On this page (post 263), Rodney mentions rendering to Quicktime using Sorensen 3 Compression. Since I upgraded to Windows Vista (and I know many of you would put the word "upgraded" in quotes), the compression options seem to be ... different. See the attached image. Is this due to Quicktime or Vista or both? What are the recommended options these days?

Thanks!
Chris

There have been several postings related to the recent versions of Quicktime not having all the options of the older versions.
I haven't had time to investigate thoroughly but word on the street is to avoid updating Quicktime (or consider rolling back a version if you have already done so).

Before rolling back Quicktime you may want to see if you can just reinstall the Sorensen codec.

I have the latest QT installed and I still have Sorenson and Sorenson 3 as options in mine. Maybe it's a Vista thing - perhaps the codec isn't licensed for Vista (Windows did this with another codec when XP was introduced)

Cheers

Maybe try the H.264 then...

I'll watch this closely but (as David suggests) apparently the makers of Sorensen aren't licensing the codec in a free version anymore.

This could change but there is no hint of the codec still being accessible except through the purchased releases.



As we are ever in need of an open standard to share movies it looks like my recommendation will be moving to H.264 compression.
It offers better compression but just wasn't as globally available as Sorensen in the past.

If you don't have Sorensen 3 definitely go with H.264.
I haven't fully tested that codec with A:M though.

We'll have to keep an eye on the the options.
Maybe we can have a public 'render' to see what works best.

Using iMovie as my NLE, H.264 is the default and it appears to do a very good job. I got 400 frames at 740x410 with sound compressed at high quality to 1mb. Try that with Sorenson!

Hmm, H.264 is not working. I rendered my version of "The Door's Stuck" for 26 minutes, and the movie only displays the last 3 frames. Maybe I'll try reinstalling Quicktime.

Thanks everyone for your input!

Double check your Range settings in the Render Panel.
Its very odd that you'd get the last 3 frames in any render regardless of the format/codec involved.

I had similar results using H.264 it showed the frames being rendered but displayed only the last few and the file of what should be 60 frames was only 6k ......and displayed 1 or 2 frames tops

The range is fine, 00:00:00 to 00:19:00. If I change the codec, it will render and display all 19 seconds.

I'm off to uninstall and reinstall Quicktime and see what happens.

I don't think you can render to H.264 from A:M. It's never worked for me; I've always needed to render to something else like Sorenson or "Animation" uncompressed and then recompress it in QT Pro to get me a H.264 file.

Very good point Robert.
Probably one of the many reasons why I've long championed rendering out to the Sorensen 3 format in the past.

Yep, rendering to H.264 still not working even after reinstalling Quicktime. And Sorenson encoding is still not an option.

I tried Jahshaka to render to other formats, but it crashes. It seems like it's still under development. I have some other programs I can try over the weekend.

Quote from Martin:



I've never tried it, stuck on using Sorenson.

I've just noticed that all the usual QT codecs are actually missing from my v15a Mac and PC installs. They are still there when I use v14c on the same PC..... (Reported)

Cheers

Since I upgraded QT on my PC (oops) I cannot render QT from A:M at all. I've just converted avis with Super, a superior free movie converter:
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

Has anyone experienced washed out and faded video with H.264?

I tried fooling around with H.264 and the gamma was always messed up in the final movie. I searched around the web and it seems that a lot of people have the same problem.

I also have problems with movies losing sync with the audio in Quicktime.

Why don't more people use wmv? The compression is much better than H.264 and the quality of the video is EXCELLENT. It also eliminates the sync problems and there is no washed out gamma. I think it is superior.

The answer from my perspective:

Microsoft has made WMV format a closed system.
Programs generally can write to it and read it but can't modify and convert it.
This may not be as true now as it has been in the past but historically its been that way.
I'm not sure how much licensing would cost for exporting WMV out to other formats but I expect its rather prohibitive. Microsoft apparently likes it that way. (Its their perogative)

Its hard to convince someone to use WMV when its a dead end street when it comes to editing and converting to other formats.

If anyone knows of some good WMV converters please post them!
Not -into- WMV. There are a lot of those.
Converting out of WMV is what is needed.

I suspect the main difficulty with converting out is that very same compression rate you mention. The better the compression the more difficult to get a similar quality back out in other formats.

I don't use wmv (except as an intermediary)because you can't scrub frame by frame in windows media player. This makes wmv completely useless for analyzing your animation.

