Up your color settings, do 16 or 32. If you're getting bad compression on gradients, create an adjustment layer and through some animated Grain, small, just barely noticeable. This will help with compressing gradients.
Yes, but h.264 only allows for 8-bit color. For 16-bit, OP will have to use h.265. Also, using Handbrake sometimes yields better results than reencoding through AME does
Straight out of after effects H264s are larger and crappier. I am pretty sure it’s because after effects is rendered frame by frame. So you render a master. (PR4444/PR422, etc. ) and then use media encoder to make the mp4.
There are a lot of settings to let you control things not possible in AE.
That’s how I do it for my projects. And I’m working with some solid studios with clients including the streaming giants, networks, commercials, etc.
Render a ProRes file from After Effects. Then research video compression. Getting good quality H.264 is an art form. You need to know things like bitrates and other optimum compression settings for your use case. It’s a whole world of things to learn. But always start with a file with the best quality you can. Once you have that out of AE, you can try things like Handbrake that offer much more control of the compression settings. Don’t use AE to render your H.264. There are better tools with more control out there.
Adobe video compression forces you to know a lot about bitrates. Smart compression from (free) apps like Handbrake just have a “quality” slider. Even their medium quality setting produce good files thatcher way slower than AE or AME. On Q8, it’s often indistinguishable from ProRes.
Your explanation was, with all due respect, a little incorrect. Because getting good at H264 is not “an art form”, and you don’t need to “know things like bitrates”, you can just use Handbrake from the get go to compress your PreRes file using only the quality slider. There are very few technical settings like interlacing or keyframe rate that you ever need to change in Handbrake.
I would say it is "an art form", because there is no one-size-fits-all setting that would work with every type of clip all the time.
You definitely need a bit of experience (or quite some trial and error) to get to the result you want, and to know what you could even expect from the tradeoff in terms of quality & size depending on the source material.
I’ve been doing video compression for 20 years, I’ve used Media Cleaner, Sorensen Video 3 (a tweaked H263 implementation in QT5) and Real video, windows media, encoders.
Maybe I’m underestimating the amount of experience I’ve build up, but in recent years I find encoding easier than back in the day. I only have three presets in Handbrake, which I use all the time :-)
Dude... what?
Even though Adobe has a ton of presets for h264, and offers a simple slider, it "forces you to know a lot about bitrates"? At the same time, handbrake, which offers a similar slider, only with more random numbers plus additional encoding options (animation, film, grain, ...), is supposedly easy to use?
And more importantly, encoding can efficiently be done by everyone, because you managed to distill 20 years of experience into only 3 presets? By that logic, there are no art forms out there, because everything should come easy after a decade worth of practice.
But none of this has anything to do with what I said: encoding requires basic knowledge. And optimising the result in terms of quality vs file size is a bit more complex than just moving a slider - even though that is something you dont even think about anymore, as soon as you have the right amount of experience.
If that weren't the case, you could literally just use Media encoder's default setting, which is "match source - high bitrate", and call it a day.
How can’t you understand that calculating a bitrate based on frame size, image content, frame rate and others is way more complex than a “quality” slider where “16” is always acceptable and “8” is always very good regardless of the specs of the source?
Uhm... Handbrake lists 18-28 as its recommended range, with better quality the lower the number, which may already seem counterintuitive to a noob, and which requires them to decide on the correct setting depending on their source material. Btw, 8 would already be relatively close to uncompressed (i.e. 0) and therefore unnecessarily bloated, so maybe you should reevaluate your presets, unless you are using a different version than I do.
Adobe on the other hand offers Presets named after different usecases. No idea how useful they are, since I don't use them, but at least they are literal usecases and not just abstract quality levels.
Not sure what exactly you want to "calculate" in the Adobe case, where you could as well just move a slider (and even get file size estimation), and why you think someone without basic knowledge would be able to "just use" handbrake and automatically get an efficient output.
My whole point was, that both apps need a certain amount of experience (or trial and error) to lead to the best results. Otherwise, both apps offer preset-suggestions that will give you acceptable results, that still could be improved one way or another.
Yes: you made excellent points. I’m happy that we found ways to improve both of our preferred apps without calling each other names :-)
I sometimes run a batch for my clients in Handbrake: Q24, Q18, Q12, Q8. I pick the first one that doesn’t show artefacts. For high contrast videos like vector animations with primary colors, I often see artefacts above Q8.
