Hi, I’m using Blender 2.5 and I tried to render a video, but every time I set the output file to MPEG, whatever codec I choose (if it renders at all), Blender will render it in red. Single frames are fine, but MPEG video is frustrating me to no end.
Screenshots of settings and output:
Render to an image sequence, not a video. Rendering to video files in any program is usually just asking for trouble. It’s a convenience feature that is best avoided most of the time, a lot like auto exposure/white balance on your camera.
Okay, advice heeded. Small follow-up question: After rendering to a folder of PNGs, what program could I use to string them together as a video file with audio. I’ve looked a quite a few programs, and a lot of them don’t work unless the resolution and format and everything is just exactly one way. Do you know a program with more flexibility? (Preferably free.)
Personally, I’m a Final Cut user so I just use Compressor. (You’re on a Mac, it looks like?) If you don’t have FCS, or have an older version, that’s not really an option for you. There are a number of free programs that can do it, such as using ffmpeg from the command line, but I’ve never done it. Also, Quicktime 7 Pro can do this, if you have it. Otherwise, I’m afraid someone else is going to need to help you there.
You can load your images into blender. jk 
VirtualDub (if you want .avi container) or Avidemux for others like matroska, mp4 etc.
MPEGStreamclip will give you .mov container. Think it takes image sequences.
