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Can’t output HD to Mpeg2
Not sure whats going on here but when I add my completed 1440×1080 (on a 1920×1080 comp) clip with sound to the render que and try to output as an Mpeg2 it gives me the “Missmatch in output settings” error.
I’ve tried every possible combination of settings with the Mpeg 2 option but nothing seems to work. The Adobe site info did not help.
I can output the full size as an Avi but then the 5 second file is so large that it won’t even play in windows media player. Tried Quicktime as well but it doesn’t look good even with the highest settings.
I’d like to be able to watch my finished product in HD on my computer, what’s my best output option to do this?
Thanks much
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3 Replies
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Hey thanks dave,
So what about Outputting as a big Avi file and then writing that onto a playable Dvd? That should play well on a computer without all the bitrate problems right? Is this what you would do if your HD spot had to go on TV?
And, what is your favorite compression PC outputter ? (if that is a word, hehe)
Thanks Dave,
you’re always informitive even though you send me to the Adobe site half the time,(Which usually only get me more confused) Hehe. -
Danny, Dave:
When in the After Effects Render Queue you specify a format that’s typically used for distribution (H264, MPEG-2, Flash video), the Adobe Media Encoder dialog appears when you invoke the Output Module’s format options.
As Dave said, because of the way After Effects works, AME can’t do multipass encoding (note that for some formats this produces critical quality advantages; for others, not so much). But it’s true that as of today, exporting to distribution formats in AE is more about convenience than having the ultimate quality option.However, starting from CS4, the Adobe Media Encoder also exists as a standalone application.
If you have Production Premium or Master Collection (ie, if you didn’t buy After Effects as an individual product), you can avoid rendering an intermediate, uncompressed file for encoding later. Instead, you can open the After Effects Composition directly in Adobe Media Encoder, and encode using 2-pass VBR encoding. As a source for encdoing, of course, the “raw” After Effects Comp is the same or higher quality than an uncompressed file.
If you did buy After Effects as an individual product, you can still render an uncompressed or slightly compressed file, and use that as a source for encoding in AME.
As for H264 (even MPEG-2) being correct if you’re not “too picky”…
I agree with you if this was about using them as acquisition formats, but distribution is that they were made for.
Given enough data rate (say, 25-30 Mbps) H264 should look gorgeous. It’s what you see in a Blu-Ray disc. At such data rates, 2-pass MPEG-2 also looks better than it has any right to. And it’s less demanding on CPU muscle than H264. Playing full HD H264 video requires a powerful computer.An uncompressed HD file can be about 100-120 MEGABYTES a second. It would require special hard drives, or a stripe set to play back correctly.
Adolfo Rozenfeld · Adobe
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Danny: to avoid the error you’re getting, after picking your distribution format, you usually want to pick a preset for that format which has “same as source” as part of the name. Otherwise, there will be a conflict between the Comp/Render Queue pixel dimensions, and the size specified by AME. Please note that when you select a preset which is not “same as source”, AME will instruct you in a comment field to change the size specified in AE’s Output Module.
Note that in some cases, even if you pick “same as source” you may still get this error if the format you’re going to only accepts specific sizes. For example, if you chose MPEG-2 for NTSC DVD (not your case), only 720×480 would be acceptable.
Adolfo Rozenfeld · Adobe
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