Got them Exportin' Blues

SaintMikey · Post by **SaintMikey** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 7:49 am

Hope your eyes don't glaze over on this one:

I've successful animated several scenes for a project, but I'm getting variable results in exporting them to .AVI files. Specifically:

> A couple will play in Windows Media player, but without the soundtrack, and they don't show up in either WMM or Premiere. (I confess that newbie me deleted Layer 1 in these, thinking that, since everything was imported from earlier files, it was superfluous.);

> Some that do show up in Premiere, the soundtrack cuts out before the scene is over;

> In Premiere, even though I saved all the .AVIs with the alpha setting unchecked, none of them have the background color when I import them.

I've tried everything I could find on previous posts (exporting from frame 1, etc.), but nothing seems to make the situation better. I'm hoping it's just some stupid little tweak that will make all right with the world. Thanks!

Antonin_K · Post by **Antonin_K** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 10:50 am

I suggest Quicktime, its better than any .avi.For professional work definitly.
You can easily jump frame by frame forward and backward as well.Impoting is fine eather to premier or in to final cut.

Best,
Antonin K.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:00 am

If you want to get a specific background colour, add a layer with a shape of that colour. AS by default treats the BG as transparent, so it's a lottery if your video editor interprets this as transparent or not.

Check your scene and soundtrack lengths. An imported sound usually will loop like an imported video, if the scene is longer than the track.

Since I don't experience any of the problems you describe, I can only recommend to check your system settings about sound, and maybe give Quicktime a try.

SaintMikey · Post by **SaintMikey** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:21 am

Thanks for the info. Two responses:

I tried several times to download Quick Time to my computer, but it never shows up when the download is completed. (Perhaps another reason to hate Windows Vista?)

I actually fixed the problem myself the next morning. For the two problem files, I just eliminated the soundtrack and rendered them silent. That solved that dilemma. Then I edited all the files in WMM, restored the sound to the two sequences, then rendered it all as a "rough cut" .AVI file. Then I was able to edit it in Premiere successfully. Though there are still some minor issues with the finished product, it's still very watchable. It's the first animated cartoon I've ever attempted on ASP, so I'm still learning. Thanks for the info!

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 3:14 am

Hello all!

I also suggest Quicktime, multiplatform, has better compression, works well with most editing programs and is the king at scrubbing.

My two cents.

GC

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 5:03 am

SaintMikey wrote:I tried several times to download Quick Time to my computer, but it never shows up when the download is completed. (Perhaps another reason to hate Windows Vista?)

Uh... nothing to do with Vista. Sounds like "user error" to me. Make sure you actually complete the installation. When you download QT check to see "where" you download it and follow all the instructions. I don't think QT is an "automatic installation" via the internet. I think you have to download it and open the installer.

-vern