Blender is an amazing program. I am just finishing up my first 2D-animated short using Blender’s sequence editor.
I have rendered a few different ways and I can’t seem to quite get the ideal render for animation festivals.
After researching many festivals, it seems the final deliverable animation (for some festivals, that don’t request a DCP, for example) needs to be something that Blender can almost do but with a few barely lacking components:
Yes = Blender can do by default / No = Does not appear to be functional
VIDEO
.MOV or .MP4 container (Yes)
Uncompressed (Yes), H.264 (Yes) or AppleProRes HQ (No)
Very high bit rate for 4K Full {also known as 4K Full scope or 4K cinema, which is 4096 x 2160} - Yes!
AUDIO
AAC Stereo (Yes) or 5.1 Surround Sound (n/a – AAC does not store 5.1)
PCM Stereo (Yes) or 5.1 Surround Sound (Yes)
48kHz (Yes)
320 kbps (Yes) or 6,000+ kbps {for 6 channel uncompressed 5.1} (No)
24-bit audio (No)
The way I have come to this understanding is through attempts at exporting something like this codec:
4K Full
H.264 (.MOV / .MP4 containers because various festivals prefer one or the other)
100+ mbps (250 max.)
PCM 24-bit uncompressed audio
I can deal with the lack of proprietary codecs like ProRes (which I think is a bit unfair of festivals to ask of us on some level, given the huge variety of other codecs – increasingly open source varieties – available) built into Blender. That is not a problem for me.
The problem is strictly in the audio portion, it seems.
Every time I go to export the video under each codec, Blender caps the audio in the following ways:
- There is no bit rate beyond 384 kbps
- There is no bit depth (word size) slider to achieve 24-bit or better audio (Some music videos would highly benefit from 32-bit audio, for example)
As a result, it seems that I cannot ask any Blender output video codec to accept my 6-channel 5.1 PCM 24-bit audio.
When I listen to and examine the file it seems the audio has always been reduced to 16-bit and the codec displayed is PCM S16 LE (sowt). I’d rather have my video output files tell me they are PCM S24 LE (s24l).
Is there another hidden audio controller somewhere within Blender, which lets me break this limit? Or perhaps is there a better codec solution?
(I don’t know why festivals seem to prefer AAC or PCM specifically, but I am only going off of my very limited data since this is my first time submitting something like this.)
Thank you for any answer/solution provided. Please note that software/hardware at my disposal include:
Mac OS X Blender (i7 2.2 ghz computer)
and
Linux Mint Cinnamon Blender (i3 computer)
I am especially open to freeware/open source solutions, even if that means downloading some special software. I cannot afford a copy of Final Cut Pro or Premiere, though. My budget for the movie was 0. I hope that you understand and don’t judge me on this, or if I am overlooking some obvious solution.
Thank you so much for reading/considering and let me know if you have any questions.