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Rendered file substantially larger than source file
I’m rendering a feature that is 88 minutes in length. The source file is 18.6GB in size. I’m filmlooking the file with Magic Bullet and using some of their look suite settings. The destination disc has 42.6GB of free space. However, when I begin the render I get the message “Warning: Estimated file size exceeds remaining disc space. The file it is creating appears to be around 100 plus Gigs. If that is normal, I’ll just get another drive. But, what is After Effects doing to the file to make it so large. By the way, I attempted rendering without the Magic Bullet settings and got the same warning and file size problem. Any help would be most appreciated. Thanks, Bryon
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9 Replies
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when you render make sure you use the render queue – then select a codec to use. I’d say at the moment you are rendering to uncompressed or animation codec. Much too big for 88 minutes. Maybe you should try to render it to DV. “Normal” DV (DV25) makes one hour about 13Gig (I think).
if none of that makes sense, read these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_codec
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dv
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation_codec
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Choosing your codec isn’t just about disk space. It’s mainly about where you’re going to go with it afterwards, and more importantly what you’re going to do with it afterwards.
If you’re sending it to an editing application that will edit native DV and you’re going to do cuts only (no colour correction, nothing that requires rendering) then you could use the DV codec. Otherwise, don’t do it. You want to avoid rendering through lossy codecs multiple times. DV is highly compressed, so the compression concatenation problems will build up rather quickly.
Choose instead a lossless codec. Marco Solorio has an excellent site with an overview of many codecs here. But if you want a classic 8-bit lossless one, then Animation set to Best is your buddy.
If you’re edit system can’t handle Animation natively, then choose the best quality codec for your system, but compress it as little as possible.
If this means that you have to spend $200 on a new harddrive, it’s worth the expense. :o)
HTH
Ben
Curious Turtle Professional Video
Training | Editing |Support -
Our distributor wants a master. So, quality is of most importance. He wants a master a dvd copy for preview. I’m assuming “master” means for it to be on tape (we’re trying to figure out how to put 88 mimutes on one dv tape also). The codec info helps a lot. I’ll start trying to find the proper codec. Thanks
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[enigmanuma] “I’m assuming “master” means for it to be on tape”
Never, ever assume. Ask this person exactly what he wants. He may want a DLT tape. If so, you should write to the DVD forum to find out more about that. At any rate, ask him if he wants a disk, or a tape, which format, and what he plans on doing with it, and/or where he plans to send it. If he’s not technical, find the technical person and insist on speaking to that person directly.
Some people are just account people and may steer you wrong or have incomplete specs.
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He says he wants a DVCam or Betacam SP NTSC master of the movie. He plans to encode it himself to keep the quality level.
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[enigmanuma] “a DVCam or Betacam SP NTSC master of the movie.”
Well, if that’s what he wants… although it’d be difficult to put an 88 min. project onto a DVCam tape…
In terms of quality, chances are you’ll lose a lot of it when using DVCam or even BetaSP as a master… Normally I’d bring an uncompressed video file to a transferhouse and have them play it out to DigiBeta… but if the client wants DV…
Bar3nd
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Well, for DVCAM, you have to render to the DV codec, then play the file (“print to tape”) out of an NLE such as Final Cut Pro, Premiere, or Avid, to a DVCAM deck.
For Beta SP, you have to render to a codec that works with a hardware I/O card that can connect to a Beta SP deck. If the card is on an Avid system, then you render to Animation, or the Avid Meridien codec. Ask your Avid person. If the card is a Decklink card, then you render to the Blackmagic Decklink codec. If the card is Media 100, you render to Motion-JPEG A or B.
Does that help?
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Yes … it doesn’t sound like the client knows how to get the best quality. Depending on your relationship, you may want to send an e-mail (so you’re on record) recommending an approach like Barend’s, just in case they blame you for an ugly product down the line.
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Guys, thanks for all your help. I’m in the Midwest and he is in New York, so I’ll give it to him with his specs. But, I’m still not sure how to send it to him on tape with 88 minutes worth of footage. I guess it could be broken into two segments, sort of movie intermission style. I’ll let him know of quality loss. Thanks again, Bryon
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