Exported Movie looks good in Quicktime, but not in any other Player?

[Darby Edelen]

What resolution is your video? How is it encoded?

Darby Edelen

[Vishesh Arora]

Let me tell you something Adrian.
While rendering use the following settings:
Video output: .MOV
Quality = 100%
Format: Photo-jpeg
This will create high quality videos. and If you want to convert them for Windows Media Player, you can without any loss.
Check my blog: https://digieffects.wordpress.com/

All my videos are in .WMV format as they are of less size and easy to upload. My advice is to use Total Video Converter to convert your videos.

I am a keen learner and am very keen on pursuing a career in the animation industry. My artistic skills are mostly self-
taught. I have a deep knowledge base of Photoshop, Maya, Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Final Cut Pro and Sony Vegas.

[Walter Soyka]

[Vishesh Arora] “While rendering use the following settings:
Video output: .MOV
Quality = 100%
Format: Photo-jpeg
This will create high quality videos. and If you want to convert them for Windows Media Player, you can without any loss. “

Pardon my pedantry, but this is not technically correct. Photo JPEG, even at 100%, is not lossless. You will therefore incur some slight generational loss using Photo JPEG as an intermediate codec. Contrast this with PNG, which is losslessly compressed.

Of course, this isn’t necessary in all circumstances. For more on choosing a suitable output format for your needs, see the Adobe FAQ “What is the best format for rendering and exporting from After Effects?” here [link].

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Vishesh Arora]

Thanks Walter. I will Check PNG compression to compare it with Photo jpeg 🙂

I am a keen learner and am very keen on pursuing a career in the animation industry. My artistic skills are mostly self-
taught. I have a deep knowledge base of Photoshop, Maya, Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Final Cut Pro and Sony Vegas.

[Walter Soyka]

[Vishesh Arora] “Thanks Walter. I will Check PNG compression to compare it with Photo jpeg :)”

You’re welcome.

They will look visually similar, but they are mathematically quite different. Render a comp out to both formats, then re-import them into AE. Layer them above the original comp and use the difference blend mode to see how the PhotoJPEG compression changes the pixels and the PNG compression does not (you may want to bump up the exposure a bit in the viewer to exaggerate the effect). Edge detail in particular is affected by DCT-based compression schemes like PhotoJPEG.

Another benefit of PNG-compressed intermediates is that PNG can optionally carry an alpha channel.

Adrian, sorry for going off-topic!

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Walter Soyka]

[Adrian Navarro] “I Have noticed that the text that I have exported from After Effects were looking jagged in windows media and Kmplayer. At first I thought it was my render settings that were making it look low quality, but then I found that when played in Quicktime the movie look high rez.”

The screen shot shows the same image at different sizes — so it looks like WMP and kmplayer (which I am not familiar with) are scaling the image down, and doing a pretty poor job of it. Do they look better when viewed at 100% (or perhaps an even multiple like 50%)?

[Adrian Navarro] “only problem is that quick time is extremely laggy when I open up my movies. Why is this happening?”

To Darby’s point, this might be expected behavior if you are using a lossless output module.

AE’s default lossless output module generates an intermediate file that is designed for additional post-production use, not direct playback. These files are generally huge, with very high data rates, and very few computers can play them back in real time without stuttering. For more, see this Adobe FAQ [link]: Why is my output file huge, and why doesn’t it play back smoothly in a media player?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Adrian Navarro]

It’s fine you guys went on a side tangent, lol. Anyways Yeah the text looks bad always, regardless the size of KMPlayer or WMP.

[Darby Edelen]

What resolution is your video? How is it encoded?

Darby Edelen