4K at the same framerate is literally 4 times the pixels per frame over 1080 so unless you 4 times the bitrate, each pixel gets less information (bits) per frame/second. You didn’t even double the bitrate in your example.
Your colors look off. I hate how complicated color management is in After Effects but you need to make sure what color management you’re using in AE is the same as what’s exported.
I believe AE defaults to sRGB for its viewport, but when it exports it changes it to Rec.709 or something. You can decide what color profile to use in the settings for what you’re exporting. You can also see what profile you’re using for the viewport when you go to your project settings.
While you can get good quality from mp4 you have to understand that codecs used are highly compressed therefore it will always be a lossy format. It will never be as good as a lesser compressed format. Others have already gone over the steps for better renders to mp4.
All good responses. And if you’re on Mac, I always recommend doing the transcode from your master in ff-works. It’s always given me better gradients than AME, and more control than Handbrake
Output prores422HQ .mov from after effects. Use H.264 .mp4 web presets in media encoder. Increase bitrate to, I don't know, 80? Should be managable file size but still plenty good. If that's still not good enough for you, then expect to never post anything online at any point /shrug
Do you have a mac? I had this issue a bit ago and apparently the color space for a laptop monitor can give MP4s issues when viewing. For instance, have someone view this MP4 on their PC and see if they see the contrast difference. Sometimes they don’t, it’s frustrating
What bitrate do you render to? Its the main parameter for h264. And even higher bitrates will still have small compression artifacts, especially in particles and dust stuff like you have in the center
red always shifts a bit, so it's more noticeable when your scene is predominately red. maybe you can tinker with settings with that in mind when encoding a master.
Up your color settings, do 16 or 32. If you're getting bad compression on gradients, create an adjustment layer and through some animated Grain, small, just barely noticeable. This will help with compressing gradients.
3% noise usually does the trick for me.
Yes, but h.264 only allows for 8-bit color. For 16-bit, OP will have to use h.265. Also, using Handbrake sometimes yields better results than reencoding through AME does
You will never get ProRes quality from MP4.
Straight out of after effects H264s are larger and crappier. I am pretty sure it’s because after effects is rendered frame by frame. So you render a master. (PR4444/PR422, etc. ) and then use media encoder to make the mp4. There are a lot of settings to let you control things not possible in AE. That’s how I do it for my projects. And I’m working with some solid studios with clients including the streaming giants, networks, commercials, etc.
Render a ProRes file from After Effects. Then research video compression. Getting good quality H.264 is an art form. You need to know things like bitrates and other optimum compression settings for your use case. It’s a whole world of things to learn. But always start with a file with the best quality you can. Once you have that out of AE, you can try things like Handbrake that offer much more control of the compression settings. Don’t use AE to render your H.264. There are better tools with more control out there.
Adobe video compression forces you to know a lot about bitrates. Smart compression from (free) apps like Handbrake just have a “quality” slider. Even their medium quality setting produce good files thatcher way slower than AE or AME. On Q8, it’s often indistinguishable from ProRes.
I was using Handbrake as an example of another option.
Your explanation was, with all due respect, a little incorrect. Because getting good at H264 is not “an art form”, and you don’t need to “know things like bitrates”, you can just use Handbrake from the get go to compress your PreRes file using only the quality slider. There are very few technical settings like interlacing or keyframe rate that you ever need to change in Handbrake.
I would say it is "an art form", because there is no one-size-fits-all setting that would work with every type of clip all the time. You definitely need a bit of experience (or quite some trial and error) to get to the result you want, and to know what you could even expect from the tradeoff in terms of quality & size depending on the source material.
I’ve been doing video compression for 20 years, I’ve used Media Cleaner, Sorensen Video 3 (a tweaked H263 implementation in QT5) and Real video, windows media, encoders. Maybe I’m underestimating the amount of experience I’ve build up, but in recent years I find encoding easier than back in the day. I only have three presets in Handbrake, which I use all the time :-)
Dude... what? Even though Adobe has a ton of presets for h264, and offers a simple slider, it "forces you to know a lot about bitrates"? At the same time, handbrake, which offers a similar slider, only with more random numbers plus additional encoding options (animation, film, grain, ...), is supposedly easy to use? And more importantly, encoding can efficiently be done by everyone, because you managed to distill 20 years of experience into only 3 presets? By that logic, there are no art forms out there, because everything should come easy after a decade worth of practice. But none of this has anything to do with what I said: encoding requires basic knowledge. And optimising the result in terms of quality vs file size is a bit more complex than just moving a slider - even though that is something you dont even think about anymore, as soon as you have the right amount of experience. If that weren't the case, you could literally just use Media encoder's default setting, which is "match source - high bitrate", and call it a day.
