[Solved (but not with Blender)] demoreel as QuickTime

Artistic Support Compositing and Post Processing
1

Whenever I go to submit my animation reel for real life jobs, they always ask for it in QuickTime format. They say the Mpegs and AVIs I have given them don’t work on their machines. I use Linux, and Blender, and I don’t know of any immediate way to make the reels in QuickTime which will actually play (without issues) in any typically set up Windows computer.

I have one Windows test machine which can play QuickTime. In Media Design School, we compiled animations as QuickTime through Adobe Premiere… those ones work fine.

Nothing I produce in Blender does though. I know I could make the files work if I recompiled them through Adobe Premiere, but I can’t afford it and I don’t want to pirate Adobe products.

Yes, I know the Windows version of Blender has Quicktime format. That works, but alas, it has no sound. So as an animator who wants to demonstrate lip-syncing skills… that option sucks.
Yes, there is the option to render as ffmpeg but with “video” set to QuickTime. In my test machine, they do not work. Instead, QuickTime wants to connect to the internet for an upgrade to run them… it shouldn’t need to considering it can run the ones made from Media Design School).

I have searched through many threads on Quicktime solutions.

  • Some of them say to use other players: Bad move… I can’t tell my prospective employers to do that.
  • Other threads tell me to download all manner of softwares I’m not sure are the right thing. http://xiph.org/quicktime/download.html or http://www.perian.org/ (hey - that last site magically crashes firefox every time… even with images, Java and JavaScript disabled!)

So yeah… I’ve searched all day through these confusing forums looking for a solution that works. I suppose I could use Linux Kino or DVD Author to make a DVD version which runs in a standard DVD player…

…but really, they are asking for QuickTime demo reels and I’d much rather comply. Everyone else just pirates Maya and Premiere and PhotoShop and so on… probably even their OS is pirated. No compatibility issues for them. :frowning:

Anyone know how to make Quicktime, with sound and fair compression, from Blender? I Kind of need this to get a job.

Thanks in advance - Lancer.

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EDIT: All said and done, I just ran into issues trying to make this work through Blender. I finally purchased Adobe Premiere for the job, although too late for the original task. I’d rather use Blender but unfortunately I’m going to have to admit it’s not the tool for the job this time.

Solution: Don’t use blender (especially on Linux) to composite Quicktime, H264 or other standard fromats where sound is involved… purchase Adobe Pemiere for the job. There are other alternatives… possibly the cheapest is that QuickTime Pro can apparently render from tga image sequences, meaning it should be able to create a valid QuickTime by combining a WAV file with a Blender generated frame-by-frame image dump.

2

I got Sony Vega Movie Studio Lincense Veriosn and You can send me your file, I will convert in mov format.
I can help you after 6 hours, because just i am on dialup and when I reach home I got broadband there.

3

Thanks but…

Quicktime is installed on my Windows machine (QuickTime player is anyway). It was installed before Blender.
When I comile as Quicktime, the sound tab is not there.

I cannot send you the files because I am on slow dialup and I may need to rerender my reels on a regular basis.

4

There is some thing already developped in Linux for creating QuckTime format.
The package called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinelerra
But, I have not used that

5

Wow… QuickTime as in .mov files? I’ll certainly look into that one; hopefully it’s what I’m after. Downloading now. Thanks!

6

Have you tried rendering straight to mp4 with ffmpeg in Blender? I do that quite often and those files seem to play just fine in QuickTime. For safety, I use mp3 or pcm for the audio codec, although aac should work fine.

One thing to note because it’s bitten me more than once… I believe that if you try to render using h.264, you need to verify that the resolution of your animation is divisible by 2 (I believe it’s 2… I’m doing this from memory, so you’ll have to verify for yourself). If either the height or width isn’t divisible by 2, then Blender will give you an error from ffmpeg and the mp4 or mov file from your render will either be empty or non-existent.

7

But be carefull, that I did not got success in cinellera for creating MOV files, , that’s why I baught Sony Vega Movie Studio. But that was 2 years ago. Now Cinellera must have improved.

