H.264 VS Animation Codecs for SD?

Compressed a video in 264 and then did a compression of the same video with the animation codec, burned both to seperate DVD's, and I gotta tell you, I just can't see any difference. I watched both DVD's like 3 times, I just can't tell. What do you think?

Then don't use either one. It is best to FILE>EXPORT>QUICKTIME MOVIE...making it self contained and using the sequence settings. Then if you are burning with iDVD, just import that file into iDVD and burn the disk. The software converts the footage to MPEG-2 (the DVD format) for you. If you export as H.264 or Animation, you are adding compression that degrades the image...ESPECIALLY if you use h.264.
For DVDSP (I am just spitting out info, I never used the product) you can either import the QT file directly into the application and have it convert for you like iDVD does, or take your exported file and use Compressor to convert it to the DVD format.

Similar Messages

Hi all ,anyone knows some usefual Codecs for H.264 live video/audio

I'm headache about the JMF codecs ,they are too few ,and seems inefficiency, anyone knows pure java codecs for H.264 or MPEG4 ?And I think it's better a open source one ,do my thanks , guys!

Here are some basics....
FMLE creates RTMP protocol streams that PCs and Macs watch with Flash players. iOS devices don't understand RTMP (Flash), only HLS delivery of 10 second chuncks of downloaded video playback. Both systems understand H.264 video, but iOS wants to see AAC audio not MP3.
You didn't state how you are live streaming, meaning what bandwidth delivery service you are using. Live streaming only via RTMP won't get you to successful iPad and iPhone HTTP Live Stream. On-demand delivery to iOS devices normally requires .mp4 video files to be hosted, which Macs and PCs also understand via RTMP delivery. But unless your delivery service can convert .f4v or .flv files to .mp4 on the fly there is no easy way to to get to iOS via the direct file output of FMLE as of today. Sometimes we upload live encoded project files to our www.Wistia.com account for PC, Mac and iOS delivery. This is a YouTube / Vimeo paid type hosting service for on-demand only.
Some commercial CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) today allow an inbound live RTMP into their system using FMLE. Then they re-mux that RTMP stream into HLS delivery for iOS. Some work well using the native MP3 audio codec (Internap), but most require FMLE to have the AAC audio codec installed from Main Concept for $200. Or people use Wirecast from Telestream which is $500 per license to be able to run two instances on that one license.
In my 15 years of being a big commercial webcaster here in Silcion Valley, I have yet to find the perfect simple and easy and affordable RTMP to HLS live and on-demand delivery system. We currently do it different ways with multiple providers depending on the job. More offerings are coming out now and we try them all as they come down the pike.
Harvey Louie
Event Compression Group

Best Codec for exporting animations with alpha channel from FCP timeline

Whats the best codec for exporting animations (hopefully using loseless compression) that will retain alpha channel, and use the current sequence settings for fps and size?
Currently Im exporting image sequences, but I'd prefer a wrapper.. I don't know much about the 'Animation' export codec.. I did notice that set to current size had some funky value of 753x450 or something.. instead of my current project size of 1920x1080...
Anyhow.. Just seeing what others are doing..
basically Im reading out some titles that I'll end up dropping over video later.. but since they render out so slowly (**** lower 3rds is slow) Im trying to get a jump on the process..
Tx..

PNG should do it. I think PNG is lossless (that's what they say, anyway). But realistically, if you use PNG, Animation, or JPG2000 set on highest quality, I'd dare you to tell a difference.
I use PNG because it's supposedly lossless, renders twice as fast as Animation in a FCP timeline, and is usually about half the size.
If you use "Export Using Quicktime Conversion", you will need to check all of the settings manually to make sure they match your sequence settings. This is always true, no matter what codec you use.
If that sounds risky, your other option is to go into your sequence settings and change the codec to the one you want to render to (this will probably turn your whole timeline red), and then choose Export -> Quicktime movie.

