Best (h.264) settings for presentation on FullHD-TV

Hey guys,

I'm about to finnish my university university project and I'm not sure about my last steps.
I'm going to make the presentation on a FullHD-TV with around 50".
Using VLC, Media Player or Quicktime (Fullscreen Mode). The platform will be a standart PC with average Hardware. Therefore the result must be smoothly "playable".

What I got:
- CS5 Master Collection on a Win7(64-Bit) PC
- An After Effects Animation in 720p (8-Bit project)
- It's completley animated (out of PSD-Files)
- 3D-rooms, high-detailed Textures, Light-FX...etc.
- Almost no real Video-Footage (only about 5%)

For imagination: http://vimeo.com/3792171
This is NOT my video. But mine is similar but has more details.

My main procedure will be:
- rendering out as uncompressed TIFF-Sequence
- synchronize it in Premiere and add it to the Media Encoder queue
- render it in h.264

I did this and it worked so far. Just got some bandering problems in dark places where light is wiggling.
But I'm sure that there will be a way the raise the quality. And I also realized (but too late) that I'm going to present it on a FullHD TV... so the 720p file will be fitted at least to fullscreen.
Why not changing all to 1080p?

So... right now I'm not sure what to do.
1. should I take the uncompressed 720p TIFF-sequence and render it out as h.254 1080p?

or

2. should I render the original 720p project into an uncompressed 1080p TIFF-sequence and than proceed with h.264

or

3. (in After Effects) should I put the 720p composition into an 1080p composition, render as uncompressed TIFF-sequence and than proceed with h.254.
At this point I'm not sure about the behavior of AE.
My PSD-files are big. Some are about 3000x4000px.
I've put them in comps in little comps in tiny comps and finally into my 720p comp...etc.
So I don't know what will happen if i put my final 720p comp into a 1080p comp and scale it up. Is AE losing information after every step or does it use the best resolution thats possible?

Finally ... which way should I take to realize the best results for my presentation.
And... how should be the h.264 settings? (having the bendering problem in mind)

I just can't find the right information to solve this by my own. And the presentation is on next friday. There's no time to check everything. Rendertime right now is around 10 hours IF i don't get a BSOD.

Thanks in advance!
cheers

What's wrong with 1280x720? That's HD, y'know. Any particular reason for wanting 1920x1080?

And you don't -- repeat, you DO NOT -- want to make an H.264 in AE. Here's why:

Dave's Stock Answer #3:

Don't use AE to compress files for final delivery. The various compressors are there only to make quick 'n dirty files showing a project's progress to producers, clients, the kids, etc. AE is incapable of doing multipass encoding, a crucial feature that greatly improves the image quality of H.264 and MPEG-type files in particular.

Render a high-quality file from AE, and use a different application to do the compression. Popular ones are Adobe Media Encoder, Sorenson Squeeze and Apple's Compressor, which comes bundled with Final Cut Suite. Even compressing in Quicktime Pro is better than compressing in AE.

Making good-looking compressed files is almost as much an art as it is a science. It is NOT straightforward at all. I recommend asking a few questions at the COW's Compression Techniques forum.

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA

Personally, I'd leave it at 1280x720. That was the size of your comp. You won't gain any extra resolution by making it 1920x1080, but you will make big gains in file size. Ugh.

Glad to hear you'll use Adobe Media Encoder. But I didn't hear what kind of physical device will be used to play the file back, and how it'll be connected to the TV set. It makes a difference.

Once you know, you can ask on the COW's compression techniques forum about bitrates and such. Those folks have a lot more experience with it.

Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA

well well well...
the physical device will be a PC. I think it's a Duo Core but I still got to figure out the detailled hardware information. The connection to the TV will be DVI or HDMI.

I think at the end I'm going to use my system. It's a Phenom II x4 955 Quadcore with 3,2 GHz. 8GB RAM and a GTX 460 1GB.

"But alas,.the client computer is not capable for smooth playback, it's very choppy."

yes... that's actually what I'm afraid of but I still have the possibility to use my system. so my system will be the reference by now.

But anyway... to be safe I'm going to render two versions. one in 720 one in 1080. that's why I'm asking for both settings.

"But i personally agree with dave,..u don't gain much difference in high res, and yes dave is right (he always right,..). it really makes a difference how it'll be connected to the TV set."

I believe you in this point and I would never dare to disagree with dave ;).
I was just thinking that if I compress a 1080 file I will get better results especially in bendering and artifact issues.

The script sounds nice. I never used scripts. hope that i get how it works ;)

Since I'm using TIFF-Sequences I have no BSODs. But even if I get one, the TIFFs will be there... so I can continnue at the point where my PC crashed.

Maybe I should follow Davs advice an post it in to the compresses tech forums. but I just dont wanted to create millions of threads ;)

You do aware that DVI is only outputting video signal don't you?
Or your animation didn't contain audio ? Or you will output audio separately to the sound system during presentation?

I personally go with HDMI if available, it's less complicated.

Don't use VLC,..is not good handling 1080p.

Use WMP (Vista/Windows 7) instead, or MPC-HC. Why ?
Maybe you already know this,.but people tend to forgot...
With NVIDIA PureVideo,.the GPU partially or completely offload the H.264-decoding from processor.

Nvidia PureVideo

Unfortunately,..i can't find the specs for Quadro FX1500.

But pretty safe to say,..it should capable playing h.264 smoothly.
Notes: I only make these assumption based on this link i could find in nvidia website: PureVideo HD Support Table

...hmmm... it's not worth opening a new thread. so i keep on asking here... i would like to insert a vignette to my video after rendering out the TIFFs. should I use Photoshop or Premiere. Does it make any diffrence?