Best export format from AE to Vegas?

smhontz wrote on 7/6/2012, 5:40 PM
I'm working in 1920x1080 24p in both Vegas and After Effects. I'm using MXF footage from a Canon XF 305 in Vegas, and creating motion graphics in After Effects. What's the best format to render to in After Effects that I can then bring into Vegas?

I'm looking for a compromise between quality and storage space, so I don't want to use an uncompressed format.

Comments

farss wrote on 7/6/2012, 5:43 PM
Avid's DNxHD coded has worked very well for me.

Bob.
robwood wrote on 7/6/2012, 9:13 PM
Generating motion graphic media from AE, another good export format is PNG image-sequence (lossless compression)... no good for video, but great for CG media*.
There's a QuickTime version of PNG if you prefer the wrapper or want audio embedded.

When you bring it into Vegas, map it to your MXF media (Computer to Studio most likely).
You'll see a hit on performance during playback, but it should look great :)

* areas of solid color, etc.
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 7/7/2012, 2:28 AM
2nd the PNG seq, it also is great if you do the files rather than the mov contained seq. That way if you have to change a 50 frame section out of several hundred, you just re export those frames over the old ones. And its updated in Vegas. Just import the whole thing as an image seq in vegas.
vtxrocketeer wrote on 7/9/2012, 7:57 AM
+1 for the image sequence. I export PSD sequences from my 3D application, composite in AE, and export from AE as PSD sequences for ingest into Vegas.

If your render fails, powers goes out, whatever, you will not have to re-render an entire video file, only those frames that are missing because of the fail. (I'm not saying AE will fail; I've had no problems.).

PSD is not the most space-miserly format, but I'm not short on HD space and I like to keep everything in 32-bit color depth for compositing.

-Steve