Monty Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 Hi I have serious problems making a good quality mpeg video. I rendered jpeg sequence in 3ds max, took them to after effects rendered the after effects composition as an avi with indeo video5.10 without specifying any data rate. Finally I converted the avi to mpeg1 using Ulead VideoStudio 4.0. The quality is poor. Can anyone suggest me an alternative or improvisation. Thanks, Monty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 i dont have any post editing video proggies like Premier, so what i do is render my jpg sequence in max or C4D, then render those jpgs back out as a backround sequence through max or C4D again saving the anim as either a high quality MOV or DivX animation. the DivX anim is the same as an MPEG animation except for the file format basically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 I rendered jpeg sequence in 3ds max Well, ther's your first problem--do not render out jpeg images, they are compressed. Then you are re-compressing them to Indeo, then again. Render TIFF. I think After Effects can render straight to MPEG. I have it, but only used it on one project, I usually use Premiere, which can write Mpeg. But there are a lot of settings to get right. Try Windows Media format, it has basically no settings but usually looks good. Otherwise, spend some time to learn how to tweek the quality settings through AE. It takes time, I'm still learning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 .....as an avi with indeo video5.10 without specifying any data rate. ....not only is jpeg a compression format, but so is indeo video. 5.10. so you are compressing the video 3 times, when ideally, you should onyl compress once. try writing an uncompressed avi, then compressing it to mpeg. the uncompressed avi will be huge in file size so remember to delete it when you are done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joosti Ink Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 It is best to render all your frames for the animation in TGA. This is the best format to do this, it also supports alpha layers, wich any video editing software supports. For makeing MPEG of this sequence I can recoment http://www.TMPGEnc.net it's a free tool and does all you need. Bart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 Monty - the trick is to render the anim DIRECTLY after the sequence has been rendered. that way compression is kept to an absolute minimum. and in my experience rendering the initial sequence out as jpg's is absolutely fine as long as you render them to 100% quality. i defy anybody to tell the difference between a tiff over a jpg, other than the massive file size difference. specially rendering out for animations, at that small size you'd nver even come close to telling the difference. i render all my anim sequences as jpgs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 ...and in my experience rendering the initial sequence out as jpg's is absolutely fine as long as you render them to 100% quality. i defy anybody to tell the difference between a tiff over a jpg, other than the massive file size difference. specially rendering out for animations, at that small size you'd nver even come close to telling the difference. i render all my anim sequences as jpgs i do the same, except when i need alpha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 i do the same, except when i need alpha. absolutely, me too. it would be nice if the guys who invented jpg would release a alpha version too one day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joosti Ink Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 What is against TGA? Its the cleanest format before your compression to MPEG or any other codec/format. JPEG DOES compression before you really need it. Ok, filesize could be a reason, but if diskspace is no problem I see no advantage. Afer you have your final ani, you delete the tga sequence anyway. Well, that's the way I do it. bart.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 i defy anybody to tell the difference between a tiff over a jpg, other than the massive file size difference. Post one of each, and we'll see... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 also processing / handling / rendering of a pre-rendered jpg sequence is much faster than a tiff/tga sequence. it's up to you, it doesnt make any difference really what you use, and it's pointless arguing the toss because it really is unimportant, but imo a high quality jpg is totally indistinguishable from a tiff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 In general terms, I think Strat is right. It usually doenst matter. Certain gradient conditions and feathering of colour/shadow will be revealed with jpg....sometimes. Bottom line is, if you have the disk space use tiff - its as good as it gets. Well, until you render out to layered PSDs or AE files I reccomend the original poster spend $30 on QuickTime Pro. It will allow him to quickly and simply open an image sequence and export to multiple file types (no DiVX yet) with full control. It will even allow simple editing and filtering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joosti Ink Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 