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Video codecs when rendering... Or: "Even a Sensei have to learn"

RamielRamiel336 Posts: 0Member
edited May 2007 in Technical Questions and Answers #1
Ok, I've done several experiments with variuos codecs when I'm rendering, and, of course, the best result is to render a video WITHOUT any codec (a .mov file, in this case)...
But, what's the best quality/compression combo?
If I want to do a .mov or a .avi or whatever, what's your best solution so far? Do you want to share your experience?

I need the best solution for online videos (think at the movie trailers on the Apple.com site for example, or some demo reels...),
Thanks in advance.
Post edited by Ramiel on

Posts

  • MadKoiFishMadKoiFish9833 Posts: 5,333Member
    #2
    Well when I do animations I use a lossless codec like Huffy. I think its only able to be in a avi or similar container. (not sure if itll go into a mac container) I then reencode with a seprate app made or transcoding only. This allows me to do multipass and use other options to optimise the codec. In the end its all up to what you want to do with the file, and who your target audience is.

    I have found h264 the best overall size vs quality but many cannot run it or have issues with the diffrent decoders out there. Not to mention the system hit the codec has. So I often fall back on wmv9 or xvid in a avi container. WMV9 being the most stable because theres ONE build no misc versions types or other crap. I dislike most propriatory codecs, IE locked to a particular player or container type. This limits your viewing audience to an extent.

    As for online dlable videos say under 5mb Id work with any of the newer streaming codecs that are open player compatable. (more often it seems it is .wmv .asf etc bleah.)

    I recomend you look at reviews tuts and apps/codecs at VideoHelp.com or doom9 they cover many codecs and uses.
    Each day we draw closer to the end.
  • fluxfirefluxfire181 Posts: 604Member
    #3
    Well the next question i have is do you want to render them in .mov or .avi or .wmv? I have found through my video work that i have done that for .mov files sorenson3 is the best codec to use for QT. As for .avi i haven't figured that one out yet cause i haven't spent alot of time using that format. Now for .wmv i use a program called Sony Vegas 7. With that i have a ton of options for different streaming .wmv files.
  • ZardozZardoz2 Posts: 0Member
    #4
    I think thats link can be very usefully :
    Codec Comparison

    In first case, you must difference between a Video container and a Video Codec.

    A container format is a computer file format that can contain various types of data, compressed by means of standardized audio/video codecs. The container file is used to identify and interleave the different data types. Simpler container formats can contain different types of audio codecs, while more advanced container formats can support multiple audio and video streams, subtitles, chapter-information, and meta-data (tags) - along with the synchronization information needed to play back the various streams together. (Copy&paste from Wikipedia))

    The most usual video container are the old AVI (Video For Windows, and later evolve), the a bit more modern MOV (QuickTime that evolve better), the MPG (That only can cotain MPEG videos), the MP4 (Same but which MPEG-4), OGM (that is based of hacking the OGG music container), the Matroska and the WMV (of Micro$oft and only can use WMV codecs)

    For my personal experience, had a lot of problems puting videos in AVIs (thanks, perhaps, that is the most old container that are in use, and it get a lot of fixes, etc... ), like damage videos, etc...

    QuickTime doing much better, but I lack a bit of control how codec use (you can only use the codecs of Quicktime pack, but have a lot of it, and some of they are very good, like the H264, the Sorenson 3, or the PNG when you need lossless). More problematic is that some usual software can edit MOV files ... you need the software of Apple to doing it.

    OGM works better, you can control anything of the codec, like a AVI, but you can put more of a stereo (or mono or 5.1) channel of audio (you can send a video which multi language), multiple subtitles, etc... It's a container developed not much time ago. You can edit , compres, etc.. which VirtualDub Mod, and I expect that other soft can do it. But for our bad luck, 3d max (i have 8) can't make a file of this format yet (but you can do like i do, make a AVI in a not problematic codec, and re compress the video stream which VirtualDub in a OGM file). For my OGM is much better that the pesky AVI.

    Matroska, i not used yet, but i listen that is similar to OGM but better and is a Open standard.

    Other usefully link : Container format (digital - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
  • IRMLIRML253 Posts: 1,993Member
    #5
    divx works great for me, compressess at good quality and most animations I do normally come out under 10mb with it

    I've never really had much success trying to compress anything in quicktime, although I do prefer it when people use it, because it plays right in the browser and I can't do that with AVIs
  • al3dal3d177 Posts: 0Member
    #6
    ok...first..you NEVER RENDER IN A MOVIE OR AVI..that's just plain NO NO. ALWAYS render in single frame image dude. ..as Tga sequence best realy
  • mattcmattc181 Perth, AuPosts: 322Member
    #7
    al3d wrote: »
    ok...first..you NEVER RENDER IN A MOVIE OR AVI..that's just plain NO NO. ALWAYS render in single frame image dude. ..as Tga sequence best realy

    Well,anything lossless really....

