After effects

[enc]

been experimenting with the warp stabilizer in after effects.

a rendered 12 second avi clip is 4GB

same clip rendered as avchd is around 20MB but quality is far from usable

was wondering what format is a good compromise between size and quality

[Midnight Blue]

Good quetion, what options do you have in AE. I've never used it.

[david walsh]

AVI is just the container, if you change the codec you can get a wide range of quality/file size ratio's in an AVI container, as with any other container. It sounds like your exporting a lossless or more likely fully uncompressed video codec, which After Effects does by default, so it would make sense.

If you want to keep a really high quality the QT Animation codec is great but perhaps still overkill. The file sizes will still be big, but not as big. If you want to keep the quality high, keep to an intra-frame codec for workability, and lower the file sizes dramatically the Avid DNxHD codecs are great, can be downloaded for free from the Avid website and are recognised by After Effects. But you'd need to check if what you are then using to edit it with will recognise them.

David.

[enc]

AVI is just the container, if you change the codec you can get a wide range of quality/file size ratio's in an AVI container, as with any other container. It sounds like your exporting a lossless or more likely fully uncompressed video codec, which After Effects does by default, so it would make sense.

If you want to keep a really high quality the QT Animation codec is great but perhaps still overkill. The file sizes will still be big, but not as big. David.

yes they were lossless avi. ill give the QT animation codec a try.

thanks david.

[david walsh]

Mpeg 2 is a Long GOP codec originally designed for output, a lot of the information is missing (removed) from most of the frames, the missing information is replaced by referencing other frames. To do this your processor has to work much harder to process your work. Your better with an intra-frame codec such as the Avid codecs mentioned above, or the QT Animation codec if you don't mind the large fine sizes.

David.