VirtualDub and TMPGEnc do the same trick, very straightforward and easy to use. VDub also can handle ANY Codec except .MPEG (thats where you need TMPGEnc) and .mov Both are quick and free. I think anyone uses their own thing he likes the most and that is fine of course. But I know all the obstacles I had to get a clean and smooth ani. So I hope to help a little this way and point out a few directions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jucaro Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 ... but imo a high quality jpg is totally indistinguishable from a tiff. I'd beg to differ. Monty: Render your sequence in either TIFF or TARGA, then in your Video compositing software, use an uncompressed AVI video format or DV format if you plan to convert/compress it for later. (i'm wondering why you're converting it twice) Regarding your data rate, 3600 is sufficient if you plan to have your videos playback directly on CDROM. But with today's computers, 4000 - 8000 data rate is quite ok. But then again, it really depends on your target media. DVD format is the way to go. Cinepack is quite OK, but IMO, DivX is way better in terms of quality. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 Afer you have your final ani, you delete the tga sequence anyway. when i archive animations i save the frame sequence in jpeg format, and i save the copressed video. the frame sequence is saved in jpeg format, which i can typically fit on 3 cd's when they are compressed at 100%. yes, they are slightly lossy, but i don't know if i will ever need them again. i don't bother saving the uncompressed avi. it is typically around 5 gigs making it hard to archive unless you have a tape drive or dvd burner. the targa or tiff files willbe about 5 gigs total also. ...less if you use lzw compression (lossless) on the tiff's. why is it important to save a uncompressed copy of your animation (be it avi or images).... what if they release some crazy video format next year that is 1/10th the size of divx?? ...or what if you have it compressed as a quicktime, and apple goes under?? ....or windows media? ....or divx?? ...anyway, you get the idea. better safe than sorry. i used to only work with tiffs. for textures, for renderings, for sequenced images. i was constantly out of hard drive space, and having to wait for files to copy. now i only use jpeg. this topic sparked more responses than i would have expected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 absolutely, me too. it would be nice if the guys who invented jpg would release a alpha version too one day whatever happened to jpeg2000? ...it was supposed to have lossless option with multiple alphas, and a small file size. ...or maybe try ping (png) format. nto quite as small as jpeg, but supports alpha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 An issue I have been fighting with animation is aspect ratio of different output formats. I don't know what I'm doing, I guess. I'm rendering out, usually, 720 x 480 images, NTXC-DVD widescreen 16:9. But the rendering software produces square pixels. No problem, I tell Premiere the project is sq. pixels. But when I output certain formats it either gets forced back to 4:3, or does 16:9 but with an assumption of a 1.2:1 pixel, so the result is about 843 x 480. That is what happened with the clip I just posted as a WIP--it looks pretty good, but the pixel count is wrong. Hummm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eagle Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 TMPGEnc is definitely the best tool to compress your video to MPEG1 or MPEG2(dvd), very fast, and the quality is much better than the mpeg compressor premiere has. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted June 10, 2004 Share Posted June 10, 2004 An issue I have been fighting with animation is aspect ratio of different output formats. I don't know what I'm doing, I guess. I'm rendering out, usually, 720 x 480 images, NTXC-DVD widescreen 16:9. But the rendering software produces square pixels. No problem, I tell Premiere the project is sq. pixels. But when I output certain formats it either gets forced back to 4:3, or does 16:9 but with an assumption of a 1.2:1 pixel, so the result is about 843 x 480. That is what happened with the clip I just posted as a WIP--it looks pretty good, but the pixel count is wrong. Hummm.i'm not much help here. i always do 720x540 with square pixels, with the understanding that i can later switch to a .9 pixel aspect ratio to get 720x486. i really don't undeerstand everything that goes on with that, but back when we used to go to beta tape for a master, the guy always told me to render at 720x540, and he would take car of the rest. ...but anyway, as for your animation being forced into certain ratios. certain codecs only support certain ratios. i don't have a list of them, but there is not much you can do about it besides inserting a black bar above and below your footage so that your resolution is the same as what the codec is going to spit out. actaully, i am not sure if anythign i just wrote is helpful. i just close my eyes and do it, and it seems to work ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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