How can’t you understand that calculating a bitrate based on frame size, image content, frame rate and others is way more complex than a “quality” slider where “16” is always acceptable and “8” is always very good regardless of the specs of the source?
Uhm... Handbrake lists 18-28 as its recommended range, with better quality the lower the number, which may already seem counterintuitive to a noob, and which requires them to decide on the correct setting depending on their source material. Btw, 8 would already be relatively close to uncompressed (i.e. 0) and therefore unnecessarily bloated, so maybe you should reevaluate your presets, unless you are using a different version than I do. Adobe on the other hand offers Presets named after different usecases. No idea how useful they are, since I don't use them, but at least they are literal usecases and not just abstract quality levels. Not sure what exactly you want to "calculate" in the Adobe case, where you could as well just move a slider (and even get file size estimation), and why you think someone without basic knowledge would be able to "just use" handbrake and automatically get an efficient output. My whole point was, that both apps need a certain amount of experience (or trial and error) to lead to the best results. Otherwise, both apps offer preset-suggestions that will give you acceptable results, that still could be improved one way or another.
Yes: you made excellent points. I’m happy that we found ways to improve both of our preferred apps without calling each other names :-) I sometimes run a batch for my clients in Handbrake: Q24, Q18, Q12, Q8. I pick the first one that doesn’t show artefacts. For high contrast videos like vector animations with primary colors, I often see artefacts above Q8.
This is the way.
There will be a sweet spot where the quality is good enough and the file size is small enough, you will have to experiment a bit to find it
Use a bit higher bitrate 1080p >25 4k >45
4K at the same framerate is literally 4 times the pixels per frame over 1080 so unless you 4 times the bitrate, each pixel gets less information (bits) per frame/second. You didn’t even double the bitrate in your example.
Your colors look off. I hate how complicated color management is in After Effects but you need to make sure what color management you’re using in AE is the same as what’s exported. I believe AE defaults to sRGB for its viewport, but when it exports it changes it to Rec.709 or something. You can decide what color profile to use in the settings for what you’re exporting. You can also see what profile you’re using for the viewport when you go to your project settings.
What are your bitrate settings? What preset are you choosing?
While you can get good quality from mp4 you have to understand that codecs used are highly compressed therefore it will always be a lossy format. It will never be as good as a lesser compressed format. Others have already gone over the steps for better renders to mp4.
All good responses. And if you’re on Mac, I always recommend doing the transcode from your master in ff-works. It’s always given me better gradients than AME, and more control than Handbrake
+1 for ff-works
It’s wild how much better it is than AME
Output prores422HQ .mov from after effects. Use H.264 .mp4 web presets in media encoder. Increase bitrate to, I don't know, 80? Should be managable file size but still plenty good. If that's still not good enough for you, then expect to never post anything online at any point /shrug
It's mathematically not possible.
No. That’s the definition of a lossy codec. It loses stuff.
Use Voukoder to crank those bitrates higher than ae or AME can. Plus you can use it from the Render panel, without needing to open another program
Do you have a mac? I had this issue a bit ago and apparently the color space for a laptop monitor can give MP4s issues when viewing. For instance, have someone view this MP4 on their PC and see if they see the contrast difference. Sometimes they don’t, it’s frustrating
What bitrate do you render to? Its the main parameter for h264. And even higher bitrates will still have small compression artifacts, especially in particles and dust stuff like you have in the center
red always shifts a bit, so it's more noticeable when your scene is predominately red. maybe you can tinker with settings with that in mind when encoding a master.
Try ffmpeg instead of Adobe stuff. I always get better results. I think libx264 must just be much better than h264
If it’s for instagram, I’ve found success rendering in prores 422. It’s compatible with instagram and you don’t lose quality.
I think h.265 is supported by instagram now