New Pdplayer video tutorials are available for download

[Maya Petrova]

Chaos Software with the invaluable help of Chris Nichols released new video tutorials on how to use Pdplayer - the newly released sequence player.

One will find the links to the new tutorials at the documentation section in the download area, after a login to our website.

Click here to go to the download area of our website

Read more about Pdplayer here

[dlparisi]

What's the codec on these? I can't see the video but I can hear the audio.

[vlado]

It seems to be a Camtasia codec; I have the K-lite codec pack here and it plays fine.

Best regards,
Vlado

[rmejia]

What's the codec on these? I can't see the video but I can hear the audio.

Have you tried using VLC? It's probably the best free media player out there. Pretty much plays everything. Tried it with the Pdplayer tutorials and it plays them well.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

[dlparisi]

Thanks everyone, k-lite worked fine to get it going. Too late to try VLC now as I've installed the kodec pack.

[pdimov]

The videos appear to be encoded with TechSmith's Screen Capture Codec, available from:

http://www.techsmith.com/download/codecs.asp

[gonny]

do

do it better

[judderman]

What's the point in PDPlayer? Why not just use an existing, fully featured compositing package to preview work? The client preview thing is cool I guess.

[pdimov]

What's the point in PDPlayer? Why not just use an existing, fully featured compositing package to preview work?

First of all, if you haven't yet downloaded the trial version, do try it out for yourself; this is the best way to identify the pros and cons of Pdplayer, as compared to your favorite full featured compositing application.

Our primary focus when developing Pdplayer was to make it a convenient tool for sequence review and playback. All of its features were evaluated with this goal in mind. It does have compositing abilities simply because they are useful when previewing sequences and sets of sequences. To make a crude analogy, one can use Photoshop to review images, but it's not as convenient as using a dedicated image viewer.

In the simple case, Pdplayer is just a double-click or a drag and drop away; one just opens a frame and the sequence is autodetected and (optionally) loaded. It starts up quickly, and there is no need to create a project or a composition first, then import footage into it. Once the sequence is loaded, further operations with it do not invalidate the cache and are performed in real time; this makes Pdplayer useful for quick review and prototyping. You can grade and expose a frame as a quick check whether your render is OK for further processing in a compositing package, or it needs to be re-rendered.

One can also compare two sequences, either by toggling between them by making the top layer visible or invisible with the V shortcut, or by using a difference blend.

When one encounters a frame that needs further work, it's possible to quickly annotate some of it with the Brush and Text layers, then use the e-mail feature to send feedback.

Pdplayer is also a nice tool for monitoring a render in progress. For linear renders one can use the "watch sequence" option that automatically adds the new frames as they appear; for progressive renders, there is the "automatic update" that reloads the frames as soon as they change.

Hope this helps.

[DenK]

imho, pdplayer - great tool! As standalone and in integration with Nuke. Integration with Fusion, as preedit tool be better.

[cpnichols]

What's the point in PDPlayer? Why not just use an existing, fully featured compositing package to preview work? The client preview thing is cool I guess.

A full blown composting package can't flip through frames like PDPlayer. Unless it is a Flame (cost of $300,000). Nuke (cost of $3500) needs a secondary player like PDPlayer or Framecyler to do it. You need a tool that starts instantly, loads fast, and is simple.

3D artists need to flip frames constantly to check renders, check animation, present, etc... The added basic comping of PDPlayer is great, as you can flip your elements in context.