The best codec?

[jubay1]

I've finished rendering out my frames and now am using Premiere to put it all togather and output it to an avi file.. i've done so once to see how it was going to look.. and the video quality is poor...either theres some flickering and inconsistences when the frame moves or the overall quality is blurry and washed out... i've checked to make sure that my settings are as far as i know, at the best quality and that everything i know to turn up is turned up.(or down..) maybe im not using the right video codec... Indeo? Cinpak? DivX?...or maybe im just missing a setting somewhere... this is for a demo reel so i need it to look clean and silky smooth...any suggestions for the best possible video quality... does after effects maybe work better for this? thanks alot

[gmask]

If you make AVI's you can use either cinepak or DivX, if you make Quicktimes then use Sorenson.

You can use Quicktime Pro to make Sorenson movies.. I like the results of the default settings for 1x or 2x CDROM playback for web movies.

[torran]

try to render uncompressed avi and see how the quality is. If its still bad then you messed something with the frame output settings in Maya.

if not, then use gmask's advice.

you can also try MPEG format, but thats a whole other story...better ask someone to encode it for you.

[mnhan32]

The big thing to consider is who your audience is.

If you are looking for a job, for example, then you have to try to get a format that most HR and Recruiting people can see....

sadly this means DivX is not that good of a choice. I love DivX compression personally but when it came down to making a widely compatable format I chose Quicktime.

Some folks w/ versions of QT prior to 5.0 have had problems w/ Sorenson but that has been my codec of choice for most of the stuff I put on the web.

The Cleaner LE part of Premiere 6.0 works well. I've been using Cleaner for 2 years now and I swear by that program so consider purchasing that if you are going to be doing a hell of a lot of making movies of your stuff for the web.

just my 2 cents...best of luck...

[joojaa]

Id say quality wise Sorenson video 3, not widely supported by most programs so you are pretty much limitted to qt PRO or mediacalener (wich is much better, and most the big studios use it for their web trailers) for compression.

If size is of no concern use MPEG II but its a lot of work to do them so that they are great.

Divx pretty good but you dont get the controll needed.

Good copression software allow you to manualy compress sequences and tell thet this is a keyframe etc. for the last bit of controll wich is essential for the bes possible quality/size ratio.

But the bseline is to always copress a few different wersions before deciding wich copression to use (and how much to compress). Never ever just compress once and be done with it, it doesnt give a professional picture of your work.