    M
  • lennier1lennier1914 Posts: 1,284Member
    #8
    Don´t know about others but when it´s not just short test renders I prefer to render to sequenced Targa files, then transform those into uncompressed AVI and process that thing in a video post program (color correction, subtle bloom and stuff). For the final file it´s usually XVID because it allows for a lot of adjustments and even its default settings are already pretty user friendly.
    ArtStation | DeviantArt
  • RamielRamiel336 Posts: 0Member
    #9
    al3d wrote: »
    ok...first..you NEVER RENDER IN A MOVIE OR AVI..that's just plain NO NO. ALWAYS render in single frame image dude. ..as Tga sequence best realy

    Oh, don't worry, I mean rendering the final product (after editing, or just a quick test from 3ds Max), not "directly-from-scene-to-video";)
    I just need some infos (like the ones that I've found here:thumb: ) for a good way to have a nice mix of high quality/low weight in a video:p

    And thank you all for the suggestions and links, keep 'em coming:)
  • JeffrySGJeffrySG321 Posts: 477Member
    #10
    Well for Mac / Quicktime I usually go with H.264... I usually get pretty small sizes and decent looking video...

    ...and I usually render to LZW compressed numbered TIF files out from my 3d app.

    J
  • limdaepllimdaepl171 Posts: 0Member
    #11
    Hey folks. I could use your help. I have a 13 sec animation (130frames@10frs/s). Resolution is 1300x500. After having read though this thread i compressed it with H264 and it turned out to be 9.86MB big. Is this reasonable? The resolution is surely quite large but then again 13 seconds is rather short i suppose. The downside is that H246 washed out the colors. It's brighter and the contrast suffered. Not sure if this may be a gamma issue though. How could this be fixed?

    Also the vid is rather monocromatic, the dominating color is blue. Could this property be used to get better results by using some sort of color indexing or the such?

    Thanks in advance for any info!
    Regards Roman
  • juanxerjuanxer331 Posts: 0Member
    #12
    al3d wrote: »
    ok...first..you NEVER RENDER IN A MOVIE OR AVI..that's just plain NO NO. ALWAYS render in single frame image dude. ..as Tga sequence best realy
    ..Or do it in some other format able to survive the app crashing without losing all generated footage, something that some container formats such as Quicktime are liable to do: as an EIAS user, I render things in its native Image format (it does stills and animations), as it is that robust, After Effects reads it natively and its lossless compression is an advantage over TGAs. If I wouldn't have that, I'd go TGA or Tiff, too).
  • JeffrySGJeffrySG321 Posts: 477Member
    #13
    limdaepl wrote: »
    Hey folks. I could use your help. I have a 13 sec animation (130frames@10frs/s). Resolution is 1300x500. After having read though this thread i compressed it with H264 and it turned out to be 9.86MB big. Is this reasonable? The resolution is surely quite large but then again 13 seconds is rather short i suppose. The downside is that H246 washed out the colors. It's brighter and the contrast suffered. Not sure if this may be a gamma issue though. How could this be fixed?

    Also the vid is rather monocromatic, the dominating color is blue. Could this property be used to get better results by using some sort of color indexing or the such?

    Thanks in advance for any info!
    Regards Roman

    Roman,
    I think you'll find that in the end there is no "end all be all" solutions for compressing video. I really do like H264 but in every case when I'm compressing something I'll try a few different settings to see how it effects, things like final size, compression artifacts, color bleeding, etc.

    So, I would recommend trying a few different settings with the H264 first. Maybe bumping up the quality level will fix many of those things you talked about - maybe not. Maybe lowering it a bit will make it smaller but not really effect the quality?

    Also, don't be afraid to adjust the video slightly before hand to compensate for the compression? adjust the contrast, gamma, saturation, etc. Sometimes this can work and others not.

    And if this all doesn't work maybe it's time to try a different codec for your project? DIVX? WMV? etc... each one will have positive and negative compression results....

    hope this helps!
    Jeff
  • GrimGrim0 Posts: 0Member
    #14
    al3d wrote: »
    ok...first..you NEVER RENDER IN A MOVIE OR AVI..that's just plain NO NO. ALWAYS render in single frame image dude. ..as Tga sequence best realy

    Im in big agreement. Your big render somehow fails over the last several frames of your full movie render, you have to start again! As I found the hard way... :(

    Individual files is the way to go and compile later on in a different program. Dunno why, but I went for .tga format too!
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]2 Posts: 3Member
    #15
    Personaly I render into sequinced images... Tga or PNG, personaly I prefer pNG because of the smaller file sizes and I honistly cant see the difference in quality when compaird to TGA. Though Im always told to use TGA when I'm doing work for some one.

    Anyway then i use Xvid when exporting from After effects. around 1-2 kbps.

    I hate quick time h264, doesnt seem to work well. Washed out colours and 10 times the file size.
  • havgunwilltravelhavgunwilltravel0 Posts: 0Member
    #16
    big fan of Xvid formatt here..... great compression, little loss of quality.....
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