Best export/format/encode settings for PC playback

[Dave Buckley]

Ok

 

So i've asked similar in the past for HD animations. But what about an animation that only needs to be played back only on a desktop PC?

 

answers i'm looking for a 3ds max timeline settings

image sequence export settings (i.e. output size and format)

premiere or afx import settings

encode settings (codecs/formats)

 

cheers guys

 

so far i'm doing

 

15fps

1024x768 tga's at a maximum

import sequence into premiere (i usually then have to tell premiere that the sequence was rendered out at 15fps as for some reason it auto imports sequence and assumes a 30fps frame rate? - what am i doing wrong at this point?

then i get stuck on the encode, i usually just try different things until it looks ok (this isn't very streamlined)

 

cheers for your input in advance

 

also it's not going to be downloadable/streaming, purely a resulting movie file that plays with either quicktime or movie player or similar (i.e. vlc)

[neil poppleton]

Dave,

 

I believe 25 fps is more the standard uk Pal frame rate to use, for animation . I may be wrong but I think the US standard NTSC may use 29 or 30fps.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

With today's more advanced codecs and broadband access I think 15 frames is to low. I would go a min. of 24 with minor motion blur.

[Dave Buckley]

apologies guys I am currently doing 25 (mistyped - which clever guy put the 1 next to the 2 )

 

i just assumed this was for tv playback as 25fps is the standard television playback over here in uk.

 

i did a bit of diggin and it appears i asked this question a long time ago too but it didn't really go very far.

 

i also asked about a hd animation workflow previously and had some very interesting stuff back from nils about using 23.9... frames for the whole motion blur thing

 

i guess i'm just trying to shave some time of the process by finding out what i can get away with and can't

 

i guess i've been using 25fps as a safe option as i've never been too sure of a 'correct' fps for pc playback, if there was one

[Dave Buckley]

Ok so this is the route i decided to take, please let me know if I was wrong.

 

I based my decisions on a past thread I posted here.

 

My major battle was trying to get a good quality .WMV that doesn't require the client to download any third party codecs and will just play in Windows Media Player.

 

Set Max time config to 'Film'

 

Set Output Size as 1280 x 720

 

Exported Image Sequence as 24-bit TGA

 

Create New Project in Premiere with the following settings in red:

 

General

Editing mode: Desktop

Timebase: 23.976 fps

Video Settings

Frame size: 1280h 720v (1.000)

Frame rate: 23.976 frames/second

Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels (1.0)

Fields: Lower Field First

Import Image Sequence as 'Numbered Stills'

 

Dragged sequence onto Premiere Timeline

 

Rendered Work Area in Premiere

 

Export>Movie Quicktime>Uncompressed (i also tried Animation as opposed to uncompressed)

 

Open Canopus Procoder

 

Add Uncompressed Quicktime File

 

Set Target as HD - Windows Media 720p Constrained Preset

 

Hit Convert

 

Voila . . . a perfect looking HD WMV file (i think)

 

To add to this, i also tried using Adobe Media Encoder straight from Premiere, I may not be using it right but could just not get a high quality WMV from it.

 

However, I did manage to get a perfectly good quality H.264 Quicktime 720p from it.

 

I also have a couple of questions with regards to Premiere and Procoder.

 

Premiere - the Quicktime H.264 720p preset has quality set at 50. Why is this? I tried to exports (one preset and one with the preset quality knocked up to 100 and both looked the same)

 

Procoder - is it acceptable in a professional environment to just use the presets? The look good enough to me.

 

Really pleased with the results, my movie looks the same quality as the original uncompressed .tga's.

 

One other thing that was mentioned by Nils and his reasons for using 24fps was motion blur. Would this be multi-pass motion blur added to the camera in 3DS Max or something done in post?

 

I think from now on, all of my max animations will be exported as fully uncompressed quicktimes and then down-resed to the appropriate media format using canopus procoder. It's a nice simple workflow and the results look amazing.

 

Can anyone answer the questions or add/subtract processes in my workflow?