AE video compression?

[Paolo Zuniga]

I wasn’t planning on returning to Final Cut after the AE export. I just exported the 2 minute video from AE using h264 and was hoping it would look as good as it did in the composition. But when I watch the video in Quicktime after export it looks very pixelated.

Should I considered going back to FC and doing the final export from there? Is that overkill?

thanks

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

You can do that, but I would use Adobe Media Encoder to open the AE project, select your comp and render compressed from there. A 2 pass VBR will give you a much better H264 compression.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Kevin Camin]

My personal workflow of choice is to export from AE either uncompressed with the ‘animation’ codec or with a Prores 422 codec (Prores 422 if storage space is an issue, it makes files about 1/10 the size). Then I use Quicktime 7 Pro to make my h.264s. I personally think QT7 does a really good job doing this, and I imagine Compressor would be the same.

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Paolo Zuniga]

Are there certain codec settings you use in Media Encoder? What is a “2 pass VBR”?
I’ve never used this Adobe program, but i’ll look into it.
Thanks.

[Paolo Zuniga]

I did read that the “animation” codec uses the least amount of compression, but figured it was only for actual animation. When you say “Compressor doing the same”, do you mean the actual program called Compressor?

I’ll give the “animation” setting a shot.

I guess I’m a little confused because I was so used to just exporting h264 or Prores422 from Final Cut and having it look good with no additional work.

[Kevin Camin]

Animation codec is completely uncompressed. No compression. No loss in quality. It’s not just for animation and I don’t know why it’s called that. A lot of people prefer to render out of AE in the Animation codec and then make their compressions from that. Two reasons: 1. AE isn’t very good at trying to render and transcode/compress at the same time (for instance making an h.264 directly from AE). 2. The situation often requires making different types of compressions, e.g. HD version, web version, etc. When you have a full resolution, uncompressed master from AE, you can easily make different versions from a 3rd party app, rather than rendering out from AE each version (which takes a lot of time since it’s rendering too).

Yes, if you use FCP, you have Compressor. Or you can import the Animation codec render that AE made into FCP and export an h.264 from there. I would think it’s the same basic engine driving FCP, Compressor and Quicktime Pro; all made by Apple.

Ted might have better luck with Media Encoder, but personally I’ve been very disappointed making h.264’s from there and I’ve also had bad luck trying to render AE comps from there too.

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Paolo Zuniga]

Thanks for explaining this! I’ll give it a shot.

[Paolo Zuniga]

Thanks! I wasn’t clear on whether that’s something I could/should do.

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Encoder is included in the Creative Suite and designed to provide compression. It has quite a few presets that come in handy.
As far as 2pass and VBR the following links can provide some insight.

VBR:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_bitrate

2 pass:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/338031-Difference-Between-1-pass-2-pass-encoding

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Erik Lindahl]

I’d recommend using the Animation or ProRes 422 / 422 HQ codec, keep these as our originals and compress them to H264 or whatever you need after render from AE.

ProRes has the advantage of being a 10- or 12-bit codec compared to Animation being 8-bit and they usually hold visually lossless output. Only having 8-bits of color fidelity can sometimes limit the quality of your output (i.e. you get bandings).

Also, the Apple h264 codec is one of the worst out there. It gets the job done but that’s about it. I’d recommend using something like x264 for QuickTime as a better alternative.