H.264 isn’t in the Format box

[Darby Edelen]

[Daniel Dreier] “Is that a CS3 only thing? I have After Effects 7.”

It may be, sorry to get your hopes up like that and then dash them =)

[Daniel Dreier] “Also, what are some suggestions as to free third-party programs for converting to H.264.”

I’m not personally aware of any free ones, I always use Compressor to make my H.264s which comes with Final Cut Studio. An alternative might be to upgrade to QT Pro which will allow you to export a video out to any codec QT supports, but the quality and options are not as good as might be desired.

Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[Daniel Dreier]

That’s alright, I found that exporting (Oh-no!) to QuickTime > H.264 works, and it looks fine to me (I’m putting it on the web anyways).

Thanks!

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

h.264 is a codec, not a format. You need a container file format (such as AVI or Quicktime) to contain the codec. My suggestion is always this: render in a lossless format and codec (Quicktime with Animation compression for example) and then use a compression program (like Sorenson Squeeze or Compressor) to conver the video to the compressed (lossy) format/codec you intend to use for the web.

Aharon Rabinowitz
Email: arabinowitz (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
All Bets Are Off Productions, Inc.
Creative Cow After Effect Podcast
Internet Killed the Video Star: A Guide to Creating Video for the Web

[Darby Edelen]

[Aharon Rabinowitz] “h.264 is a codec, not a format. You need a container file format (such as AVI or Quicktime) to contain the codec. My suggestion is always this: render in a lossless format and codec (Quicktime with Animation compression for example) and then use a compression program (like Sorenson Squeeze or Compressor) to conver the video to the compressed (lossy) format/codec you intend to use for the web.”

Aharon, how did NAB go? I see you’re back and still (relatively) sane =)

I agree with your workflow, it’s always better to have a lossless file. However in AE CS3 Adobe specifically recommends that you not render to a QuickTime container for the H.264 codec, but instead use the H.264 or H.264 Blu-Ray ‘Format’ in the Output Module.

QuickTime’s H.264 encoder isn’t as snazzy as Adobe’s (which supports higher profiles and other cool stuff). I believe Adobe refers to it as a format simply because that’s the title of the drop-down menu where you would select “QuickTime” or “H.264” or “H.264 Blu-Ray.”

Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

[Darby Edelen] “Aharon, how did NAB go? I see you’re back and still (relatively) sane =)”

Ha! Sanity, as you say, is relative.

Yeah – Hardest conference I have ever worked – but really good. I got to meet a lot of the AE Community, and of course to see many of the leaders and contributors to the knowledge base of AE (including yourself). All around good stuff.

Continuing your statements… Looking over those “Formats” you can see that they are actually the MP4 or M4V container file formats – using the H.264 codec (and the term “The” is dicey, since there is way more than a single h.264 codec implementation – for example, some play on an ipod, and others don’t.)

Aharon Rabinowitz
Email: arabinowitz (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
All Bets Are Off Productions, Inc.
Creative Cow After Effect Podcast
Internet Killed the Video Star: A Guide to Creating Video for the Web

[Darby Edelen]

[Aharon Rabinowitz] “using the H.264 codec (and the term “The” is dicey, since there is way more than a single h.264 codec implementation – for example, some play on an ipod, and others don’t.)”

I’m guessing the iPod probably doesn’t allow for use of High Profile streams. There are a lot of different flavors of H.264. Actually, looking at Apple’s tech specs it looks like the iPod only supports Baseline Profile streams:

H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats;

Basically all I was saying is that Adobe constantly refers to the H.264 ‘format’ and I believe they do this only because you can select H.264 from the “Format” drop down in AE and they’re trying to be consistent. I agree that the use of the term format is inconsistent and confusing.

Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

It sucks because there are some nice H.264 codecs out there – such as the new Main Concept codec. Hopefully Apple will open this up in the future with software upgrades.

Aharon Rabinowitz
Email: arabinowitz (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
All Bets Are Off Productions, Inc.
Creative Cow After Effect Podcast
Internet Killed the Video Star: A Guide to Creating Video for the Web