h264 in ae
by victor tarre
on
Jun 4, 2008 at 8:08:29 pm
hello all,
im wondering if anyone has a solution to my rendering problem in ae. im trying to render out a h264 compressed animation on a comp that is 1280/1024 px.
i cant seem to get my head around this, i cant change it to this size in the h264 window to match the same dimensions as the output.
why is it like this, any help or speculation is most appreciated.
Re: h264 in ae by Dave LaRonde on Jun 5, 2008 at 3:02:53 pm
[victor tarre]"im trying to render out a h264 compressed animation on a comp that is 1280/1024 px. "
1024? That's a darned weird vertical dimension for a comp.
What kind of footage did you import into AE? What are the dimensions of that imported footage when you highlight it in AE's project window? And why is your rendered AE animation required to be 1280/1024, anyway?
In other words, we need a bunch more information about where your source footage came from and where your AE animation is going before we can give you any kind of straight answer.
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA
Re: h264 in ae by victor tarre on Jun 5, 2008 at 3:28:28 pm
hey,
cant see why the size of my comp has anything to do with h264 codec. i need to render out these dimensions, as simple as that.
the footage is an uncompressed .mov from c4d with an alpha.
Re: h264 in ae by Dylan Kimbrell on Jun 5, 2008 at 4:01:15 pm
I also have better luck rendering out uncompressed from AE and then doing my H264 compression through Quicktime. This may also be helpful for you to troubleshoot your problem. If you export uncompressed and the pixel aspect ratio is still off then you know it's a problem with your AE render, but if it looks fine then it's an issue with your H264 compression settings. Plus Quicktime makes prettier H264 videos.
Re: h264 in ae by Todd Morgan on Jun 5, 2008 at 3:54:01 pm
again, as Dave asked, please provide more info... what is your comp size? what is your output size? are you rendering or exporting? is your render setting set to best? half? draft? more info please...
Todd Morgan
Creative Director
morgancreative
www.morgancreative.ca
Re: h264 in ae by Dave LaRonde on Jun 5, 2008 at 8:02:20 pm
[victor tarre]"...cant see why the size of my comp has anything to do with h264 codec. i need to render out these dimensions, as simple as that.
the footage is an uncompressed .mov from c4d with an alpha. "
Well, if you'd told us this information upfront, we could have immediately eliminated the possibility that you had screwed up interpreting some HDV footage in AE. Instead, we had to spend time guessing.
It now becomes a no-brainer: just drop you C4D footage on the Make Comp icon at the bottom of the project window. AE responds by making a comp in the same size as the footage you just added. Depending on the amount of footage you're using, you may have to change the comp duration.
If the aspect ratio of your initial render didn't match your expectations, it might have been due to you selecting one of AE's comp presets, one that used a pixel aspect ratio other than 1 (square). Following the procedure above eliminates that possibility.
Render (using AE's Render Queue, not exporting) using a high-quality codec, like Quicktime's Animation codec set to best quality. A plus with using Animation: it supports Alpha channels, if you need that capability in the future.
Then, as mentioned elsewhere, use Quicktime to convert your Animation-codec movie to H.264. Got other compression software, like Sorenson Squeeze? Even better!
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA
