• Adobe After Effects

  Rendering H264 ffdshow horrible bad render in After Effects

  Posted by Randal Radabaugh on January 19, 2011 at 6:37 am

  Hello COW folks.

  This is not a big issue atm but will be soon enough when I run out of diskspace.

  I have used H264 ffdshow in C4d and AE and Sony Vegas.No probs
  prior to windows reinstall ,
  and enjoy the much smaller file size.For some reason I get bad renders using ffdshow.Renders great in Sony Vegas C4d.

  I recently had to reinstall windows twice.I don’t think this is why though.

  Am just getting things back in and going again.However,
  I have begun using AE again and when I render out using ffdshow,
  the render is horrible pixelated(compared to before) and looks like I used the cinepak codec.

  Am currently using Lagarith codec to get by on but file sizes are too large to keep using it.

  Any one got an idea why? what this may be? something I am missing
  or overlooked in Render queue?

  Any tips for a worthy alternate codec?

  Cory Petkovsek replied 15 years, 3 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Randal Radabaugh

  January 21, 2011 at 10:46 pm

  Well that was informative.

  it also explains some issues I have had in the past.

  So, is the lagarith codec one I should use?
  or any others you might suggest?

  I will do some searching to see if I can find any more info, but codecs is not something I am familiar with or really know anything about.

  I appreciate you responding Dave.
• 

  Randal Radabaugh

  January 21, 2011 at 11:40 pm

  yeah I have used QT png and do it in sequences especially for large long ones so as to have a ‘restore point” if any thing happens during rendering.
  I never even thought of doing it AE <<< Doink lol Am I mental ? sometimes I wonder....
• 

  Cory Petkovsek

  January 24, 2011 at 3:25 am

  For windows use lagarith and/or Avid’s free DNxHD codecs. Or if you need a professional codec (sounds like you don’t) I’d look at cineform.

  Both cineform and DNxHD are cross platform windows/mac.

  Lagarith is mathematically lossless and has reasonable compression and is reasonably fast. Avoid quicktime animation or PNG sequences, simply due to file size.

  DNxHD and cineform are not mathematically lossless, however they are pretty good for intermediate codecs and are used by pro studios.

  Lagarith and DNxHD have similar file sizes; sometimes one is greatly larger than the other depending on the type of content (animation, titles, live video, etc).

  h264 is a great delivery codec, but a terrible intermediate codec. I use it for output to web, but keep my finished renders in dnxhd or lagarith.

  Cory

  —
  Cory Petkovsek
  Corporate Video

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