I am on Blender 2.58. In Blender 2.49b, I created a dozen or so MPEG-4 files - no problems. In Blender 2.58, I get error messages when I try to create this format. I have tried reloading factory defaults, then following these steps:
Select “Render” button at the top of the “Properties” view.
Select “Dimensions” panel and set “Render Presets” to NTSC 4:3 or 16:9.
Select “Output” panel, and set File Format to “MPEG”.
Select “Encoding” panel, and set the “Format” field to “MPEG-4” or “AVI”.
I made no other changes to factory defaults, and these are the settings I successfully used in 2.49b.
Results:
With “AVI”, I get a .avi file which is unplayable in Real Player, WMV, and QuickTime. With “MPEG-4”, Blender gives me the error message, “Error initializing video stream”, and there is no output file.
Are there some other settings I need to set to get a good mp4 files, or has Blender lost the capability to produce in this format? I can get good, playable videos when I set the output format to .avi (jpeg or raw) and to PNG. i haven’t tried the other output settings.
Thanks Richard. I do have a lot of zeroes in the “Encoding” section, which may be the problem. However, I can’t read your values for these fields, except to see that they are different from mine; the resolution of your photo is too small - all the writing blurs out when I enlarge it. Any chance you could repost at a higher resolution?
I tried setting the presets to DVD and changing the format to MPEG-4. I got the same numbers as on your second photo, but the resultant mp4 file is still unreadable (I tried both TVPAL 16:9 and TVNTSC 4:3). However, in researching this, I watched the Blender Guru video on generating an animation, and he suggests outputting to .png files, then assembling them into a movie with the VSE, or possibly with other programs. I think I’ll try this approach.
In any case, thanks for the help. I appreciate your time, even if it wasn’t entirely successful for me.
