Having finished a simple animation, I have now added some sound by exporting to .avi, Microsoft Video 1 with compression and temporal quality set to maximum. This gives me a file of about 96Mb.
I tried adding sound in Windows Movie Maker but it seems limited. I can't export to best quality dv camera because 'no movie camera attached'.
The best other option compresses the file tool much with too much quality loss.
I've finally added sound in Dubit and saving a best quality .avi with sound weighs in at 90Mb with a little quality loss compared to the original. The file is 30fps 640x480.
It is intended for Youtube. I would have added the sound, which is only 4 1/10th second clips, in ASP but couldn't find any way of shifting them around on the timeline.
Given that they're for Youtube, does anyone have any advice about whether my way is as good as I can reasonably get?
I'd really like to finish up with a 'master' copy at best quality from which other sizes/ quality/ formats (flash, for example) can be derived.
Sound and Video Quality
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Microsoft Video 1 is a very old codec, that can be good and bad at the same time. It's good if you are trying to get different software to work with your file. Everything seems to support it unlike the newer and better codec's that do a much better job of compression. I have about 15 codec's on my system and their seams to be a few hundred of them if you really look. Which one is best? The one that works with all the software your using and that has the lowest loss of quality.
Also Youtube is only 320x240, I think, might have changed. So rendering anything larger is going to just make you file bigger, not better.
Dale
Also Youtube is only 320x240, I think, might have changed. So rendering anything larger is going to just make you file bigger, not better.
Dale
Re: Sound and Video Quality
As a general rule of thumb, you always want to render to individual frames, whether it's BMP or PNG, and at whatever resolution will be your intended master (say 720x480, for example). Then you use whatever editing program you have to bring the frames in as a sequence, and render out from there.lemmy wrote: I'd really like to finish up with a 'master' copy at best quality from which other sizes/ quality/ formats (flash, for example) can be derived.
Nearly all editors support this, but you must dig around a bit to find out how. I think even the freeware Microsoft Movie Maker allows you to import a sequence of BMPs. And then, of course, you can export to AVI in a variety of formats.
Preparing the best quality for YouTube is a whole other topic -- your absolute best bet is to use Quicktime Pro, of course, but failing spending the money for that (although it isn't all that expensive) you may be able to convert using other freeware approaches (I'm not sure if iTunes will convert an AVI for iPod format, which would work fine for YouTube, but that's one possibility).
Unfortunately, at some point you might want to spend the money and get some quality tools -- sometimes you can indeed tell the work from the tools that made it.
So, having finalised a cartoon, I'd save a separate frame, all 700 of them in my case and assemble them elsewhere. Is that correct?As a general rule of thumb, you always want to render to individual frames
I've nothing against buying software that does the job (it's why I bought the Anime Pro version). Why do you recommend Quicktime Pro in particular?
A few years ago, I made series of cartoons, 250 or so of them for an online 'theatre', which were taken up and published weekly in The Daily Telegraph online, a British newspaper. The cartoons are about humour, the animation is rudimentary and needs to be for the effect I want. I used to do these in Photoshop layers and serve them up as animated gifs.
Having found myself full of ideas again, I want to resurrect the theatre but do it more easily and with good quality - but still primitive in animation terms.
I can learn the donkey work by myself but what I find useful is the pointers here from more experienced folk - outputting to stills, for example and rendering them to video in another program , I didn't think of that. If I can start right, I can carry on right.
Yes, assemble elsewhere, that is correct.
In 3D work this is essential for a number of reasons, some of which don't apply here (render farms, crashing during lengthy renders, etc.) and some of which do (you can rerender only a portion of your animation should you decide to change something). But the main purpose is to have the highest quality baseline to then use in your editing software and/or for other output formats. Professional work is almost always done this way.
Obviously single frames eat up a lot of disk space, but this was a bigger issue in the past than it is with today's massive TB discs. Still, it's rare to actually save the individual frames for any length of time, so you delete them when you have made all your final products (particularly with fast rendering 2D).
