Compressing for Adobe After Effects CS5?

[GreenPetalDaisy]

Hi! So I am super new at AMV making and I was attempting to compress some ripped DVD files for Adobe After Effects CS5... The only thing is... I have no idea how to compress it. I used a tutorial but the girl said that the compression she was using was more for Sony Vegas. I've googled and I don't know why I'm not finding any results, but I can't seem to find any tutorials on compression for After Effects. I tried compressing the way she did it and After Effects is giving me an "cannot be opened. May be an unsupported file type" messages, even though it's an avi. Does anyone know what I need to do? I was using VirtualDubMod to do the compression.

[mirkosp]

read AbsoluteDestiny & ErMaC's Technical Guides to All Things Audio and Video.
You'll want the codec to be lossless to play it the most safe (I suggest UTVideo). Also, use plain virtualdub, not virtualdubmod.

[KopiusFew]

Mirkosp strikes again, oh what noob will this noble hero save next, stick around and find out.

my two cents: For a beginner editor you should try Vegas or premiere pro, to compress your ripped Dvd, Vdub seem to work really well as mirkosp stated. after effects specialty is special effects and motion graphics while premiere pro focus is on editing and stuff of that nature. simply based on my personal experience, after effects has left me with a scar that won't heal.

[GreenPetalDaisy]

Thanks guys. I really do appreciate it!

I would use Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas, but alas, they're very expensive and I happened upon After Effects because somehow it wound up in the hands of my Grandparents and they didn't need it, so they gave it to me. I've used Windows Movie Maker before, but I know it puts out pretty poor quality videos and I feel pretty limited by it.

[GreenPetalDaisy]

Okay, so I'm currently installing all of the things, according to the guide... the guide tells me that the Premiere Pro plugins work in After Effects, too, and that when installing it should automatically detect the plugins folder. However, this did not happen and I manually found the folder under Program Files > Adobe > Adobe After Effects CS5 > Supported Files > Plug-ins. I tried to install it there, but it gives me the message

Error opening file for writing.

notvaliddirectory-12012383\IM-Avisynth.prm

Click Abort to stop the installation,
Retry to try again, or
Ignore to skip this file.

Should I press ignore? Or is there something I'm doing wrong?

[KopiusFew]

Okay, so I'm currently installing all of the things, according to the guide... the guide tells me that the Premiere Pro plugins work in After Effects, too, and that when installing it should automatically detect the plugins folder. However, this did not happen and I manually found the folder under Program Files > Adobe > Adobe After Effects CS5 > Supported Files > Plug-ins. I tried to install it there, but it gives me the message

Error opening file for writing.

notvaliddirectory-12012383\IM-Avisynth.prm

Click Abort to stop the installation,
Retry to try again, or
Ignore to skip this file.

Should I press ignore? Or is there something I'm doing wrong?

Are you doing this as an administrator? if not then i recommend you try running it as an admin. if you already are then I'll have to do some thinking and get back to you.

Thanks guys. I really do appreciate it!

I would use Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas, but alas, they're very expensive and I happened upon After Effects because somehow it wound up in the hands of my Grandparents and they didn't need it, so they gave it to me. I've used Windows Movie Maker before, but I know it puts out pretty poor quality videos and I feel pretty limited by it.

okay when you stated that you were trying to ripped footage from a Dvd, i assume you wanted your amv to be at the highest possible quality. then you said premiere pro and Vegas is expensive. now I'm thinking "this dude/dudette is not aware of many ways to obtain things online or simply refuse to use such methods." which is it?

[mirkosp]

I'd gladly hope it's the latter, as regardless of what is possible to do, we don't endorse the usage of illegally downloaded tools or footage, as the rules clearly state.

Back on topic, aside from running as administrator, there should be a path similar to this available:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Common\Plug-ins\CS5\MediaCore
I have CS4, but I think that path should still be identical. Try putting the plugin there instead.
Also, keep in mind that AFX CS5 is 64bit, so in order to input avs directly, you'll need to use the 64bit version of avisynth and of its plugin. I discourage going that route and highly suggest you to use lossless avi clips instead, but if it's necessary for you, then a quite simple guide on how to do that has been written by EvaFan here.