XaraX and DV

[Oystein]

I have just finished a 15 minute DV-movie for a customer. I had to create som slides. Xara was the perfect tool, just remember to use the DV-systems right size (mine was 768*576 - PAL).

If you have a DV-camera with in/out, you are lucky. All you need is a firewire-card. If you need a cheep system - Pinnacle Studio DV is great to start with. Create some nice slides in XaraX - as BMP-files, use transitions and hollywood effects - and you are on your way to your first Oscar.

Øystein


http://www.heimesider.com

[Oystein]

I have just finished a 15 minute DV-movie for a customer. I had to create som slides. Xara was the perfect tool, just remember to use the DV-systems right size (mine was 768*576 - PAL).

If you have a DV-camera with in/out, you are lucky. All you need is a firewire-card. If you need a cheep system - Pinnacle Studio DV is great to start with. Create some nice slides in XaraX - as BMP-files, use transitions and hollywood effects - and you are on your way to your first Oscar.

Øystein


http://www.heimesider.com

[gwpriester]

for the tips, Øystein.

Always good information to know.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://www.gwpriester.com">
www.gwpriester.com </a>


XaraXone

[lau3]

Hi Øystein,

I've been using Xara since early 99 for DV work. Back then I was using a Blue/White G3, Premiere 5.1, and a handy dandy Sony Digital8 with Firewire I/O. Today, I use a Pinnacle DV500Plus on a 1.5 GHz Dell and the same handy dandy Sony Digital8. Xara is my number one titler.

Xara let me create countless images from scratch that were screen happy and played well in DV. Even today with more available choices in titlers, I use it as my static image generator for use in After Effects. Xara generates excellent PNG (with alpha) which can be composited with effects such as blurs, flares, etc. without issues.

I posted an article a while back on this topic.

http://talkgraphics.infopop.net/1/Op...753#3061984753

Moreover, I can import stills into Xara, analyze the image, retouch my original artwork, and reexport.

Happy DV'ing.

milt

[spectecjr]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Oystein:
I have just finished a 15 minute DV-movie for a customer. I had to create som slides. Xara was the perfect tool, just remember to use the DV-systems right size (mine was 768*576 - PAL).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Just out of interest... how did you handle the aspect-ratio for PAL?

I've been trying to work out a good, easy-to-use way of doing this in Xara (ideally, it would be a matter of just saying "OK; the aspect ratio of my drawing is 4:3, and it's 740*504 pixels high (NTSC) and it'd just do it... but it doesn't appear to be that easy :-))

Si

[mgeduld]

It's really helpful to make a layered vector drawing and to then import it into AE as a composition. That way, you can immediately begin animating each layer.

Trouble is, I can't find a way to get AE to read Xara layers. It DOES read Illustrator layers (but not Xara layers -- even when the Xara art is exported as ai format). Do you know a way around this?

Marcus Geduld
{ email me } { visit me }

[lau3]

Dealing with aspect ratio is one of the hardest thing to get a hold of mentally (or at least it took me a while to get it right).

Computers make pixels that are perfectly square. Xara generates square pixel images. Cameras and TV pixels are rectangular. PAL and NTSC are meant to use rectangular pixel images. PAL and NTSC are slightly different, where NTSC has a 0.9 aspect ratio and PAL, the European standard, a 1.0666 pixel aspect ratio.

After Effects allows you to create square pixel images and import them into a composition that is targeted for PAL or NTSC output. For NTSC, what you do is create a image at 720 x 486 or 720 x 480. Import the image into your AE comp. Select the image, choose File > Interepret Footage > Main. Then choose "square pixels" from the pixel aspect ratio pop up menu. For PAL, do the same, only create the image in Xara at 720 x 576.

One last thing to remember, is that you are looking at the video you captured on a square pixel display. Your TV is not a monitor, it is a rectangualr pixel display. Therefore, if you think you've gotten the pixel thing right and things look funny, trust your final output (a TV monitor) and not your display. This also holds true if your output is going to be a computer. I almost went nuts until I realized this.

For layers, Marcus is right, Xara does not export in layers that are AE happy. Illustrator has the upper hand. The only benefit that Xara gets you is that PNG's handles gradients better than the exported EPS from Illustrator.

A possible workaround is if you layer your image in Xara, then export one layer at a time and rebuilt it in AE in the same layer order. This allows you to control the layer and modify each layer individually without affecting the comp in AE. You could benefit from doing this because you can selectively export each layer differently, one layer in PNG, another in EPS. With AI, all youget is EPS.