Moho Forum

Hello.

I did an AVI of my little beginner's animation today.

I had tested it at smaller AVI web resolutions and it rendered correctly.

Then I rendered it as

Pal 768 X 576 at frame rate 25

The size of the animation is 1710 frames

I exported as AVI Movie with Antialiased edges, Apply shape effects, Apply layer effects and Extra-smooth images ticked.

The resultant file (a little over one minute animation) came to over 2 gigs in size!

I tried to open the file in Real Player and Windows Media Player

Real Player just sat there and didn't play.

Windows Media Player gave a message that possibly the codec was not supported.

I also tried to open the file in Vegas Movies Studio Platinum 9, but could not open the file.

This is extremely frustrating as I was able to open the AVI file if I saved it in lower resolution.

What do you think is the problem?

Thank you for your help.

Paul.

What what was the codec?

Dale

Unfortunately Windows Player, did not identify the codec. The report was just ambiguous to the effect that possibily a codec was not supported.

I have Windows XP Professional, with the latest updates, if that is helpful.

Paul.

dueyftw wrote:What what was the codec?

Dale

You definitely have to pay attention to codecs. "AVI" is, like Quicktime, just a container file format.

Some useful codecs are:
large files, but best quality:
- PNG (the only one which preserves transparency)
- Animation

smaller files, quality depends on level of compression:
- MPEG-4
- H.264

I'd assume you used the default setting of uncompressed. This is only good for importing into a post editing software, where quality needs to be excellent for compression from that software. This will make huge files that most media players will choke on.

ST has some spot on suggestions.

Actually, this is just the limitation with that codec -- anything over 2GB is not supported. (That's been true since time began and will probably never change). For example:

http://community.avid.com/forums/t/38745.aspx

Just export as single frames and bring together in a program that allows you to create a non-compressed AVI (but, as Wes points out, it *will* be huge -- 20GB or more for the same animation that an AVI can compress to 2GB).

Mkelley's right about saving individual frames then making a resulting AVI. You can make individual frame sizes smaller by using the .PNG format. It is a lossless format that supports alpha-channels if you need them.

Having a folder with a ton of individual frames is PITA, but it's a good safeguard for rendering animations with big frame sizes.