YouTube's "standard" of animation is MP4/MPV (mostly because of their deal with Apple but also because it's a very very good format for video delivery in terms of quality versus size). While you *can* upload other formats, MP4 is not only native (and thus will be available almost instantly) but is something they end up converting your stuff to in the long run anyway. And until it's converted it won't be available for others to see on such devices as AppleTV and the iPhone (both of which can connect to YouTube as part of their OS). So for widest possible audience as well as greatest size/quality tradeoff this is the format you want to end up with.
So... that's why QuickTime Pro (an authoring engine for MP4/MPV) is the best choice to produce it. There are other products which do a good job and may actually be preferable depending on what other formats and software you use (for example, I use CucuSoft's conversion suite since I do a lot of WMV and AVI converts, but I also have QT Pro as well as just about any other video tool on the market. Then again, I used to do this stuff for a living) but you can't go far wrong with QT Pro since not only did Apple invent it but MP4 is all that Apple uses for its various devices (iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, you name it).
And, of course, you want a good video editor, but that's a whole other topic.
In 3D work this is essential for a number of reasons, some of which don't apply here (render farms, crashing during lengthy renders, etc.) and some of which do (you can rerender only a portion of your animation should you decide to change something). But the main purpose is to have the highest quality baseline to then use in your editing software and/or for other output formats. Professional work is almost always done this way.
Obviously single frames eat up a lot of disk space, but this was a bigger issue in the past than it is with today's massive TB discs. Still, it's rare to actually save the individual frames for any length of time, so you delete them when you have made all your final products (particularly with fast rendering 2D).
YouTube's "standard" of animation is MP4/MPV (mostly because of their deal with Apple but also because it's a very very good format for video delivery in terms of quality versus size). While you *can* upload other formats, MP4 is not only native (and thus will be available almost instantly) but is something they end up converting your stuff to in the long run anyway. And until it's converted it won't be available for others to see on such devices as AppleTV and the iPhone (both of which can connect to YouTube as part of their OS). So for widest possible audience as well as greatest size/quality tradeoff this is the format you want to end up with.
So... that's why QuickTime Pro (an authoring engine for MP4/MPV) is the best choice to produce it. There are other products which do a good job and may actually be preferable depending on what other formats and software you use (for example, I use CucuSoft's conversion suite since I do a lot of WMV and AVI converts, but I also have QT Pro as well as just about any other video tool on the market. Then again, I used to do this stuff for a living) but you can't go far wrong with QT Pro since not only did Apple invent it but MP4 is all that Apple uses for its various devices (iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, you name it).
And, of course, you want a good video editor, but that's a whole other topic.
Thanks for your time and advice. When you say MP4 is native to Youtube, the stuff on my screen appears to be Flash - or am I missing something here? If Youtube IS Flash would outputting directly to Flash not be better?
Regarding my simple workflow, if I make the cartoons in ASP and output them as png, say, presumably I then feed those to Quicktime Pro, add my rudimentary sounds there and output to MP4, that would be it? I can't see, given my simple requirements that I would need a video editor, since everything I do, being 2D, can be done in ASP. Again, am I missing something here?
Realistically, the only outlet for my cartoons would be my own web site and Youtube.
A few years ago, while my Theatre was running, I got a call from Marilyn Manson's UK PR asking me to do one of my cartoons for his web site. I was so scared that I emailed them to say that they had to understand that my cartoons were the way they were not because that's how I wanted them, but because that's the best I could do.
But as a professional magazine and newspaper photographer, it was very flattering to be asked at all!
Regarding my simple workflow, if I make the cartoons in ASP and output them as png, say, presumably I then feed those to Quicktime Pro, add my rudimentary sounds there and output to MP4, that would be it? I can't see, given my simple requirements that I would need a video editor, since everything I do, being 2D, can be done in ASP. Again, am I missing something here?
Realistically, the only outlet for my cartoons would be my own web site and Youtube.
A few years ago, while my Theatre was running, I got a call from Marilyn Manson's UK PR asking me to do one of my cartoons for his web site. I was so scared that I emailed them to say that they had to understand that my cartoons were the way they were not because that's how I wanted them, but because that's the best I could do.
