Export Current Settings

[Roei Tzoref]

exporting H.264 trough Ae is a big NO NO. you should use AME for your encoded exports.

Roei Tzoref
After Effects Artist & Instructor
♫ Ae Blues Tutorials

[Tero Ahlfors]

Recompressing compressed footage will look bad. But if you use Quicktime’s H264 it will look superbad. Don’t use it.

[Cole Christine]

Hey guys, thanks for the replies. Any suggestions on how to export a project to “match” the quality and size of the compressed source footage using similar settings?

[Cole Christine]

Hey Roei, thanks for the reply. I’m not familiar with the downsides of exporting H.264 via AE as opposed to AME – any insight for me on this one?

[Kevin Camp]

Essentially AE can’t compress renders using temporal (or inter-frame) compression. It’s a kind of compression that compares many frames to the current frame and ‘removes’ pixels that are similar to save on file size. Most streaming and many acquisition codecs use this kind of compression to use less bandwidth with streaming or recording.

AE can only render using inter-frame compression, which is often very similar to JPEG compression, so a low data-rate/small file size render from AE often results in very blocky/heavily artifacted image quality.

If the original footage was from Final Cut (which would have used Compressor to encode) then the best way to get a matching quality/file size would be to render from AE using ProRes (422, or 422 HQ) and then take that render into Compressor and use the same settings you used for the original footage.

Other compression software, such as AME, MPEG StreamClip, etc. can do a good job too, but if you know the setting used in Compressor, then it will likely be easier — i.e., you won’t need to recreate the settings in a different compression app.

Kevin Camp
Art Director
KCPQ, KZJO & KRCW

[Roei Tzoref]

[Cole Christine] “I’m not familiar with the downsides of exporting H.264 via AE as opposed to AME – any insight for me on this one?”

Yes. read here:
https://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/adobe-media-encoder-h-264-mpeg-2-wmv-after-effects/?segment=dva

watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWzRgxRqUUs

to address what others have suggested
[Tero Ahlfors] “Recompressing compressed footage will look bad. But if you use Quicktime’s H264 it will look superbad. Don’t use it.
“
very true. you are compressing an already compressed footage. every time you compress you lose quality. also Quicktime H264 is and old buggy compressor that still exists in Ae but you should not use it. you files will be much bigger then regular H.264 compression and the quality will be poor. see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUpaoVkMZZc&t=0s

[Dave LaRonde] “I’d like to know HOW you’re rendering H.264 in AE. It hasn’t been available for a couple of versions!
“

this is how:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUpaoVkMZZc&t=0s

Roei Tzoref
After Effects Artist & Instructor
♫ Ae Blues Tutorials

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[Cole Christine]

Hi Dave,

AE 13.8.1.38 apparently still has the option under QuickTime in my output module.

I wasn’t sure if compressing using the same codec and similar bitrate would work like converting music in iTunes (say if you take a 256kbps AAC music file and convert it to a 256kbps AAC file, there’s no noticeable loss to my ear). Would there be some articles you could recommend? I know this must be very basic, but I’d like to have a grasp on it.