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View Full Version : Best video compression for saving animation?

DaRonRon
09-02-2009, 10:23 AM
When i want to save my animation im presented with 3 options which are DV Video encoder, MPEG compression, and uncompressed. If i use DV Video encoder then my final output's aspect ratio is changed for some reason, if i use MPEG compression and leave it at high quality i still find some artifacts especially around the shadows, and if i leave it at uncompressed then it saves at a whopping 888 Mbps which is just too much. So which should i use to get good quality with no artifacts but a reasonable size video?

Thanks
musashidan
09-02-2009, 10:31 AM
save it to an uncompressed image sequence and use AE or the like for video output
DaRonRon
09-02-2009, 12:11 PM
thanks for the quick reply, but im not quite understanding what ur saying. How would i save it as an image sequence? Would i have to render each frame manually?

Sorry im new to this..
musashidan
09-02-2009, 01:08 PM
nobody really renders straight to video.Most will render a sequence of frames to a particular file format such as PNG or TGA. This means every frame of your animation is rendered as a still image and the entire sequence will be sequentially numbered.this will also be written to an IFL file.(image file list)

Then you would usually import your image sequence to an app like AE and render out the final animation to a video file with a wide range of Codecs to choose from.
DaRonRon
09-02-2009, 01:21 PM
ah i see, makes sense, but what are the benefits of saving as a png or tga? Couldnt i save it as jpeg?
musashidan
09-02-2009, 01:38 PM
Jpegs are compressed and can degenerate upon further saves. Targas are uncompressed and have a built in alpha channel.

Of course if Jpegs suit your needs then use them.But,remember that they will be compressed again in post so the quality could be poor.
DaRonRon
09-02-2009, 02:20 PM
ok thanks mate, one more question, when i chose to save as targa it gives me the option to compress or not. There's also Alpha split which is unticked and Pre-Multiplied Alpha which is ticked. Can i leave these as they are?
musashidan
09-02-2009, 04:04 PM
Yes,pre-multiplied alpha checked and uncompressed selected. You should read up on alpha channels and you will understand when you will need them and when you will not.
BradT
09-03-2009, 08:28 PM
You can check the compress box to save a little space. Targas use a lossless (RLE) compression that doesn't degrade with resaves, so there's no reason to not use it.
ZaPPZion
09-14-2009, 10:47 AM
The easiest way (in my opinion) to get a movie clip back from those image sequences, is to use Quicktime Pro. It has a "Load Image Sequence" option. After that you can export to H.264, which i think is one of the best codecs out there at the moment. Be carefull though, you don't want to save to H.264 when you're doing editing on the movie later on, since it works with keyframes etc. Just save the final movie as H.264, since it's really small (compared to wmv) and the quality is really good.
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