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Thanks Fweeb… that mp4 does appear to work really well with QuickTime player. Haven’t tried with sound yet, though initial test render looks promising. I’m thinking I might make a DVD which can play in a standard player, but also have alternative formats on the root of the DVD for those who want a computer based player.

kkrawalOkay… I haven’t figured out the interface to Cinelerra yet. I remember I had an attempt some time ago. Be nice if it does the trick, although given that you hadn’t succeeded we’ll only have to wait and see. Worth learning up I think.

9

MP4 file format will work on quicktime 7.0 or greater. So if your client still can not view the video, they may need to upgrade their player wich can be a delicate situation (hey your software is too old). I typically consider Sorenson 3 the safest delivery for office personel. Sorenson 3 will play even on quicktime 6.0 players.

One thing to remember is that quicktime will read an AVI file. So you could render to an AVI on Linux (correct). Then, as long as you have a compatible codec on your windows machine, you can open the AVI file with Quicktime and then do file export into the Sorenson codec.

This requires the purchase of Quicktime Pro, however ($30.00). A small price to pay to be compatible with your client.

10

I have no problem using FFMPEG to create Quicktime files with sound right out of Blender. I usually use the H.264 codec when doing that.

11

I agree, FFMPEG with multiplexing audio as a .mov/.mp4 works well

if you don’t have sound, you might also try an AVI jpeg output (that can play in almost anything)

12

H264 is also a version 7.0 compatible format.

Quicktime output for Windows Xp SP3 using quicktime pro 7.1 is still broken as of 2.48. No one seems to care.

13

Think it’s too late for that job opportunity now :frowning:

I spoke too soon about MP4 working… it does, but not with sound it doesn’t.

Even after I updated my version of QuickTime player, I’m still having problems. No, I didn’t register to “pro” version, just no. 7 version… no sense in paying them “pro” when even “basic” is working and they’ll take my money and run.

I’ve been rerendering with countless different codecs… it’s taken ages, and every time I’m hitting a brick wall.

I gave up trying to compile animations from Linux. They work, but only in Linux. No one with QuickTime in Windows can see them.

On my Windows machine running Blender 2.48a…

Compiling a “quicktime” movie works, but is completely useless when the company / client / job interview panel (etc) are looking for sound.

ffmpeg options…
ffmpeg as “quicktime” produces a quicktime file which shows a white screen on my player. Changing my qt-player settings to “safe” mode (googled solution) does not fix this. Besides, other quicktimes I have play properly, so I’m suggesting it’s the Blender compile that’s out of whack.

MPEG-4 works by itself (without sound) but… when I try to use sound (mp2, mp3, ac3 or aac) Blender just crashes on hitting the big animate button. Sometimes just a hard crash, sometimes locking up my whole system and sometimes with this error…

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/7171/qterrorfj2.jpg

I’d really like to solve this one. It’s kind of getting in my way of applying for jobs because I can’t submit my reel to anyone when they all want QuickTime format.

14

if you’re still having problems (and you’ve already downloaded the 2005 c++ runtime libraries that you need :D) , you could try it the ol’ fashioned way with virtual dub :smiley:

see documentation:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD/Introduction_to_Character_Animation/Final_animation
-toward the end

15

All right! Someone else is experiencing the fact that Quicktime does not work on Windows!

Sorry to celebrate in your misery, Lancer, but I thought I was the only one experiencing this.

Quicktime ouput from Blender 2.48a is broken on Windows XP SP3 using Quicktime 7. Let’s all say it together now!:cool:

Quicktime is such an important part of a motionographers toolset. For Blender to be accepted by motiongraphic artists, this feature must be fixed and work as expected and be completely compatible with the Adobe product suite.

While I have your attention, let’s not forget about the divide by 10fps bug in Quicktime output as well. When I render to quicktime it always produces a 3fps quicktime movie.

Lancer, on your quicktime that was just a white screen, can you check the file inspector in the quicktime player? It will report the expected FPS of the fie.

