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MOV to AVI tips
hey so i have a few 30 minute projects that are being sent to a mixer for audio work. He has requested an omf and a small AVI video to do his job… getting him an avi has been a huge issue for me as i cant seem to get it right. currently my workflow has been to export a quicktime ref movie and then put that into mpeg streamclip and export to avi using the apple cinepak codec… this gives me a huge file of like 800 mb which pretty crappy video quality… this is really frustrating because im sure i could get the same quality in an h264 and keep it around 100mb… anyone have any tips on a better avi workflow?? are their better codecs to be using??? any help would be greatly appreciated , ive tried looking in the forums for past avi issues but had trouble finding a solution…
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4 Replies
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AVI is a sort of a dormant format. It’s still used extensively on Windows but typically with systems that use proprietary codecs like Avid, Matrox and Blackmagic. There’s very little development of new codecs for it.
If you have a Windows computer, you could try regular old DV. It’s only 2.5MB/sec if it’s video only and 3.5MB/sec with both video and audio, but it would still be huge, something like 6GB.
There is a Matrox I-frame MPEG2 codec for Windows that uses the AVI container that can get your file down to around 40MB per minute or roughly 1.2GB for a 30 minute show. It would look as good as anything you output to DVD. The problem is if your audio guy doesn’t have the codec, he won’t be able to play the file.
I don’t think any of those will work or be of any use on a Mac though.
Here’s a page with a ton of AVI codecs (many for download), but likely all for use on a Windows computer.
Be aware that many of the codecs and links are old, and most of the codecs are proprietary and buggy. You’re audio guy would likely have to install the codec to play the file as well.
Here’s another direct link to the Matrox I-Frame codec:
https://depositfiles.com/en/files/a582e20jl
Hit the “free download” button. You’ll have to wait for about a minute to download. It’s a good codec and works nicely and gets files down quite small. Again, this would only work on a Windows computer.
Last, why not ask the audio guy what most people give him in terms of the AVI codec? Plus, ask if he can take other formats
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
If your Windows audio guy has quicktime on his computer you can encode out of MPEG Streamclip to AVI with Photo JPEG compression at about 50%. That ought to shrink the file size down.
Another option might be to make a Windows Media file with Flip 4 Mac and let him convert it to AVI on his system.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com -
One problem we’ve experienced with MPEG Streamclip is it doesn’t produce playable AVI files with every codec it offers. I know we’ve tried the PhotoJPEG codec before and the resulting file wouldn’t play on any media players on Windows.
But that’s certainly worth a try to get the file size smaller. I’d do a short sample of about a minute and email it to the audio guy though to make sure he can open it.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog -
If it didn’t play on any PC computers then those computers did not have Quicktime loaded, and it might require QT Pro…just not sure.
My test…if Windows Media Encoder can accept it for encoding, most everything else will too.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com
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