avi file... HUGE

[Rob A]

hey guys, i have made a movie using Adobe After effects and it can only be saved as an .avi file, well although its only 50 seconds long, its 2.1GB!!!

i have tried converting it to mpeg using a free avi to mpeg converter, but the quality has all gone and it has reduced its length to about 30secs.

what can i do? is there anything else i need to convert it to?

thanks guys

R.

 

[Sdashiki]

50 seconds and 2.1GB

WTF are you doing?

What is the resolution of this file?

I find it a near impossibility even with 10-Bit uncompressed HD content for it to reach a Gigabyte per 30seconds.

There is something completely wrong with what you are doing.

If you are using AE on a Mac I fail to understand why it only lets you export it as an AVI....you should be able to do whatever QT can do.

More info?

 

[Rob A]

i actualy did it on my PC... but i want it on my mac.

i did a new composition in after effects, when i was finished, i clicked on 'Make Movie'.

this saved it as an AVI file and it is 2.1gb.

the video is 800x600 and is 8bits per channel. in the past i have 15 seconds ads and they are about 300kb to 600kb.

 

[Sdashiki]

8bits per channel....hmmmm

Well, ummmm.

I think you need to screw around with your Make Movie settings.

I think you have this as a completly uncompressed file, but I still find it hard to believe 50s becomes 2.1GB.

Maybe googling around for some AE faqs could help, im kinda clueless now.

 

[Rob A]

under lossless, it says no compression, under compressor, what option should i go for? this completely throws me, not been using it long

thanks

R.

 

[iris_failsafe]

save it a a image sequence fle in JPEGS, that should reduce the size a lot...

 

[Sdashiki]

Uncompressed. You DONT need that.

What is your final output? That will dictate how much detail you need in your workflow.

You should be saving final videos with some sort of compression.

AVIs play fine in Quicktime.

 

[Rob A]

where do i find out my final output? when i click on format, it has a drop down menu with no compresser, and a bunch of compressers, so i click on microsoft vide1. compression quality 75% and it comes out low quality, but still quite big... and the AE help is confusing >.<

R.

 

[Sdashiki]

Final Output = where you are gonna end up with this video?

DVD?
Web?
TV?

I am not sure why a minute long clip is turning into anything but like 10-100MB in size.

What is the size of the video ? 720x480?

The compression you would want would probably be something like the DV-NTSC codec.

 

[Rob A]

im going to be putting it on DVD on a loop with lots of other stuff...

the video is 800 x 600

 

[Sdashiki]

800x600 is NOT a tv size.

Why is it that size?

720x480 is the correct television size.

Thats problem #1, cuz in any event its going to be squashed looking. Youll need to resize it.

Final output of a DVD, output the file as a DV file (DV NTSC compression). Then you will do what you need to do with it, and then encode it into MPEG2.

 

[MisterMe]

im going to be putting it on DVD on a loop with lots of other stuff...

the video is 800 x 600

DVD with 4:3 aspect ratio is 640 x 480. Anything higher is a waste of space and time because it will be downsampled to 640 x 480 when burned to DVD. At this resolution, a 50 second uncompressed progressive scan 60 fps file should be 3.5 GB. However, most content on DVD was originally on film which is only 24 fps. MPEG-2 compression will reduce your file size significantly. Long story short, your output will be substantially smaller than the 2.1 GB file that you have now. If you understood your source file formats better, your source file would also be substantially smaller.

 

[balamw]

If you understood your source file formats better, your source file would also be substantially smaller.

You're close, but actually standard NTSC DVDs are 720x480 at just under 30 fps as Sdashiki said. They get rescaled to 640x480 or 720x540 for display on square pixel displays like most PCs, but the content on the DVD has to be 720x480 regardless of whether it is 4:3 or 16:9.

A good discussion of how this is all done is here: http://gregl.net/videophile/anamorphic.htm

(There are other lower resolutions and framerates, but this is the best/standard DVD settings).

EDIT: And yes, the math seems to work 800x600x3x30x50=(resolution)x(color depth)x(framerate)x(length)=2.16x1,000,000,000 so for uncompressed video this all makes sense. MJPEG (i.e. a sequence of JPEG frames as iris_failsafe suggested) is a good format that would allow for good compression ratio and still allow further editing/compression.

B

 

[faustfire]

actually, should be 720 by 486

 

[freeny]

Actually saving uncompressed is a good thing. You just need to find a way to get it to your mac. burn to a data dvd?

It is good to have the best quality video before encoding to a dvd.

It is true that you dont need to be any larger then the tv screen size so that will help a bit on size but not that much.

If you compress this video before importing into imovie it will deteriorate!

you would then be doing a compression (from AE as an mpg4 or what ever) on top of a compression (to a DV) on top of a compression (DV to DVD) which is never good.

When you import this into iMovie, iMovie will convert this into a smaller DV file and you can trash your bulky mov file.

This is just how video editing works. Uncompressed files are BIG. But, you will be preserving the quality of your footage before encoding to DVD.


Be sure you got to-
Composition/Make Movie

Under "ouput module" check the "format" and make sure it says "QuickTime Movie"

If you are on a pc then I believe this will be an avi

mov and avi are almost the same thing and there could be any number of compression formats inside these files but still say avi or mov. just be sure it is "uncompressed". by the size of your file I will guess that you did it right.

 

[balamw]

When you import this into iMovie, iMovie will convert this into a smaller DV file and you can trash your bulky mov file.

So why not just save it in 720x480 DV from AE? The file to move around would be about 200 MB (assuming 11 GB/hour for DV).

actually, should be 720 by 486

Both DV and DVD default to 720x480 even though 720x486 is strictly correct for the NTSC visible resolution. http://people.csail.mit.edu/tbuehler/video/ntsc.html

B

 

[freeny]

So why not just save it in 720x480 DV from AE? The file to move around would be about 200 MB (assuming 11 GB/hour for DV).

If in fact you can export as a DV file from AE (Never tried) then yes you'd be correct.

 

[~Kat~]

I shoot movies often with my digital camera and the avi files are gargantuan in size. I googled and googled and then googled some more and found good settings for converting it to mpeg using Quicktime Pro. If you have it and want my settings, I'll post them.

 

[howesey]

50 seconds and 2.1GB

WTF are you doing?

What is the resolution of this file?

I find it a near impossibility even with 10-Bit uncompressed HD content for it to reach a Gigabyte per 30seconds.

There is something completely wrong with what you are doing.

If you are using AE on a Mac I fail to understand why it only lets you export it as an AVI....you should be able to do whatever QT can do.

More info?

I work with audio files that are far larger than that.


It's not really large at all. HD in TV and film production is usually at 250-350Mbps, which is around the file size the OP is getting.