Using an animation-friendly codec for decoding DVDs to MP4

Hi,
I have some purchased cartoon DVDs that I'd like to convert into MP4s for travel purposes etc. Using Handbrake has resulted in a lot of artifacts, and I wonder if using an animation-specific codec would give better results - not to mention smaller file sizes. Could someone advise me how to go about converting DVDs to MP4s using an animation codec? I own QT 7 Pro and iMovie. I also have Diva and Drop2DV.
NB: I am aware of the copyright restrictions on recorded media and wish to re-assure the MPAA, RIAA, FACT, PRS, FBI, CIA, CPS and South-East England Water and Sewerage Workers Union that I in no way intend to distribute, freely or otherwise, any of the backups I may make as a result of receiving information on this forum.
Cheers,
Charles U. Farley (AKA SiR G.)
12" iBook G4 800MHz w/ 640MB RAM (128MB built-in), 80GB HDD & Airport Extreme; Mac OS X (10.4.9) Power Mac G4 MDD dual-867MHz, 1.25GB RAM, Sonnet Tempo SATA card; iPod Nano 8GB

Well say you had plain vanilla DVD content from your iDVD you made. The bitrate on the animation codec is huge, and the resulting file would likely be actually larger than from the DVD file you began with. And won't conform to MPEG-4 since it is not the MPEG-4 codec anyway.
Just use MPEG Streamclip, export to MPEG-4 and if this is for iPod press the iPod button. You need the Apple MPEG-2 component and don't forget to fix timecode errors. H264 is plenty good for this transcoding.

Cannot Find Codec for H.264

I am running on Windows XP and have downloaded the latest version 7.1.5 and it is just playing a white screen with audio but no video. The video codec for the videos used is h.264 which makes no sense to me because that codec should have been installed with the Quicktime download. Can anyone help me? I have also downloaded Divx for windows. Thanks

Have a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H264#External_links
There are some links to H264 codecs. IIRC, installing a codec on XP ensures that both quicktime and window mean player should both use that codec. Googling H264 codec XP brings back loads of results also
Kind regards
Paul

Animation codec best for screen capture?

HD for Indies links to DV Guru who says that the Animation codec, 16 bit, is best for screen capture. Comment?

It's the most commonly used codec for this... I've used it with success.
Jerry

Best codec for animation to DVD ?

I have a 1hr ANIMATION project to export from FCP 5.1
It is being delivered to someone who will use it and other material to author a DVD.
What would be the ideal way to deliver -
on mini DV or DVCAM tape ?
or a QT file of the whole show - if so, which codec is best - (file size is not a limitation) ?

I have a 1hr ANIMATION project to export from FCP 5.1
It is being delivered to someone who will use it and other material to author a DVD. What would be the ideal way to deliver -
on mini DV or DVCAM tape ? or a QT file of the whole show - if so, which codec is best - (file size is not a limitation) ?,
I'm a bit perplexed by the whole post.
How could you start a one hour ANIMATION project without knowing how you were going to deliver it to whoever was paying you to do it?
Do you mean ANIMATION as in the codec or ANIMATION as in some type of single-frame or keyframed production? You are using a base codec for your work. Export using a lossless codec, such as ANIMATION, that has the same or better bit-depth than your base codec. However, if the final release is DVD, it is going to squished down to MPEG2 so it is in your best interest to find out who will be handling the compression and talk to them directly. Take them to lunch. If all they're going to do is run you video through Compressor, it really doesn't matter what you give them, it will be horrible. If tey're using a compressionist, take that individual to lunch with you.
bogiesan

How big a drive for 3 hours of video encoded with animation codec?

