Motion Graphics File Formats

[Alex Udell]

What is your destination for the media?

[Spencer Sternberg]

Probably mpeg1 or 2 played through a computer onto a medium sized presentation presentation projector. Its strange when I encode as an flv or other forms of compression it seems to render it out better. Is it because AVI there is no compression? Or I’m just not sure if the images I am using are the wrong format for motion graphics, that is gifs and jpegs.

Spencer Sternberg
Music Composer
SpencerSternberg.com
Royalty Free Music Library

[Alex Udell]

Hi Spencer…

If you know your destination format…MPEG 1 or 2…why are you rendering to an intermediate format?

Is this an element intended to be layered on some other element in another application.

Certainly wouldn’t recommend GIF for anything.

Also…AVI is a media container…within AVI there are a number of codec options….

so let’s talk about what you’re building in PPro, how you want to use it, then we can help you pick a format.

What resolution Premiere Project are you working in DV, HD, custom?

Alex

[Spencer Sternberg]

I was exporting to AVI as I had alot of layers, and I wanted to re-import it later so that I could add subtitles and actually join some other edited parts (that had video).

My project is in D1/DV PAL Widescreen 16:9 (720×576). There is actually no video files in this piece. Just images, so I was wondering what are the best (or standard files) for motion images/graphics (the proper term I am unsure of).

On looking at the project, I can now see most of my images are GIFs, ouch! I’m happy with these images however. Can I convert them to another format that will animate better?

Spencer Sternberg
Music Composer
SpencerSternberg.com
Royalty Free Music Library

[Alex Udell]

Hi Spencer…

If what you are saying is that you GIF’s look OK in PPro and they animate in PPro ok, but you need to export them in a way that use as elements in PPro later, then really your choice for these “intermediate clips” is DV…because this will offer the compatibility with PPro that you can easily intyeract with and playback…the method of export is different between CS3 and CS4…but if you are able to get to AVI, then you can choose the Microsoft DV AVI as the codec.

I would note that the DV codec isn’t always the friendliest to graphics….An alternative might be to choose “uncompressed” from the AVI codecs…the problem with this is that these files are bigger in data size and require a bit more umph from you disk drive to play back during subsequent editing….but as a intermediate to use on your timeline, should hold up in terms of quality until you output your final MPEG file.

IF you have the option, remember that Sequences, even multi-layer sequences can be used “clips.” You simply take the sequence icon from the Project panel and lay it on the track of another sequence…

This let’s you leave then “unrendered” until the last “output” phase of your project.

You might consider this to try to preserve the quality as much as possible….

How’s that?

Alex

[Spencer Sternberg]

Hi Alex, thanks a lot for your detailed replies. I think in my case, the first option you suggested has worked out well. I exported the timeline (as a way of combining all my layers cause I had a lot) and then created a new sequence so that I could more easily and quickly add the subtitle files in (I needed to hard code then in). Its so much easier to navigate through the video file when it has been bounced down to one avi file, but yes you’re right, it makes the overall file size of a project much more!

I just have to say, your second option is an interesting one and one I’ve never heard of before. So thanks for passing that on, and next project I’ll try it out, I never knew one could do that in projects.

Thanks again

Spencer Sternberg
Music Composer
SpencerSternberg.com
Royalty Free Music Library