y the guality of my video is bad

[Kyo007]

which codec do u use ? QuicktTime H.264 is good for compress video.

[scrimski]

Which codec, which settings and for what purpose?

[b_52]

actually i dont understand very much about codec and some other things


iam new in After Effect

i start working on it only this week

so could u guys explane to me please



thx

[beenyweenies]

actually i dont understand very much about codec and some other things


iam new in After Effect

i start working on it only this week

so could u guys explane to me please
thx

The main types of files you would output from After Effects are Quicktime and Windows Media format. Both are suitable options, but Quicktime is both Mac and PC compatible so it is a better choice in my opinion. Quicktime and Windows Media are really just "container" formats, meaning that they just hold the video information but don't actually do any of the compression themselves. The compression of your video is done with a codec (which stands for COmpressor/DECompressor). Quicktime offers about 20 different compression types to use, as does Windows Media. When outputing your files, you need to select a format (such as Quicktime) and then choose which codec that format will use to encode the video.

The codec you choose depends entirely on what you intend to do with the file when it's done. If you want to put it on the web, some good choices are:

- Quicktime, Sorenson 3 codec (quality is okay, but even the oldest version of quicktime can read a Sorenson video)
- Quicktime, h.264 codec (offers very good quality but requires a more recent version of quicktime)
- Windows Media 9 - default settings (bitrate should usually be above 1,000)

If your intended use of the file is to burn a DVD, you should output from After Effects to an uncompressed format (AVI uncompressed or Quicktime Animation works well) then let your DVD authoring application convert the file as needed.

Hope this helps.

[beenyweenies]

One more point on this. In my experience After Effects is simply HORRIBLE at compressing files down. Where it shines is outputting high resolution "master quality" files. Given this, I almost never output a compressed file from After Effects, but instead output a master quality file (for example, Quicktime with Animation Codec) and then use a third party application to create compressed versions of that master file if needed. This way, you always have an archive-quality version handy, which is very useful for a variety of reasons. You will need more hard disk space for this workflow, but the advantages are huge in my opinion.

As for third party compression applications to use, on the PC side I use a freebie app called Super (http://www.erightsoft.com/S6Kg1.html) (scroll to bottom of page for download links). It compresses to a very wide variety of formats, is fast, and does a stellar job. Oh, and it's FREE. For compressing to Flash Video format (flv), which is a great option for web-based video, I use Riva FLV Encoder (http://www.rivavx.com/index.php?encoder&L=3), which is also fast, high-quality and FREE. There are dozens of other options, these are just the two I use the most.

[Arrrgh4life]

@beenyweenies
Thanks for that link to the Super video converter!

@b_52
When I export video from After Effects I also do basically what beenyweenies says. I have alot of space on a secondary hard drive, and export the lossless footage to the disc. The file sizes are huge, but Its much easier to convert the video later, using 3rd party stuff. I use to use something called Total Video Conerter: http://www.effectmatrix.com/total-video-converter/
But im going to try out that link beenyweenies gave for the Super video converter. I find that converting to H.264 is a good method for web, I also convert to a .mov file rather than a .mp4, because .mov and mpeg files play automatically in most web browsers (no need for people to have to save your video to their hard drive).

[b_52]

Thanks alot (beenweenies) and (Arrrgh4life) for posting

and for helping me .. i appreciate that

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