Sorry if this seems a strange question - but I've run out of fingers and toes to count on.
I'm planning a video project that will have approx three hours of selected video to work with. Will be cut down to approx 90 minutes.
The video will be include a lot of chroma keying and also be graphic heavy. Many alpha channels.
I have determined the best work method is to upload the video using the Apple Animation codec. I am reliably informed that said Animation codec is a hungry bugger and eats up drive space.
Can anyone with more toes and fingers than me give me a ballpark for how big an external drive I should budget for this?
So to recap that's a a minimum of three hours of video encoded using the Apple Animation codec plus all the graphics, audio and rendering.
Many thanks.
A.S

The Animation codec isn't an editing codec. You'll have a DICKENS of a time trying to work with that. Besides needing VERY fast drives...I'm talking a 4-5 drive RAID with 300+MB/s throughput (Firewire won't cut it...eSATA would be pushing it..thunderbolt? Pushing it)...it'd still stutter on playback. No one edits with that codec. I mean no one. It's a good way to transport media LOSSLESSLY, but when editing...best to use an Editing Codec. As Michael said, ProRes 4444 would be good...even ProRes HQ is good enough quality. I deliver shows to air in that codec.

Need license for using H.264 Video codec for live stream with FMS 3.5 series

Hi,
I am creating a live audio-Video chat application in which I use H264 video codec for live streaming. I am using Flash Media Server version 3.5.7. I read some where that H.264 Video streaming using FMS required seperate licencse. So I want to confirm , It is true that H264 video streaming required seperate license? If yes then what is the procedure to get license.
Please let me know its urgent.
Regrads,

Hi Again,
Thanks for your reply.
Here are some articles/posts which says about Royalties to use h264:
http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf 15:27
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf
http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65403&PageNum=3
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf
According to these, any product/service provider, need to pay one time fee based on # of subscribers if we are using h264 for encoding and is charging fee from its users.
About our business: We are web-conferencing solution tool provider and are using Flash Media Server version 3.5.7. I for audio/video. Please help me out if h264 is really free for us or we need to buy license to use that.
Looking forward to hear from you soon.
Regards,

Export for DVD with Animation codec without alphas channels not working?

I'm using FCP 5 with DVDSP. My FCP projects consist of quicktime movies that are using the Animation compressor (for lossless quality), and the movies contain alpha channels (thus they were rendered at Millions + colors to preserve the alphas).
This is my problem. I want to now export a quicktime movie to use in DVDSP with animation compression, so it is again lossless quality (obviously to presever the quality through these steps). But I do NOT want to preserve the alpha channels, because what I've learned is that when made into a DVD, the alphas are not preserved and the image looks wrong (as if without the alphas).
So I basically want to "flatten" the video, if there was some way.
I would assume the solution would be to, in FCP, export a quicktime at animation compression, but set to Millions for colors, and not Millions + (I was taught that the Millions + will preserve the alpha info).
Well, what's happening is when I set it to that, it renders, but then I get info on the movie in Quicktime and it says it has Millions + still. And thus, it looks wrong in DVDSP.
What is going on? Is this a bug in FCP?
Does anyone have an idea as to how to get around this. The only thing that has worked for me is to export the Quicktime movie with "none" for compression, but that's making the movie SO large that I can't work with it and it doesn't play right when I make the DVD.
I really appreciate anyones help on the matter. Thanks!
Brian,.
Quad-core 2.5 G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6) 30" Apple Cinema Display
Quad-core 2.5 G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3) 30" Apple Cinema Display

Thanks for the suggestions. I have not yet tried laying a solid black video track underneath to see what it does, but it seems like a good idea and I'll try it out to see what happens when I get back home.
I'll try to explain what I mean by the image looking wrong.
I'm picking up where another left off, so I'm not sure of how he cut the quicktime movie together; all I know is that they used alpha channels in Photoshop and After Effects to make the image looks the way they want it. This is a drawn character laid on a white background with a black frame around the entire image. It looks the way he wants it to in the quicktime movie, and this quicktime movie is 720x480, animation millions colors +, 24fps.
This movie, along with others of the like, need to be cut together in FCP and then put on a DVD with DVDSP. When I export it and it looks "wrong", what's happening is there is a black block behind the drawn character. The guy that made the movies in AE says that, that is what it looks like when the alpha channel is not working correctly.
To test things, I've changed the quicktime compression settings in the sequence settings. If I set it to anything that is not animation, I get that black block in the viewer. (Note though, that if I set it to animation, millions + or not +, it shows the alpha correctly both ways).
In FCP's user manual it says that if you're passing your movie on to a DVD, to use a high or lossless compression to keep the quality up, like animation or PhotoJPEG. For this reason, I haven't wanted to go to DV - especially with this type of image (graphic drawn shapes), it's easy to see a quality difference.
It really seems like there is a lot of voodoo involved with compression settings. As for now the best "fool-proof" solution I've found is to re-render the movie in After Effects at millions (not+) so that it won't contain the alpha channel info, and FCP seems to like that a lot more.
I just wish I could get FCP to work with the movies as they were because I'm having to re-edit everything to work with these new movies now.
Thanks again for the tips and insight.
Quad-core 2.5 G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3) 30" Apple Cinema Display
Quad-core 2.5 G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3) 30" Apple Cinema Display

