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Exporting 3072 x 768 wmv file
Hey all!
We have created a 3072 x 768 composition that will be playing across 3 flat panel screens in a large kiosk. The problem we are having is that anytime we try and export it as a wmv file, no matter whether or not we tell it to “stretch” it in the render queue, it…by default it seems, will only create a 640 x 768 file. Now, if I try and export it as anything else (avi, mov, etc) it renders just fine at the proper resolution. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Ralph Helm
Level 3 Media Productions
https://www.level-3-media.com
rhelm3atlevel-3-mediadotcom -
8 Replies
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As stated in my post…we are using the render queue to RENDER the file out, as we always do. And sorry to have become the target of your ire, not putting enough information up. 🙂
The file will be played off a hard drive with a system using the Matrox TripleHead2Go card.
Cheers,
Ralph Helm
Level 3 Media Productions
https://www.level-3-media.com
rhelm3atlevel-3-mediadotcom -
It sounds as if you want this played back on three 1024×768 monitors. Now, I’m on a Mac, so I have to Export to make Windows Media. I use the Flip4mac plugin, and it allows me to export using the current size.
Could you run us through the dialogs, options and settings you get and use when making your WMV file? There might be a setting we’ve overlooked.
(and which platform are you on?)
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Sure, Dave. Sorry. I was in a bit of a hurry this morning when I typed it and should have been more clear.
The Matrox codec is not the issue, as we are simply trying to create a wmv file at a resolution of 3072 x 768, the resolution needed to stretch across 3 42″ LCD screens.
Here are the settings we are using:
– The actual composition is 3072 x 768, square pixels, 29.97fps
– We drop that composition into the render queue
-Render Settings: Best Settings
– Output Module:
– Format: Windows Media
– Embed: Project Link
– Post-Render Action: None
– Video Output:
– Channels: RGB
– Depth: Millions of Colors
– Color: Premultiplied (Matted)
– Format Options: (this opens up the Adobe Media Encoder window)
– Format: Windows Media
– Preset: Custom
– Export video & Audio selected
– Video Tab:
– Video Codec: Windows Media Video 9
– Basic Video Settings:
– Interlaced Processing unselected
– Bitrate Mode: Constant
– Frame Rate (fps): 29.97
– Pixel Aspect Ratio: Same as Project
– Bitrate Settings:
– Maximum Bitrate (kbps): 4000 (remeber, this needs to look good!)
– Image Quality: 100
– Advanced Settings:
– Decoder Complexity: Auto
– Keyframe Interval (seconds): 5
– Buffer Size (seconds): Default
– I don’t use stretch at all, and when I’ve tried it, it hasn’t changed a thing, I still get the output of 864 x 768…weird, huh.So, hope that helps.
Now, here’s an interesting tidbit:
I created a composition at half the resolution (1536 x 384) and nested the full resolution comp in it, scaled down to 50%. When I go to render it, it renders out just fine!! (insert Twilight Zone Music here). So, is there some sort of resolution limit with wmv files? There is no information on Msoft’s site to indicate that. Hmm…Cheers,
Ralph Helm
Level 3 Media Productions
https://www.level-3-media.com
rhelm3atlevel-3-mediadotcom -
I think your problem lies with the windows media encoder step.
The width of the video exceeds the limits of the Windows Media Encoder, it is probably defaulting to whatever width was used last time (864 is the width commonly used for widescreen sq pixel output).
I tried to set up custom Windows Media profiles in the Windows Media Encoder and it treats 3072 as an invalid width.
I haven’t been able to find anything yet that states what the max frame width for WMV is but apparently 3072 exceeds it.You might see if there is another codec or delivery format (ie. DVD) they will accept or split the video into 4 sections that can be run simultaneously.
You might also ask in the Compression forum.
Erik
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I agree — it must lie with the encoder.
I had no problem making a 3072 x 768 WMV on the Mac, using Flip4mac in AE.
Maybe you could render to Quicktime, then use another app to convert QT to WMV?
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I tried this with Procoder 3 as well. It wouldn’t let me create a WMV with a size greater than 2000 pixels wide.
Erik
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I am in a similar situation to the OP, I work in Live Events. I get what he’s trying to do — make a full resolution wmv file that runs smoothly — no codecs, no lower fields first, no scanlines. Essentially a movie that runs off of a computer, not sent to tape/disc.
This is usually done through a system like Watchout by Dataton (which will take Quicktime files, BTW) https://www.dataton.com/watchout or Spyder by Vista Systems https://www.vistasystems.net/ that takes one extremely large source file and splits it up into several feeds to an equal number of projectors to fill the area. If you’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth or just about any high-end production on TV where there’s a huge video playing in the background, chances are it’s running off of one of these systems.
Anyway, I came here because I am having the same problem, I can’t render out a wmv size-as, the AE WMV codec shrinks it. I checked several times, and there’s no setting in the codec tabs to specify width, just framerates/bitrates so I was annoyed and amazed that it was choosing a smaller file size for me arbitrarily.
I had a hunch that 1920 was the absolute width you could make one, so it’s interesting to see that some software will let you do 2000. I checked on M$oft’s site and found something that said there was no limit for the size of the file, so I wonder what exactly in the code is causing the issue. Maybe they meant in terms of GB, not width?
My process is this, I render the comp on my Mac from CS3, usually to a quicktime with animation compression. Transfer that to my PC, also running CS3, and re-render the movie file into WMV. Obviously, I would be over the moon if I could just render the thing out from AE to WMV on my Mac, in one simple step.
I have tried doing it using Flip4Mac and exporting it in QT Pro, using their WMV settings, it did export almost size as, it upsized it a little to 2400 (from my 2398 x 720 – for those of you who are wondering at the weirdness of the dimensions, our final pan screen is 10′ tall by 33.3′ wide, depending on whether there will be 4×3 projectors or HD projectors, there will be probably 3 of them set up rear projection to span that width, the software blends the projectors together to create a seamless image). The file will not run smoothly on my computer (hardly surprising) so I’ll have to wait and see when I get to the venue whether or not it’ll run, it’s just a test to see if it’s possible. We did do some tests earlier in the week and found that exporting the file 50% of its size was OK for projection. However, as I’d like to find out whether or not there’s a better way, I’m doing some tests just to see the results.
I am also trying a render at 1920×1080, which is also the size of the card that the computer will have (don’t know any specs on those, they’re provided by the staging company), just to see if it makes a difference. And, I downloaded the free trial of Flip4Mac’s Episode encoder, which so far seems much easier to use than CleanerXL to see what that’ll give me. If/when I get some definitive answers, I’ll come back with an update.
And just one more thing about the whole Mac/PC thing… in my line of work it boils down to this: businesses use PCs, businesses make PowerPoint files on PCs, having Macs backstage makes Business People uneasy, PowerPoint is not cross platform, 99% of all rental computers for staging are PC. Therefore: all movie files must be in some format that a PC will use, especially if it’s going to run out of PowerPoint. Office hasn’t supported Quicktime since version 3 (I believe), and why would they bother now that they have WMV? So, as much as I would love to use a Quicktime with Sorenson3, I can’t, which is a shame because it works perfectly without all this conversion circus.
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We use Matrox Th2Go all the time and the video codec secret is Motion-JPEG. WMV has a maximum pixel size limit to 2000×2000 but not M-JPEG.
I recommend Pegasus https://www.pegasusimaging.com/picvideomjpeg.htm
Don’t forget to install the Pegasus Codec to you playback system, as the Microsoft one is not that powerfull.Regards
Stephane Bastien
Technical Director
Telecine Multimedia
514-879-1177 #225
http://www.telecine.ca
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