You can uninstall your bad Quicktime and install a previous verison.

long list of quicktime versions

I'm still on 7.1 and doing fine. And I go back to 6 when I have to do anything in my 5 year old verison of After Effects that involves sound.

I see your point, However, doesn't Premiere and After Effects support wmv. Can't you just open the wmv in Premiere or After Effects and render out whatever you want?

I see your point, However, doesn't Premiere and After Effects support wmv. Can't you just open the wmv in Premiere or After Effects and render out whatever you want?

Most people don't own Premiere or After Effects so that eliminates that as a useful remedy.
If someone were to provide that conversion as a service perhaps?

I don't know myself and it seems reasonable that Premiere or AE could export WMV but I've never heard that it could.
Generally other formats are used and WMV is 'publish and read only'. (Note: That is a benefit of the format if you don't want people to edit/borrow/steal your work. It won't prevent someone from getting it if they want it. It'll slow the average person down though.)

I hope I'm wrong here but the point is that the capability is now generally accessible to everyone.

Bendy also points out a reason that WMV doesn't work well for animators; the inability to look frame-by-frame at your work. This combined with an inability to convert the format to another that can be looked at frame-by-frame makes it harder to endorse.

Unlike a few years ago though at least WMV is viewable on both PC and Mac platforms now. Before its inability to be viewed on the Mac made it unacceptable for general public viewing. If we use this timeline as a guage in a few years we should be able to easily convert WMV too. But waiting isn't much of an option for us in the present.

Of course, as all Windows users have easy access to creating WMV its hard not to use it.
Just understand the pitfalls you need to avoid and... SAVE BACKUPS of your movie in other formats.

Yet another reason I champion rendering out to TGA sequential images I suppose.

Here is a link to a utility that converts to and from wmv, qt, mpg, etc., and it's free!

http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

You know... David Simmons has probably linked to that site a dozen times and I keep forgetting it. (Sorry... I'm getting old and forgetful David)

Thanks for the reminder. I'll reinvestigate!


Edit: I am reminded about something else too.
That is one of the most unintuitive downloading sites I've visited.
I recommend using the top menu. Its a three click process if you do it that way.
Don't scroll through and follow links as its easy to get lost.

I'm assuming this Codec issue is an apple problem. I've noticed that with each new version of QT I intall the options in the renderer get fewer and fewer. I dare say that Apple is trying to force our hand (just like Microsoft do) down a single path (ie buy QT Pro to get access to H.264 else render to full resolution and suffer)

Tried that SUPER download link. Its reporting that I can't download it becuase my software doesn't support their 'referring' mechanism. I've tried it with 4 PC's and 3 different types of web browsers..... a little suspicious when it blames my firewall for not getting access to the download - and my iMac isn't even presented a download option. Me thinks that this site is wanting to do some pfishing!

I was wondering about this. I did my animated Christmas card in v15 and rendered it from the Mac version as Quicktime and had no issues... but I have Quicktime Pro. Maybe that's the issue.

I can't imagine being without Quicktime Pro. Especially if you're doing stuff with video.

Does old Sorenson stuff at least play in the new Quicktimes?

Yes. I believe it does. I haven't had any problems with playing the codec yet.
As I haven't specifically tested for it though I'd need to have a movie that is certified (or at least reasonably certain) is Sorensen 3 compressed.

I think its just the writing code that hasn't had its license renewed by Apple.
The codec for playing Sorensen is freely available for download.

Window>Show Movie Info tells what codec a movie is in




I don't want it downloadable, people don't bother to do that. I want it to be included.

Has anyone had any success downloading that 'SUPER' converter application mentioned above? I've been trying for a week and no success.

Edit - Got it - Finally. Nice app - very capable.

Cheers

Hi,

> I think its just the writing code that hasn't had its license renewed by Apple.
> The codec for playing Sorensen is freely available for download.

I use Sorenson 3 for work (and for my film project), so I was really bummed when I saw this topic. However, I got in touch with support at sorensonmedia.com and this is what they said:

> The licensing terms haven't changed. You can still output Sorenson Video if you Enable Legacy Codecs in Quicktime Preferences.

I suppose that means that you have to change it in QuickTime itself, and then the options should show up on the output menu in AM. However, I have not tried it, and I will not try it... I have something that works right now so I'll just take my own time about that QuickTime upgrade...

Hope this helps.

Jos'h

I tried it. It works! Thanks for posting the solution. However, I might just use MPEG-4 Video in the future.

Just tried it after updating and indeed this sovles the problem...thanks