Changing Sub Second Timeline Format In AE CS5.5?

Question

Hi,
Is it possible to change the timeline format in AE CS5.5 so that the sub second granularity is in tenths or hundredths of a second instead of frames?
If I zoom in to the timeline then it initially shows it as whole seconds but then continued zooming results in the sub second intervals being in frames wheres I would like that to be in decimals of a second, is this possible?
Rgds

Answer 1

Dang, LaRonde, we missed the boat again. It wasn't about accuracy at all, it was about editing and faking it.
Here's the string of events:
> Is it possible to change the timeline format in AE CS5.5 so that the sub second granularity is in tenths or hundredths of a second instead of frames?
> If I zoom in to the timeline then it initially shows it as whole seconds but then continued zooming results in the sub second intervals being in frames wheres I would like that to be in decimals of a
> second, is this possible?
(Yes and no. Video is video, the fame rates are firmly established. You can create a 100 frame per second timeline but you can't show it on anything. Easier to just stretch 25fps out to 400%.)
> I wish to insert a stopwatch type of timer into some sports event videos where sub second timing is important. To do this I select the precise point for the commencement of the timer and it is
> easier if I have a timeline of tenths/hundredths of a second rather than frames.
> I realise that for a 25fps video I will have an accuracy level of 0.04 seconds rather than 0.01 seconds but 0.04 seconds is OK for me.
> I can manage with frames for sub second intervals but if decimal sub seconds was available it would have been nice.
(your accuracy is not going to be 0.04, it's going to be no better than 0.08.)
> What I wish to do is to edit a three hour recording of 6 horse races to cut out all of the audio/video between the races and just have the 6 races plus about 30 seconds lead in before the race begins
> and 30 seconds after the race completes for each race. In addition, on the precise frame that the starting gates open for each race I want a stopwatch timer to start from 0.00 seconds and count
> upwards in hundredths of a second. The timer should then run on until the nose of the last horse to finish hits the finishing line. The timer then stops
>
. and the whole process is repeated for the next
> race until all 6 races are completed. All 6 races and their timers would then be rendered into one file such as mp4 or flv or wmv.
(You won't to try to edit the footage in AE, do that in Premiere)
Time remap the footage in a longer comp, stretch it out to 400% to get your level of granularity. Set your stopwatch thingy. Did you ever firgure out how to do that? Timers are available in several different ways. Not sure which one you're going to want as minutes/seconds is about as granular as you can get. You can do another timer as a self-contained movie at a higher frame rate or time stretched and then bring it back in and set it alongside the onthe one doing minutes/seconds. You then change the speed of the improted movie to move at one hundred frames/second. This takes a bit of tweaking, again diminishing your possible accuracy.
Then nest this comp back into a 25fps comp. You will render out of AE to a frame-based codec and then take that movie to Adobe Media Encoder for the transcode to your release media format. Do not try to export the movie out of AE; it's possible but it's not reliable. You will need to know the difference between exporting and rendering and encoding.
Real world timers are odd requests in AE. The easiest thing I've found is to create a movie of an incrementing counter and import it. Set up multiple copies and position them carefully between colons. Run each one as a loop at whatever speed is necessary to create the illusion of a real world burned in timer. So I could have a movie that counts from 00 to 99, a new numeral on each frame. Upon import I set it to loop 1000 times then I can speed that up or slow it down to fit whatever rate of change I need. Then I create a movie that counts from 00 to 59 and do roughly the same thing.
If you don't want to build one in AE, you can get a bright LED stopwatch and shoot that using a good macro lens. Key it over the movies.
There are numerous onscreen counters and timers that you can shoot off of a Mac or iPad screen. The temporal resolution of your video format is still going to be an issue since, at 25fps, there will be many frames where the hundreds and tenths digits will be off , incorrect, or cthe shutter will capture more than one numeral.
Message was edited by: bogiesan, miserable typos, I left most of them, tho