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What video codecs are recommended for PC-based animations?
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What video codecs are recommended for PC-based animations? // Archive: Tech Forum
Post by ssutherland // Jul 27, 2006, 2:44pm
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ssutherland
Total Posts: 16
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It has been a while since I rendered animations, and most of my experience was with Imagine on an Amiga. I know that there are a lot of video codecs out there (DivX, Sorenson, etc.). Does anyone have experience with these and can recommend pros and cons? I will be playing the animations on the PC and may record to DVD.
Thanks,
Scott |
Post by TomG // Jul 27, 2006, 3:33pm
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Always render to stills from tS and compile into video later.
Sorry, I always have to say that when animation comes up as it's a good tip :)
Anyway, quick answers as to what I use personally
XVid : Gives great quality and small file size. I find it a little more stable that DivX. However, not everyone has this (or DivX) installed, so depends on whether your viewing audience wants to have to go and download a codec or not (or if they would know how even)
MPG : Pretty much plays on anything. Quality is ok, file size is small (but at the expense of quality). Will stream from the web, so no need to wait for a complete download before you can play it.
Cinepak : As far as I know this codec is everywhere on every PC hehe. I dont rate the quality or file size myself, but it is fairly safe as a standard.
Not sure about writing to DVD, if you want a DVD player to be able to play the movie. That may need special codecs as DVD players can't go downloading new codecs etc like you can for watching on a computer. I believe the MPG formats are standard there. Maybe someone else who knows more can add to that.
HTH!
Tom |
Post by TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb // Jul 27, 2006, 3:40pm
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TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb
Total Posts: 858
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DVD uses MPEG-2 for the video. |
Post by frank // Jul 27, 2006, 3:51pm
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frank
Total Posts: 709
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I'll agree with Tom 100% about rendering to still frames.
I'd say also to use a lossless format. ...and you don't have to use BMP/Bitmap, which records each and every pixel (thus giving a huge file), you could use TGA/Targa with RLE (run-length encoding). This is a lossless compression in that it simply looks for a run/row of pixels and records that pixel color, and how many times it occurs. You wind up with a nice, compact file with NO loss in quality. From here, you can bring them into Adobe Premiere, Vegas, After Effects, etc for compositing and rendering to your delivery format (compressed AVI or MPEG 2 for DVD, as TheWitch mentioned).
Ideally, you want the best possible frames up front, and then you add the compression later in another application.
Also, you may want to render to a larger frame size than necessary, just in case. For instance, if you plan to do mainly web-delivery but think you may take it to DVD, then go ahead and render 720x480 (if you're in NTSC-land like me). You can always downsize that for web video, but you'll have the broadcast quality frames as well.
As far as specific codecs for web, DivX AVI is pretty popular. Also you have MOV/QuickTime and WMV/Windows Media. Another thing some folks do is convert their sequences into a flash animation. You don't gain much here in filesize as you are using rasterized images as opposed to vectors (where flash really shines in delivering quality with low file size) but you'll have it in a format that is very widely used.
Hope this helps! |
Post by ssutherland // Jul 27, 2006, 5:37pm
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ssutherland
Total Posts: 16
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A follow on question. I used to render frames on the Amiga and then post-process them into animations as you describe. However, there was an AREXX script-based program (REXX for PC'ers) called Rend24 (another called DAAM) that I could run before rendering that would automate the process.
What these programs did is to ask you to select the source directory, the base filename, the type of extension (say BallBounce001.jpg, so you would enter BallBounce as the base name, 001 to show each file used 3 numbers, and the file type as jpg). In another portion of the program UI you entered the destination directory, filename, and type of end file (mpeg, avi, etc.). It also allowed you to delete frames when it was done with them. In my Amiga days I had limited HD space so this was very useful.
Once done, you started the program. It would sit in the background and look for frames to appear in the directory as Imagine finished them and saved the frames. It would grab the frame and add it to the compressed animation file and wait for the next frame. I could go away and come back to a completed animation.
Does such a tool exist for Windows-based PC's, or am I better off with Premier or a similar program?
Thanks,
Scott |
Post by TomG // Jul 27, 2006, 6:37pm
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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There are a lot out there that do just that.
You could in fact use tS itself if you wanted - create a plane, paint it with an animated texture, create some keyframe for the end of your animation (maybe a cube off screen for instance, which you move at the keyframe at the end of your movie), and then set the viewport and zoom in so the plane fills the viewport, and render to an AVI or desired format.
Not recommended, but free and possible :)
You could also try programs like here:
http://www.gromada.com/
VideoMach does just this sort of thing and has been popular with tS users for some time. You just select the first still image, tell it output file name, and then set up your audio and video and the codecs and codec settings for each, and leave it to it :)
A web search will likely turn up a ton of others.
HTH!
Tom |
Post by Alien // Jul 30, 2006, 6:45am
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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A lot of DVD players can play DivX/Xvid these days. I have 2, 1 only plays DVD, audio CD, or MP3 [Sony DVP-NC615], but the picture quality of DVDs is quite nice, the other is a cheaper/more recent 1 [Yamada DVX-6600] that plays DVD, audio CD, DivX/Xvid, & MP3. Strangely the cheaper 1 makes DivX/Xvid video look quite nice, but it's DVD playback is rather poor quality, especially compared to the Sony.
<edit>
as for playback on PC, I prefer Xvid, though it's trickier to get the balance between filesize & quality right with Xvid than it is with DivX. As for Quicktime - ugh! I hate proprietry formats, thank goodness for Quicktime Alternative so I don't have to use Apple's player.
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Post by hemulin // Jul 30, 2006, 8:10am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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but it's DVD playback is rather poor quality, especially compared to the Sony.Aaah, you can't beat a brand like sony (well vary rarely) |
Post by Alien // Jul 30, 2006, 8:43am
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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Aaah, you can't beat a brand like sony (well vary rarely)
Yeah, it is nice [it's also 1 of the few 5-disc-changers that've been made (for DVDs, plenty of multi-CD changers around)]. Unfortunately what it has in terms of quality, it loses in terms of playback features, not being able to do DivX/Xvid, & it won't play mp3s from a DVD either, only from a CD. :( |
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