MPEG 2 renders are white w/choppy sound!

[Kelly Johnson]

Thanks. Who mentioned Encore? Who mentioned doing Mpeg2 for dvd?

Those specs I put in the message were copied and pasted from their spec-sheet and is what our outsource guy has been providing. It’s MPEG2 for broadcast, a different animal than MEPG2 for dvd… like pecan versus apple pie… both are pies, but both are different.

Almost every spot we’ve done is really edited in After Effects with only basic stuff done in FCP, at least that’s what he told us and judging by the files we got from him, that’s at least his workflow.

Then again, when doing spots for BMW, Chevy and Ford, there is more eye candy needed for pop rather than storytelling but FCP is definitely the main baby.

Anyway, I’m just wondering why video isn’t showing up at all in the render and why the audio is screwed. That’s why I posted here in After Effects but provided all the other info just for background.

[Steve Roberts]

Well, usually white video means QT can’t read the codec. Which codec are we talking about again? Rendered from AE?

[Kelly Johnson]

The file source is a QuickTime with Animation compression.

It is interlaced when playing in the QT player (the source file) but it doesn’t show up at all when rendered.

Within the AE environment, it plays in RAM Preview, scrubbing etc and other renders work fine.. it’s just when we tried all the MPEG2 settings, it doesn’t show.

We probably will get the software but I want to know why the render from AE isn’t showing when in the working AE file, all does?

[Kevin Camp]

you are rendering from ae straight to mpeg-2, right? not through quicktime, as mpeg-2…?

if you tried to render as qt, and try to find mpeg-2 in the qt options, it’s not there, right?

this means you haven’t purchased the mpeg-2 codec for quicktime… i think it is $20 from the apple store… i’m not sure if it is included in qt pro, but i don’t think it is.

if you install that codec, you will be able to preview your mpeg-2s in quicktime.

rendering to mpeg-2 from ae will not produce the best mpeg-2s. you can only choose 1 pass vbr, and the highest bitrate is 15mbps (just under your requirement). if you get episode pro, you will get better encoding, plus it will most likely render/transcode much faster than rendering in ae, and the workflow will be better (drag and drop, batch converting, etc…). you’ll get these done faster…

now, if you purchase the mpeg-2 codc for qt, you may be able to create these with compressor… i don’t know what kinds of settings can be manipulated in the qt mpeg-2, at $20, i might buy it just to see.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

it looks like the mpeg-2 codec for qt is just a decoder, so you won’t be able to encode using qt (or any software that use qt to encode to qt components). there was also a post saying that there was a 4gb file size limit, so any files larger than 4gb cannot be played back.

you can, however, use the mpeg-2 component and qt pro to convert mpeg-2 content to another format (but i don’t believe that is much help to you)…

but qt with the mpeg-2 component will allow you to view the mpeg-2s that you are creating (as long as they are smaller than 4gb), and it is only $19 at the apple store.

you can see the specs here:
https://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=7E4F2D7D&nplm=D2187Z/A#overview

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kelly Johnson]

thanks.. I downloaded the free VLC media player and it plays fine and in the end, turned out great.

Thanks so much.