Animation codec spatial resolution

I'm looking to compress a video (footage+animation) down to just beyond YT's upload limit of 128GB. I've calculated that a spatial resolution of 60 with QT's animation codec will help me achieve this, resulting in an 80GB file. An alternative is to render at 100% spatial res, generating a 170GB file and compressing via H.264 (with high bitrate)
Which method would result in a higher quality video?

It's usually recommended to create your video in h.264 using the Adobe Media Encoder to match the specs YouTube requests. (Check their help pages for exact info.) Render a lossless file out of AE and use that in the AME to make your final file. This way you can test a few different settings without having to re-render your whole comp again.

ProRes files act crazy and transcoding to Animation codec gets ugly

So, allegedly, the Animation codec is lossless. However, when I take something encoded with Apple ProRes 422 HQ and transcode to Animation within the Quicktime Pro software, I see noticeable differences. Including: color change and increased aliasing.
The same is true when attempting to export stills from ProRes, even in the highest, most lossless formats. I am wondering if ProRes for PC is actually not quite ready for prime time? When I import a ProRes file into After Effects, I notice the same quality drop associated with trying to transcode it to a lossless format. It seems as though ONLY QT Pro has the capability to display ProRes files properly. If this is the case, this is largely useless, since I can't then USE these ProRes files for anything. What the heck guys? I wouldn't have had clients deliver me ProRes encoded stuff if I knew that it didn't actually maintain its integrity.
Please help out as soon as possible. Clients with deadlines are waiting on a solution that doesn't involve me spending 4000 grand on a new machine and FCP.

As a test, try nesting the problem sequence in a new empty sequence then export that new sequence using QuickTime. Let us know whether or not that succeeds.
Cheers
Eddie
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Videos encoded with Apple Animation Codec won't play properly in QT7.5

Quick Time version I have installed is 7.5 (149.5). I also have Perian 1.1 and Mpeg2 codec for QT.
All of a sudden, all videos I render using Apple Animation Codec with alpha channel won't properly play in QuickTime, nor in Preview (when you click on .MOV file and press Space). They actually play, but colors are all screwed up and it looks like it's playing only alpha layer. I tried same movies on my work buddy's Mac and everything looks perfet. I also tried importing those videos into Flash, and everything works fine, but when I have to preview them in QT or using Finder's Preview, they look crazy. I can't send any screenshots since this thing happens on my work iMac (new aluminum one, Leopard 10.5.4, all updates installed) and I am at home now.
I tried reinstalling QT but to no avail, nothing changed. I've looked through Library/QuickTime subfolder, and only items I could find were QuickTimeMPEG2.component, Perian.component, ffmpeg.component, and AppleIntermediateCodec.component.
I'm slowly going crazy over here, because nothing I tried worked.
Is there any way of completely removing everything QT related and reinstalling it from the scratch ? Please help!
Thanks in advance!

