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output type
I am new to After Effects (had been playing with trial version) . I am an architect who is playing with spicing up presentations with vdieo, animations, and still images and I have one thing I have been struggling with. Presentation file size. Apparently, I am told that file size grows very quickly when animating many still images with masks, transitions, and other movement. Throw in some video, audio, text effects and final video sizes get huge quickly depending on output type. My question is this, why is it that TV shows and other video can stream full screen size and play well on mid range systems but when I put together a 5 minute slide presentation with many layers with video blurs, animated slides, text effects, and audio the final output file of a 800×600 screen size can wind up being almost 200 megs? I’ve tried flash outputs, avi, mpeg2, and mov. Flash was the smallest but even that was 16 megs. My friend is telling me that writing script in programs such as Adobe Flash for most of the actions is much smaller than keyframing everything (which is what I was doing) I am not a programmer so now I am concerned I cannot use this program effectively. Are there any suggestions or good resources for educating me a bit on this?
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5 Replies
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What videos are you comparing your files to? For example, you asked how TV shows and other video play full screen. If you’re referring to DVDs, they play full screen quite smooth, but the video file on the DVD is usually about 4-6GB in size. If you converted your 200MB file to a DVD using a DVD authoring program, it would play back on a TV smoothly as well.
If you need it to play back smoothly on a computer, Flash videos are a good option, it doesn’t really get better than that in terms of file size vs. quality.
Unfortunately, a reality of video production is that file sizes are huge, it’s just comes with the territory. I would suggest putting a second hard drive, maybe 320GB or larger, in your computer just for your video projects.
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Thanks for the response. I was referring to video streaming across the internet. My issue is that a friend of mine took a presentation file (175 megs) to be shown on the web, squeezed it down with something called sorrenson squeeze or something, and mentioned that animated still images will create much larger files than true video. I could not understand why. He was saying that writing script in Director or Flash is much more efficient file size than key frame animation. I am trying to figure out what is the best output size to be able to both present on a laptop with a projector as well as across the web. If I create a flash file at 240×320, will it loose clarity as a flash file if played full screen? I’m just rying to find the right combinetion of settings.
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Some thoughts:
1. In general, if a file is a video file, it doesn’t matter if it is a collection of moving stills or shot video. What matters is the amount of change from frame to frame. For example, a dissolve between two stills compresses less efficiently than a video shot of a talking head (with camera on a tripod) with a solid blue backdrop behind. It’s all about the compressing software being able to predict which pixels will be which colour across the frame, and from frame to frame. Naturally a noisy (grainy) video will compress less efficiently. Less efficient = larger file size.
2. Some tools compress better than others. Sorenson Squeeze is one. It is a dedicated compression tool. It allows 2-pass VariableBitRate compression, which first scans a video, then compresses it, allowing for better compression, which is better quality, smaller file size … within limits.
3. Yes, if you can get the animation you want in Flash, it should give you a smaller file size when animating stills. It is because the file loads the stills and the code, then the Flash player executes the code, moving the images. Video loads (say) 15 compressed frames per second, so it can be much bigger than a Flash (SWF) file. However, you should know what you want the piece to look like, as Flash and AE can create very different things. Talk to your Flash person and see the kind of movies Flash can make.
4. Most pros know that one movie will not work in all situations. So unless you’re really stuck, I’d make one movie for the web (320×240, 15fps maybe) and one for hard drive playback (maybe 640×480, photo-JPEG Quicktime, or WMV).
5. Compression is an art. I recommend you get some options, then do some tests.
6. Nowadays, web video seems to be divided between Quicktime and FLV (Flash video). The moving still-type of animation is an SWF, or Flash file.
I think you need to get an idea of what video and Flash can do before you commit to an animation app. You should have some more discussions with your suppliers.
By the way, could you describe the content of your intended video?
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Great info. Basically, I have 27 slides set up. Each slide may have between 3-4 layers of still images with different effects. There may also be 2-3 layers of text effects. There are some slides with animation clips as well as a continuous soundtrack. I created all of this in a program called Proshow Producer and it worked pretty well. I exported an mpeg file at 640×480 and it was 162 megs. Playback was choppy and I wanted some interactive action buttons. This led me to exploring flash. With flash, it seemed I could created the same presentation with added interactivity. I could use it to stream on the web as well as run it from my laptop for a presentation on a video projector. Trying to find the optimal workflow is what has led me here and my ignorance has definitely caught up to me.
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Hmm … I’m not sure what Proshow Producer can do that Flash can’t, but I’d look at Flash, especially if you’re exploring interactivity.
… because AE can’t do that, of course. Good luck!
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