16

Hi AMDBCG. Please note that as a Linux user the dependencies Windows users take for granted are secret-handshake to me. I’m assuming that my system would have what it needs. Blender runs. QuickTime runs. If not, how do I check and where do I get it?
Also, is VirtualDub a reliable way of producing actual QuickTime movies? Can it handle the codec? I’m also a bit nervous about the seemingly hit & miss method of linking sound… I’ve got lipsync and it needs to be right.
You can see the movie I’m trying to quicktimerise here: http://www.animator.co.nr

I’m seriously considering breaking the bank and purchasing Adobe Premiere at this point. I’m unemployed but this is getting nowhere. I can see there are a few versions and don’t know which would be best… version 7 is a lot more expensive than Premiere 4 but will Premiere 4 do the quicktime I need? Also, I notice the cheaper versions have “Elements” in their label instead of “CS4” etc. What’s the difference and will it prevent me converting videos?

Both the Actual “compiled as quicktime” (which works but does not have sound) and the FFMPEG as “quicktime” codec (but shows as white) are at 25fps. The only difference in the QuickTime inspector was DataRate: 593.03 (working quicktime with no sound) versus 826.06 kbits/sec.
You say Blender 2.48a is broken… do earlier versions have better results?

17

For me, Blender quicktime output broke when 2.44 came out. I thought for sure it would be fixed quicky. Prior to 2.44 you did not have that “Frames Per Second Base” setting. When that setting was introduced, I could not longer render quicktimes correctly. Yes, Blender does make a file, but as I mentioned, the FPS is always 3. Thats why I call it the divide by 10 bug.

18

Okay, I’m now going to take “urgent” out of the title. The job has slipped by too late for a Blender / Open Source based solution. I’ve missed the boat.

So today I forked out for Adobe Premiere Elements 7 (I got a little money spending a week making a logo for someone’s business in InkScape). That suite could not even read the Blender made movies. Working instead from RAW tga images (dumped from Blender compositer) I was finally able to successfully compile working Quicktime along with the wav (sound) file from the original mix.

If Blender can do “quicktime with sound” on it’s own, and one which works on my computer (and the guys I’m trying to apply for a job with) I’ll be listening. Until then, I’m putting Blender out of the pipeline for professional compositing.

I know there will be people saying “works for me” like I did something wrong somewhere, but can they say what I’d need to do to fix the problem? Working for them doesn’t fix it working for me.

Blender failed. I missed the job because of it. I’m learning from these mistakes… I’ve got alternatives for that specific part now. Moving on, still using Blender for the bits it can do.

Current solution: Don’t use blender (especially on Linux) to composite Quicktime, H264 or other standard fromats where sound is involved… purchase Adobe Pemiere for the job.

19

Did you try Apple’s QuickTime Pro? It’s only $30 and will read image sequences and allow you to overlay the sound track on top of it. (It’s not nearly as powerful as Premiere Elements, of course, and would not be too helpful with things like an out-of-sync soundtrack.)

20

Quicktime Pro allows reading image sequences? I missed that one.

I did consider getting QuickTime Pro but then noticed that in QuickTime Player (aka QuickTime Basic) there were a whole lot of locked menus… I reasoned that the real difference would be unlocking those extra features, while making no difference to the movie files in terms of whether they could be read.

But yes… if QuickTime Pro can read tga sequences and add a wav file then it does sound like exactly the same ting I’m now doing in Premiere. I don’t need most of the functionality that comes with Premierre… Blender does most editing fine, and all I was wanting was a way of getting those videos to actually work on my client’s (or, right now, my prospective empolyer’s) machines.

A small sidenote: I found that using mkisofs aka genisoimage in Ubuntu 8.04 (many of the gui frontends use these under the shell) for a dvd-player compatable reel results in a DVD which cannot be read by Windows-OS (comes up like a blank disk). It’s a serious flaw and I don’t know whether they’ve fixed in Ubuntu 8.10. My solution was to use a boot disk of an earlier Ubuntu (or another brand of Linux) to generate the iso from its older version of mkisofs.

…probably worth posting that in case anyone else hits this forum with similar problems.