• Adobe After Effects

  Quicktime previews wrong dimensions for video…?

  Posted by Brett Fullam on January 13, 2012 at 10:08 pm

  OK. I can’t be the only one who’s encountered this…

  When I export a h264 movie from After Effects that’s 300 x 250 and open it in quicktime… quicktime says that the size is 480 x 400 …?! If I were to bring that same exported movie back into After Effects or Premiere it’s 300 x 250.

  I’ve scoured my export settings … exported … re-exported … same results?

  I’m working with After Effects CS5.5, Qicktime 10.1 and my operating system is Mac OS 10.7.

  Any insight would be appreciated.

  — Brett

  Brett Fullam replied 14 years, 7 months ago 3 Members · 5 Replies
• 5 Replies

• 

  Kevin Camp

  January 13, 2012 at 10:52 pm

  have you tried it in quicktime 7… i know there used to be issues with quicktime x.

  Kevin Camp
  Senior Designer
  KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW
• 

  Walter Soyka

  January 14, 2012 at 1:36 am

  [Brett Fullam] “When I export a h264 movie from After Effects that’s 300 x 250 and open it in quicktime… quicktime says that the size is 480 x 400 …?! If I were to bring that same exported movie back into After Effects or Premiere it’s 300 x 250.”

  Quicktime Player X shows the size of the video as it’s currently being displayed on-screen, not the actual size of the raster as specified in the movie file. If you drag the handle on the lower-right hand corner to resize the video, you’ll see those numbers change.

  It’s going up to 480×400 because Quicktime Player X’s window can’t be any narrower than 400px or so wide in order to accommodate the on-screen player controls.

  Walter Soyka
  Principal & Designer at Keen Live
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
  Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events
• 

  Brett Fullam

  January 17, 2012 at 2:18 pm

  Dave,

  After a very extensive search… I believe I found an older forum post of yours where you said the same thing. So, I abandoned quicktime and switched over to VLC.

  VLC displayed it at the correct dimensions. It’s easy to get my art director and creative director to switch to VLC to preview this, but it makes me cringe when I think about what the client’s viewing experience is like.

  Thanks for the quick response.

  — Brett
• 

  Brett Fullam

  January 17, 2012 at 2:21 pm

  Hi Kevin,

  It seems to be an issue with Quicktime X. We just upgraded everything in my office so there aren’t any legacy versions floating around to confirm it though.

  Due to time constraints I switched over from quicktime to VLC, and that player didn’t have any issues displaying at the correct dimensions.

  Thanks for the quick response.

  — Brett
• 

  Brett Fullam

  January 17, 2012 at 2:28 pm

  Hi Walter,

  I know about how to resize the video in quicktime, and thought it was strange that “actual size” wasn’t an option I could select. The window was 480 x 400 and I couldn’t get the window to resize even when I manually grabbed the window to expand-reduce it.

  There’s absolutely NO documentation about Quicktime’s inability to go below 400 pixels.

  I really appreciate you sharing that piece of information… no I feel that I have a solid understanding as to why this is can/will happen.

  Thanks again.

  — Brett

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