Hah, found out what's the problem. It is not my computer, it is not my QuickTime got corrupt. It is QuickTime's bug decoding movie file encoded using following combination of settings:
Quick Time encoder
Compression Type: Animation
Depth: Millions of colors+ (alpha channel included)
Quality: Best
ParticleIllusion
Output options
Save Alpha - enabled
Remove Black bg from RBG channels - if this item is enabled, this is exactly what gives QT problems trying to encode it. I repeat, this option must be enabled in some cases (it removes that nasty black-dirt-looking extra halo glow around the object that already has some kind of glow applied to it). It makes your animation rendered with alpha channel a lot better looking and animation seamlessly blends with any kind of colored background. Well, QT has problems "reading" this format.
In the same time, if you import such animation rendered with this option enabled into Flash, everything looks perfectly fine. It's just QuickTime won't play it properly.
Every single Mac I checked has this same problem, and it's not Mac's problem, it is QuickTime problem.
I have two examples, you can see it yourself:
First one is when black bg is still present in RGB channels (animation looks exactly as it should):
http://www.sasha-z-creations.com/quicktime/Example_BlackPresent.mov
And second one is when black bg is removed from RGB channels (colors looks weird):
http://www.sasha-z-creations.com/quicktime/Example_BlackRemoved.mov
I repeat, both examples look exactly the same (great looking) when imported into Flash dev utility.
Cheers!

Merge/concatenate animation codec movie files in the command line/shell

We know how to join 2 mp4/h264 movies together in the command line/shell via MP4Box.
We have not been able to find a similar tool for joining to Quicktime Animation codec movie together via command line/shell.
Anyone know how to do that of have suggestions?
thanks,
paul

Hi,
I'm also having trouble with this same issue. I've been trying to change the Quicktime Default Setting to 10-bit uncompressed (btw codec works fine out directly out of QT and other apps), or to use the command line to do quick renders of tiff frame sequences to QT 10-bit. I think its a problem with my syntax on the command line. As per the manual I set up a fileout in a script with 10-bit as the codec, opened the script in Textedit and followed the instructions on p393, and dropped it into the include/startup directory. Below is a copy of the Textedit view of the script output settings. Also, If I want to use these settings the command line what should I change? The quotation marks, commas etc?
"QuickTime", "Shake 3 QT 1", "Apple FCP Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2",
0, "100W@c6000WDcsuHpoe10pFnKA6W230PPMMRH#0LgfI5ALV1EaKGn3DG3214QaPb03SeOBPg00K1bY AESIIW0KAbabF7YWOQan8401v6QvQehFnRYIBt9be1B4AEjYA6ci8YmM#IKXCg5aRMZC2MXBM0Ani04w HAJLmBrQ97MtegeEEO9d5oBoxCgv7GNhEOvai8INwFwb2roIf91bvbr040HAK4IYCW0",
0, 44100, 16);
I get the same message returned in Terminal:
error: - NRiCompressor - corrupted input data (length)
The QuickTime codec specified in the global default could not be selected. The system default codec will be selected.
So it renders to Animation. Something else I found was that the example on p393 in the manual is for 10-bit uncompressed - so I tried copying it right off the page, into Textedit, and into the include/startup dir - still no joy.
Can anyone shed any light on the matter?
D.
G5 Quad 2.5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Animation codec files from AE

Mm. Since FCS2 I have not been able to work with any ANIMATION codec files in compressor. Was hoping that updates would fix this, but not so far...
The strange thing is I can use QTpro to compress them without any problem. They're not crazy 4K res files or anything (which my old 2.7 G5 was able to handle slowly, but fine on FCS5.1) .
The moment I assign a setting to a Animation video target it blows up. Any advice?

Blowup = Crash.
There is value in having a lossless master file that you can just run any number of various encodes from as the project demands, especially if the encoding specs change after delivery, and new encodes are requested. This eliminates the need to revive the master project and re-link any media in order to output files to a new spec. + Running batch encodes by just clicking and dragging.
Though workflows might be different, it does not change the fact that Compressor should be able to do it... This used to work fine until FCS2. Animation is a basic codec that's been around for yeaaaars.

H.264 VS Animation Codecs for SD?

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