Edius Framerate to Flash

[Mike Truly]

OK, I've asked this question before but I am still not sure I understand the right setting.

I produce animations that are rendered at 1280x720 30fps from the 3D animation app. These frames are brought into a compositing app and combined and then rendered out again (I have a choice of framerates such as 30fps, 29.97, etc.) to make HQs. I choose 29.97 when making these HQ files.

When I go create my Edius project, I have been choosing 1280x720 59.94 and then bringing in my 29.97 HQ clips and editing them. Later I render out a final HQ file from the project and use Procoder to make WMVs of the final. This seems to work fine.

But now I'm experimenting with making FLVs instead and the resulting FLVs seem to look a bit jerky when playing back. When I use FLASH Video Encoder8 to encode the video, I leave framerate at 'Automatic'... this is very jerky looking. If I use 'Custom' then I am presented choices and choose 30fps (there is no 29.97 available in the list). This makes the FLV video look better but still not perfectly smooth.

I'm thinking that my Edius project setting is wrong and that perhaps I should have chosen 1280x720 29.97 over 59.94? Of course I can find no way to change my project setting to see if it works. My editing is done and there seems to be no way to take an Edius project setup in one project setting and change it to another.

Thanks for your thoughts!

[mattie]

if the final video is for the web - you should stick to 30fps from start to finish - there is no need to use 29.97 which is part of the NTSC spec.

[Mike Truly]

Thanks for the ideas.


Unfortunately, Edius NX for HDV has no 30fps setting.
(And anyway... occasionally my clients DO want BDs or DVDs from the project so I have to do things in a video compatible way).


So to re-phrase my question somewhat...

In my 3D app I render 30fps progressive.
In my compositing app I should render out at 29.97 progressive HQs (Because Edius has no 30fps).

The closest Edius has is 29.97... so in Edius I should be choosing the 1280x720 29.97p over 59.94p? (I have been choosing 1280x720 59.94p in the past).

It would be really nice if there was a way to get my already-edited Edius project into an Edius project with a different project setting.

Thanks!

[mattmatt]

I'm guessing you're using EDIUS 4 or above?

Never fear, there is a way and its simple.

Go to Settings, then Project settings, then click the "Change" button, or create a new one.

[Mike Truly]

Thanks for the ideas!

When I try this... I am presented with no options to change the project settings to 1280x720 29.97p over 59.94p. Attached is a screenshot.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way.

Thanks anyway!

[Mike Truly]

OK... so there is NO way to take a finished 1280x720 59.94p Edius project and bring it into 1280x720 29.97p over 59.94p project?

I have to re-edit the entire project from scratch just to get it into a 1280x720 29.97p over 59.94p project?

I mistakenly chose a 59.94p project when starting... but now think that it should have been a 29.97p over 59.94p to be compatible with FLASH video which only seems to understand 30fps. And since Edius doesn't provide a 30fps possibility... it would seem that 29.97 is closest to 30fps. I am hoping that a 29.97 project output would produce FLV videos which play smoothly. The output from the 59.94p project plays jerkily even though the actual clips on the timeline are 29.97.

What Edius project settings are others using to make 1280x720 FLV videos that play smoothly?

Thanks!

[GrassValley_BH]

Currently you can't change the framerate of a project in EDIUS. You can change the resolution, but not the framerate...

[Mike Truly]

Brandon,

Thanks for the ideas.

Although it would be nice to have the option to change the framerate, that is not the only desired way to get what I would like (in theory anyway). As I mentioned before, the clips that are sitting in the finished 59.94 project are 29.97 clips. The edit is done and each clip is in it's place and trimmed as desired with effects, transitions, etc.

What would be nice is if there was a way to simply take all the finished edit data about these 29.97 clips on the timeline and pull the finished edit data into a 29.97 project.

This brings to mind the thought of the project being saved as some kind of XML file (not sure if this is correct or not) where perhaps the user could edit the XML file to trick Edius into letting it be opened in a new, 29.97 project. Probably not possible but it's a thought.

Anyway, as you'll see in the other post... the FLV jerky playback seems not to be related to Edius framerates but rather limitation in FLV encoding or something. Certainly at this point, I've come to appreciate that WMVs are far more robust in that I can encode a 60fps 1280x720 HQ file to a WMV and it will play back smoothly.

Thanks again.

[GrassValley_BH]

The timecode really is where it ends up being tricky. You could try editing an AAF or EDL.