Squeeze... but I have to work as efficiently as possible with the resources I have available to me.

 

I have done the research/tests required to get my answer and posted the results above. Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Member

Hi Brian,

 

Like you, I know more production companies using the Adobe suite than using Episode, so thanks for taking the time to do those tests with AME and publish your results. By the way, what did you use to check the frame structure of the files after encoding?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As long as you stay withing standard video resolutions and aspect ratios, Adobe Media Encoder should be fine. I've never had much success with it trying to make non-standard frame sizes, though. May very well be me not being able to figure it out. So if anyone has had success with doing non-standard frame formats with Adobe Media Encoder, please enlighten us here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Member

Mike,

 

I haven't done any really crazy sizes, as I prefer to keep within multiples of 16px, but I have exported non-standard video sizes - e.g. 704x768, 656x656, 352x128 - in AME. Some 'profile' and 'Level' options restrict exports to standard video sizes and framerates (e.g. 'Simple' profile won't exceed 720x576px), but 'Main' profile with 'High' level allows you more freedom, although with no guarantees that the file will play back on all hardware or software.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Member

I use a small free program that has the unfortunate name of "GSPOT". gspot.headbands.com is the link provided in the "About" from the app. Its a standalone, no install required, and gives up a ton of information about how a video is built that I personally think should be easier to access.

 

For AME CS5 and odd sizes:

Add your video to the cue

Select the text under Preset (not the drop down arrow)

Under Export Settings select Format: MPEG2 (NOT dvd or bluray)

Under the Video tab set Profile to Main, set level to High

Under the Video tab you may now set your frame size (AME will scale the content to fit either letter box or pillar boxing to correct for aspect ratio)

Minimum: 16x16

Maximum: 1920x1088 (not sure why 1088...)

 

I've rendered video of all sizes within those constraints and rendered the Windows Sample Video into a 396x181 MPEG2 clip while writing this!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...