After Effects

# 1 27-02-2012 , 10:42 AM

Head of 3d Admedia
Join Date: May 2007

Location: nairobi , ken-ya

Posts: 1,340

Hi All after compositing my videos in AE i usually render them out in as a quicktime video. The problem with doing this is that the video files are extremely huge. What formats do most of you render out your files out to?

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# 2 27-02-2012 , 12:21 PM

The Nurb Herd
Join Date: Oct 2007

Location: London

Posts: 2,381

we use dpx which means they are big files too.
it depends on what you want to do with the video, but surely you would want the best quality as your output to then reformat multiple times depending on the delivery.

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# 3 27-02-2012 , 01:45 PM

Maniacal boy king of Babylon
Join Date: Aug 2005

Location: the netherlands

Posts: 1,605

It all depends on what you plan to do afterwards if it's done after AE then I see no reason not to finalize it, image sequences are often bigger in file size, especially DPX/EXR etc.
if you want to save it as an image sequence I would store them using RLE compression like the RGB /SGI format, this also depends on your footage of course.
Otherwise just render out a MP4 file if it's only for viewing on your computer

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# 4 28-02-2012 , 02:38 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Oct 2011

Posts: 139

What those two said.. depending what you want to do with the file. If you want to post it online or watch by yourself use h264 (pick it directly from formats, or as a codec in quicktime settings) - it's tiny and pretty good quality, I think that's what youtube and vimeo is using.

If you need a HQ version for some reason I'd still use Quicktime with animation codec - that's uncompressed, so very good quality but big file.

Last edited by nov2011; 28-02-2012 at 02:40 AM.

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# 5 28-02-2012 , 08:59 AM

Head of 3d Admedia
Join Date: May 2007

Location: nairobi , ken-ya

Posts: 1,340

I find that with quick time the images have the best quality that's why I usually use them, was just wondering if there is another option that would output the same quality without consuming too much space.

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# 6 29-02-2012 , 09:12 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2011

Location: Sydney

Posts: 196

If you want to render out quicktimes and you have Quicktime Pro, then when setting up your render in AE's render queue, in the Quicktime settings, rather than selecting format options 'Animation', choose 'H264'. This is a compression commonly used for broadcast.

What you need to know is that once it is rendered, open up the movie with Quicktime Pro and go to the top menu and choose 'Window' open it up and find 'show movie properties' click on that and choose 'Video track' and then select the 'Visual settings' tab, you will find an option box named 'Transparency', it likely says 'Dither copy', change it to 'Straight Alpha'.

You might notice the image quality changes and the blacks become darker and the whites become brighter, basically the image is no longer washed out. So go up to the 'File' menu in the top left of the play box and open that up and press 'save'. this just saves the movie in it's adjusted state.

This file will be considerably smaller in size to a quicktime saved out as uncompressed 'Animation' but the quality is very good, you will not be able to see any obvious difference to an uncompressed version and is why it is used for broadcast.

Quicktime Pro is pretty cheap, well affordable for most people and worth getting.

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