Quicktime vs AVI

[Steve Roberts]

“Quicktime” and “AVI” are very general terms, like “Ford” and “Chevy”.
For example, are you comparing a Corvette and a Windstar?

Or, more to the poit, are you comparing DV-AVI and Quicktime Animation codec?
What are the data rates of the two files?

We need to know which AVI codec and which Quicktime codec was used to render the two movies. For example, the Quicktime “Animation” codec has a high data rate, and attempting to play it back on a hard drive may lead to skipping because its data rate is too high for the drive to play back. That codec is not designed for delivery (playback), but as an intermediate codec, for passing movies between applications with minimal quality loss … before eventual compression to a lower-data-rate codec such as Photo-JPEG, MPEG-2, or Sorenson.

[Anthony Thomas]

The Quicktime is Animation and I am giving it the no compression option. The AVI is the standard codec that comes with After Effects, I would think the DVI version. Are you saying that the Quicktime codec clip would be better for Premiere Pro and then to DVD than the AVI but just doesn’t play very well on the Quicktime Player?

TONY T

[Steve Roberts]

Hmm …

– for DVD authoring, you should first render your graphics to a high quality codec such as Animation or AVI uncompressed, then compress that to MPEG-2 for DVD Authoring (use Anim for DVD StuPro, use AVI for EncoreDVD). You must compress to MPEG-2 for DVD, and it’s best to start with a high quality file before you do that.
– DV is not a very good codec, but if you shot DV, and you’re editing DV, you might as well stay there, then compress that to MPEG-2.
– By the way, taking DV footage and compressing it to Animation won’t make it look better, it will just keep it as is.
– “none” compression gives much bigger files with no appreciable quality gain over the Animation codec, especially the Animation codec at 100% quality. Don’t use the “none” compression option.
– If you’re starting from scratch, render to the Animation codec if you expect to go straight to MPEG-2 then DVD from there.
– If you’re starting from scratch, then mating the rendered graphics with DV material in Premiere pro, you might as well render the graphics to the DV codec so the graphics will mate with the DV material in PP. I’m guessing that PP would render to DV in the timeline anyway.

Does that help?

[Anthony Thomas]

Yes, thanks. Fortunately I am doing animation and am not shooting film to mix with it. Just Aftereffects, photoshop and illustrator source. I chose Premiere Pro since I will need a multitrack video editor. But this should help. Thanks.

TONY T

[Michiel]

first of all, Quicktime and Avi are just “containers” as such, with the ability to contain video footage compressed with different codecs at different data rates.
If you’re on a pc you’ll probably want to stick to using .avi (unless you have to move the files to a mac) and if you’re on a mac you have no choice other than using quicktime. Both formats can use the same codecs though. So it’s not a question of whether the avi or the quicktime is better for a specific task, it’s the codec that matters. You can make avi’s with the animation codec as well. That is a very common option for moving files between After Effects and an editor like Premiere because the image doesn’t lose quality. At the very end of your production you can then compress it to a lower quality format for playback on DV tape (dv codec), DVD (mpeg 2 codec) or internet (various possible codecs like sorenson or H.264)