But as a professional magazine and newspaper photographer, it was very flattering to be asked at all!
All video on YouTube is converted (or in the process of being converted) to MP4, regardless of the source format. Flash video cannot be played on the iPod/iPhone/AppleTV and the agreement with Apple makes it imperative for YouTube to convert.
QT Pro cannot accept image sequences, I do believe (I can't check as my Netbook I'm on right now doesn't have QT Pro). A video editor does this as a matter of course. But a video editor is useful for much more than this. Unless you intend to use AS to construct your individual scenes you will need an editor. If you intend to add dialog and/or music tracks you will need an editor. If you want to add effects and/or pro titles you will need an editor. In short, if you want to produce something professional looking, you will need an editor.
If this is just a hobby and you aren't looking to produce something other than just for fun, don't worry about it. Use AS and make a Flash video (or whatever) and upload it to YouTube and be done with it. All of the advice I've given is what we do to make professional looking videos (regardless of how amateurish our drawing skills might be -- here's a case in point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_myrJF7HWE
QT Pro cannot accept image sequences, I do believe (I can't check as my Netbook I'm on right now doesn't have QT Pro). A video editor does this as a matter of course. But a video editor is useful for much more than this. Unless you intend to use AS to construct your individual scenes you will need an editor. If you intend to add dialog and/or music tracks you will need an editor. If you want to add effects and/or pro titles you will need an editor. In short, if you want to produce something professional looking, you will need an editor.
If this is just a hobby and you aren't looking to produce something other than just for fun, don't worry about it. Use AS and make a Flash video (or whatever) and upload it to YouTube and be done with it. All of the advice I've given is what we do to make professional looking videos (regardless of how amateurish our drawing skills might be -- here's a case in point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_myrJF7HWE
Yes, your video is obviously professional quality and shows all your experience behind it. But....although my drawing and cartoon is rudimentary - and it is - I still want to output that to the best technical standard I reasonably can.If this is just a hobby and you aren't looking to produce something other than just for fun, don't worry about it.
I can do all the effects and drawing I need in ASP, it's perfectly suited to what I do. All I can't seem to do is add the sound. However, having exported it to Windows Movie Maker and added a few sound fx there, when I re-export it, it inevitably degrades the quality, rather as saving a still image over and over in jpeg format does. If Windows Movie Maker could export MP4 at decent quality I'd have all I need.
So, cutting to the chase, I need to export the movie from ASP at the highest quality I can, add sound and then export to MP4. I don't need to add any FX that I can't do in ASP.
How would you suggest I do this? I'm not averse to spending money if it's necessary.
Other people work with windowsmoviemaker and get decent quality from that, so I assume it's just a question of getting the right settings. But I'm working on Mac, so I don't know something useful about that.
Export from AS should be done with a codec like Animation, and Quality set to maximum. If this codec is available in your system, use it.
Export from Moviemaker needs to be done in another codec. Uploading video to youtube means that youtube will re-compress your movie anyway to the codec they use internally. I think it evaluates your video file wether it meets their standards, and everything which already is OK will not be touched.
Youtube recommends these settings:
Video format: MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid)
Dimensions: 640 x 480 Pixel
Audio format: MP3
fps: 30
Export from AS should be done with a codec like Animation, and Quality set to maximum. If this codec is available in your system, use it.
Export from Moviemaker needs to be done in another codec. Uploading video to youtube means that youtube will re-compress your movie anyway to the codec they use internally. I think it evaluates your video file wether it meets their standards, and everything which already is OK will not be touched.
Youtube recommends these settings:
Video format: MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid)
Dimensions: 640 x 480 Pixel
Audio format: MP3
fps: 30
Okay, doing a little more research it does appear that QT Pro imports image sequences. So that should be all you need -- export in AS, bring into QT and add your soundtrack. Then export as M4V/MP4 and upload to YouTube.
It's only $30 for QT Pro so that should be a cheap solution for you.
YouTube does NOT recompress MP4 videos uploaded to it.
It's only $30 for QT Pro so that should be a cheap solution for you.
YouTube does NOT recompress MP4 videos uploaded to it.