DVCPro HD 1080i60 codec mismatch in CS5

Question

Hello,
I am trying to render in After Effects to a playback device in my TV station called the Omneon, which specifies it wants DVCPRO HD 1080i60.
In CS3, this worked perfectly, rendering out a 16x9 render at 1920x1080. However, now that we’ve upgraded to CS5, I get a ‘mismatch’ warning and the render ends up squished horizontally. The warning reads: "Warning: Output file will be resized from 1920x1080 to 1280x1080 to meet format constraints." Can I render a composition as DVCPRO HD 1080i60 and force it to be 1920×1080, not 1280×1080? Any help would be great. Thank you.

Answer 1

Yes, thank you, Tim! That is very clear. It doesn't make me like it, though! I did a test and it looks normal in the place I am rendering it to..so even though it looks odd to me, it still works.
I'll send your note to the team so everyone knows why this happened.
Have a great day!
K E L L Y   S T O C K D A L E   V R A N E S I C
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:01:23 -0600
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: DVCPro HD 1080i60 codec mismatch in CS5
The mismatch warning is correct.  The DVCPRO HD 1080i60 specification is 1280x1080 at 1.5 PAR.  If you want to put 1920x1080 into your QuickTime file then you will need to choose a different codec, one which supports that size.  (Note that none of the DVCPRO HD codecs support that size.)
Apple's documentation details the different DVCPRO HD flavors pretty well. ( I assume you're using their codec on a Mac with Final Cut Studio installed.)
http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/professionalformatsandworkflows/index.html#c hapter=3%26section=6%26tasks=true
So that leaves the question of "Why did After Effects CS3 let you stuff 1920x1080 into a codec that doesn't support that size, while After Effects CS5 won't?"
Put simply, QuickTime can be lazy, and After Effects CS5 is a little smarter than its predecessors.
Individual codecs can advertise to applications what dimensions, frame rate, PAR, etc. they will accept.  However, QuickTime itself does not necessarily enforce these restrictions.  When you rendered a QuickTime movie from After Effects CS3 and CS4, it talked directly to the QuickTime API.  Because QuickTime doesn't enforce the format constraints, After Effects didn't complain if the constraints were violated.
After Effects CS5 doesn't use the QuickTime API directly.  There is no 64-bit version of QuickTime, so in order for Adobe's 64-bit applications to write QuickTime files we had to write an intermediate 32-bit application that could talk to QuickTime.  It's called Adobe QT32 Server, and it runs silently in the background whenever After Effects CS5, Premiere Pro CS5, or Adobe Media Encoder CS5 are running.  When QT32 Server opens a codec to write files, it enforces the advertised constraints.  There are cases where not enforcing the constraints will cause errors or a bad render, so the bottom line is that if a codec tells you that it only supports certain sizes or frame rates, it's best to believe it.
Thus, when Apple's DVCPRO HD 1080i60 codec tells QT32 Server that it wants 1280x1080, 1.5 PAR, 29.97fps, field separated video, that's the only format QT32 Server will give it.  After Effects will transform the comp frames to those standards before QT32 Server writes the file.  The warning dialog is there to tell you what's happening.
Clear?  As mud?
-=TimK
-=After Effects and Adobe Media Encoder QE
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