What movie format to save in?

Support Basics & Interface
1

Greetings. :slight_smile:

I’m wondering what movie format I should render my animations in for the purpose of sharing them on the internet (eg with Vimeo). What do you guys use?

Thanks.

2

Look at the compression guidelines for any particular hosting site you want to use. For Vimeo these are http://vimeo.com/help/compression

Richard

3

Thanks Richard.

I used to use the FFMPEG, Format: AVI, CODEC: H264 but that gave me choppy results on Vimeo when viewed on a Linux machine. Windows was ok.

I see in Blender 2.5 there is a new format called “H.264”. Is this the way to go then?

4

@ Robo, I’m not sure what you are trying to do exactly, if just simple turn-arounds or something then disregard this advice.

Render out still images! just render .png (or .exr if you want to do post processing), then combine them in a video application. I know that some people use blender from start to finish and I respect that, but my life became much easier once I switched to a real non-linear editor, (I use premiere because I don’t have a mac). If you have to go the free route, try virtual dub for light editing stuff and converting, cinelerra if you want to get dirty. Honestly determining the best codec and format for your end product is a science unto itself. A tip for uploading to youtube is to send up the best quality you have, and they will convert it. They convert everything to their own codec and format (.mp4 these days probably maybe still .flv) so it doesn’t matter what you put up, just avoid compressing twice into too lossy of a format. As to H.264 it is an industry standard codec for use in .avi or .mov, considered lossless by many and a decent file size. There are many other ones, I have been using divx, and lagarith a lot lately with good, if not flawless, results. Last tip, I think youtube works better at 25 fps better than 30, just IMO and don’t forget vimeo!

5

Thanks N00BIE.

edit: 3dementia I mean.

6

First render to png. Then, in the video sequencer, load the png files onto a strip. Export using the xvid preset with all default settings. Make sure to enable audio.

7

Thanks for the suggestion Loop.

Is this format good for Vimeo? Is it just good in general? What do you use it for?

Thanks.