I’m rendering my first animation for a client (just a fly thru) and I’m not sure what format the final movie should be in. It needs to be run on a windows pc running XP. I expect mpeg is best, but which codec should I use?
Zap
If it comes to the need of compatibility, mpg1 still is good. of course mpg2 is much better. but nothing but a not visibile animation is worse.
maybe you give him two versions. one mpg1 and also a mpg2, xvid or divix5.x for better quality, together with the codecs
Thanks Tom. I’ll go with mpeg1 - don’t need the hassle of explaining codecs to their system administrators. 
for jobs like that I usualy create quicktime animations as there usualy small and you dont have to worry so much about coecs.
-dave
ya I pretty much use quicktime myself.
i just made some experiments with codecs.
the best quality was WMV with variable bitrate.
you dont need to install codecs when playing the file on a winxp computer.
the quicktime tests looked very bad with the sorensen or mpeg4 codecs and the same filesize. the audio compression was also much better with WMV. divx didnt look better than wmv but has the problem with codec installation on the clients computer.
I also tend to use .wmv with windows based clients now. I’ve had to explain how to install quicktime a few times, and after Apple started sneaking in iTunes clients really don’t appreciate that. So so more quicktime unless I do work for mac based agencies.
Gotta resurrect this thread…
How do you save an animation as a wmv file or as a quicktime movie using the Sorensen 3 codec? I can’t find anywhere which can tell me. 
I always render to TGA seqeunces, and convert to other formats later.
The RAM player will save Quicktime with Sorenson 3, but I usually use Adobe AfterEffects.
For WMV the free windows media encoder from Microsoft is great:
Thanks Egz. I save my animations the same way, but I don’t have the means to save using the Sorenson 3 codec. Do you know how I get max to use this codec?
When I have had to give animations to people who may not have the same codecs as me and probably don’t understand codecs I make a bink file and the turn that into an .exe file so it loads the player, plays the video and then unloads the player and they don’t have to do anything. RAD Game Tools
Bink file?
bink is the name of the software made by Rad video (the webpage above) the extension is actually .bik
it’s free to download, it has a great compresser in it. I have yet to find a crappy enough computer that won’t play the executable files (you have control over all of the parameters for play back)
i know file size hasnt been discussed but i decided to do a “test”
source was an avi - 2,5424 kb
after export
bink - 5,338 kb
wmv - 7,355 kb
just thought i would throw it out there.
Arkitec
filesize will depend on the bitrate you select…
Most of my clients want to be able to scrub around in the clip, pause etc. when they are commenting on it, so that’s why I don’t use Bink.
this is true, a person could always give the client a series of files. one that they can manuever through (codec included) and then for computer challenged something simpler. the people I deal with still don’t really use computers. they want video tape and slides. :roll:
i used to use tmpgenc alot. its free and does a good compression job.
Don’t ignore windows media, it is really hitting it’s stride, good chance it will be the king of HD
Hey Guys, thanks for all your comments.
I’m going to try them and see what works for me, but as you have tried them I was wondering what format, codec, etc I should produce the animation in before I convert it using the programs you have suggested. My source will be a tga file for each frame & i’ll use either RAM player or Video post to create an initial movie for conversion.
Anyone?