When outputing to HD 1920x1080 does anyone know if you need special CODECs?  I use MAX 9 to render scenes, and Premiere or Combustion to output.  Someone told me once to output to Windows “wmv” but all my apps only output to “avi”.  Any thoughts on how to output to wmv?

Where can one go to find good information and a good education on this Black Art of compression?

Thanks,

-kenn

You could output to avi and convert to wmv using windows movie maker (comes w/ windows) or encoder, it shouldn’t degrade quality if you put it on full quality for windows movie maker…

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The finest HD I have seen is in .mov format for Quicktime. Do you have that output? Ive never really liked .wmv.

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Cool.  I never knew that was there. I guess I just always used Premiere.  Just out of curiosity, what bit rate do you compress your AVIs to or does it depend upon the final application?  If so, what are some guidelines.  I find that QT-MOV produces a better quality then AVI, but when I did a test run of the Windows Movie Maker, it did not allow QT files for import.

Other guideline questions:

1.  When is it best to use AVI, MOV & WMV?
2.  I’m guessing that MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 are typically used for DVD??

Thanks

Kenn

>>The finest HD I have seen is in .mov format for Quicktime. Do you have that output? Ive never really liked .wmv. <<

Yes, I can output to MOV.  My quality is good, but the playback is a little jerky.  Maybe because it’s playing at 1920x1080. I compressed it using the Sorenson 3 CODEC.  Is there a better one.  I’m running a Dual Zeon, with 4 GIG Ram and a NVidia card DVI out to a 28” HDMI Monitor so I can’t understand why it’s playback is jerky.. Unfortunately, with Sorenson 3 you can’t adjust bitrate, only quality.  I usually pick HIGH.  I spend to much time on these animations to then compress them and have them look like crap. 

When you output to MOV, don’t you have to convert it to MPEG to get it to run on a DVD on your TV?

Regards,

-kenn

A couple of points: .avi and .mov and .wmv and .swf these are just container formats. They don’t really say anything about how the movie inside them is encoded. You can have mpeg-2 or mpeg-4 or sorenson (which is really a version of mpeg-4) inside anyone of them - well, they don’t all support every codec, but the point is that you can’t tell just from the extension what’s inside.

kennmac 30 January 2008 03:46 AM

I compressed it using the Sorenson 3 CODEC.  Is there a better one.

Yes. H.264 is better and widely supported as it’s an opens standard. hd-dvd, blue-ray, flash player (as of version 9) and many broadcast hdtv systems use it. H.264 is mpeg-4 (along with a lot of other codecs) so it can be dumped to hd-dvd or blue-ray easily. For regular dvd, you’re going to have to re-encode to mpeg-2 720x480 (in the us) no matter what codec you start with.

That said. The best H.264 encoder I’ve found is actually QuickTime pro. There’s an extensive thread here or on cgtalk about the best encoders. I’ll try to dig it up.

Edit: found the thread here.

--
James Kelly
fo co mo so

>>A couple of points: .avi and .mov and .wmv and .swf these are just container formats. <<

Yes, that I understand.  And for each of those formats, there are several CODEC’s to choose from.  In Premiere, for AVI, there are 10 CODECs.  Is there a tech web site somewhere that compares one againts the other and which CODEC works best for different case? I’m guessing they all have their pros/cons.  Why else would there be so many?

>>H.264 is better and widely supported as it’s an opens standard. hd-dvd, blue-ray, flash player (as of version 9) and many broadcast hdtv systems use it. H.264 is mpeg-4 (along with a lot of other codecs) so it can be dumped to hd-dvd or blue-ray easily. For regular dvd, you’re going to have to re-encode to mpeg-2 720x480 (in the us) no matter what codec you start with. <<

So I can’t burn 1920x1080 onto a Standard DVD and play it on a large screen TV even if the TV is capable of handling the larger format?

>>The best H.264 encoder I’ve found is actually QuickTime pro. There’s an extensive thread here or on cgtalk about the best encoders.<<

So if I DL QT-Pro for $30 and install it, is that a seperate application or will the CODEC’s install into and be available inside Premiere and Combustion?

What app do you use to get your content on DVD?  Encore?  I have Encore 2.0.  I need to check if that can handle BlueRay. 

Thanks for your time and input on these questions.  I’m sure others can benefit from them as well.

Regards,

Kenn

kennmac 30 January 2008 12:30 PM

So I can’t burn 1920x1080 onto a Standard DVD and play it on a large screen TV even if the TV is capable of handling the larger format?

That’s basically correct. If you’re delivering on dvd, there’s no reason to render at anything greater than 720x480 (with 0.9 pix aspect, there’s a setting in max). That’s for a dvd that will play on your tv. You can put any file you like on a data dvd, including one h.264 encoded. The trouble is, you’ll need something that can play it back. That’s computers, mostly. Maybe apple tv (don’t know).

So if I DL QT-Pro for $30 and install it, is that a seperate application or will the CODEC’s install into and be available inside Premiere and Combustion?

It’s its own app. Premiere has h.264 and my guess is Combustion too, as does max, but they each have their own implementation of the codec.

What app do you use to get your content on DVD?  Encore?  I have Encore 2.0.  I need to check if that can handle BlueRay.

I don’t do much dvd stuff anymore, but I used to use TMPGEnc to encode (it used to be free, I think you have to pay now). Premiere gives ok results, too. Better than it does with h.264. But now I’d probably use SUPER (despite how incredibly annoying their site is).

Thanks for your time and input on these questions.  I’m sure others can benefit from them as well.

No problem.

--
James Kelly
fo co mo so