scoelho Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 I have a 330 frame .avi file that I created with the "full frames uncompressed" option. The quality is great. It took about 4 hours for IC to make it, and it is 700mb+. Question is what is the best video compression settings to make high quality avi files that are somewhat more manageable in size. I have to give these .avi files to sales guys - this one doesn't fit on a CD. thanks far any advice you may have Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Andersson Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 (edited) -"full frames uncompressed" option. " is mainly used if you want to edit the animation in a video editing software. Then you export the video out with compression on. Without compression on, the video is to heavy to use. I recommend using a video editing software. Its pretty easy. drag and drop, mix, cut, add text, export. You can also do many amazing things like, seamlessly apply transparency 330 frames will do a 13 sec video. Edited January 19, 2010 by Robert Andersson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoelho Posted January 19, 2010 Author Share Posted January 19, 2010 thanks Rob, but what if I don't want to use a secondary editing software. I would like a high quality animation directly from IC which I can put in say power point. I have options for Cinepak, Intel, Indeo compressors. Options for Compression quality, key frames. There are options for DPI, data rate., etc. Just looking for peoples opinions on what they found works good. These exports take a long time, I don't have much time to try different iterations here. -Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tlehnhaeuser Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 Hi Steve I have had really good success with the codec from CamStudio. You can download from this site: http://camstudio.org/ The only issue is that the recipients must also have this codec installed to view the video in its prestine state. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoelho Posted January 19, 2010 Author Share Posted January 19, 2010 I'll try that download the price looks good. thanks tom. The latest animation just finished - the quality was fair. file size was much smaller 11mb. I used the following settings: 150 DPI 800 x 571 Pixels Realistic shading - use only aintialasing 1 extra shading sample check "use adaptive sampling" summed area with overblur set to 1.15 Cinepak Codec compression - quality 100% Key frame every 4 frames data rate 1000 KB/sec the animation motion is uniform - not too jumpy. I noticed the edges of straight stationary objects seem to flicker a little and are a little fuzzy; I assume adding a couple more shading samples may clean this up. Any other suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cary OConnor Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 I believe the MPEG-4 (Video Codec V3) format from QuickTime Pro can give good results with reasonable compression as well. I think the Pro version is $30 which should give you the codec that can be selected inside of IRONCAD. If I can find a good animation I can try to export in this format and post it. Cary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoelho Posted January 20, 2010 Author Share Posted January 20, 2010 So I used the Codec that Tom recommended - let the computer run overnight - came in this morning - a very nice quality animation was waiting for me, and only 40 mb. I burn it to a CD, load it onto my sales guy's computer - try to install the codec software on his laptop - bam! no admin privileges, no IT people to be found. I hate my life. 6am flight tomorrow and I have to wait to redo the animation in another format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Cargill Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 (edited) My suggestion would be to always export using full frames and then do compression as a post-process. As you are aware, the rendering of the frames can be very time consuming and, as such it is not well suited to trial and error experimentation. Rendering to full frames takes no additional time, only additional storage. Once you have the full, pure animation you are free to compress it over and over quickly as a post-process to achieve the ideal combination of quality/size. Video editing tools can do this job, but there are also tools dedicated specifically to animation compression/encoding. Check out the Microsoft Media Encoder if WMV/WMA output is acceptable (its free): Media Encoder It will take a few minutes to learn to use it-- but that is nothing compared to the time spent in re-rendering an entire animation just to tweak compression parameters. Edited January 21, 2010 by Bryan Cargill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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