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Motion 3 - H.264 Bad Quality

S

starnox

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 15, 2005
363
67
This is something which has been bugging me for a while so I thought I would try and find out the reason behind it.

I create a lot of animations in motion and export via the H.264 codec after changing the rendering to best and quality 100% they always seem to come out with bad colour separation and loads of sort of 'ghosting'. However if you download anything off iTunes or watch a movie trailer then the quality is outstanding and they are using H.264.

Am I doing something wrong? The live preview in Motion looks perfect but it never comes out the same.

Example: http://www.coredesigns.co.uk/underwater.mov
 
Try not exporting using H.264. It is unnecessary unless you are putting it on the web. H.264 is a very high compression codec which will reduce the quality a lot, esp. if you are working in HD. If you want to compress something, you can use FCP or Compressor. They both have much better options and Compressor can give you amazing results. If you are bringing the animation into FCP after you compress it you are going about things all wrong. H.264 is NOT an editable format! You should export the file as a .mov with no compression. Then once in FCP, place your animation on the timeline. Once you are done with your whole project in FCP, do a QT Conversion, export as a QT Movie, or send it to Compressor. I like using Compressor for large projects (10GB+) that will be going on DVDs.

Regards,
David
 
Thanks David

The reason I'm using H.264 as I want it to be downloadable from the web.
I don't edit it in anything else afterwards it's a straight Motion to the final product export.

Ah if only I could use Compressor... it stopped working for me a few months ago. I can submit tasks but they just sit there and do nothing in a queue! v. annoying >_<
 
starnox said:
Thanks David

The reason I'm using H.264 as I want it to be downloadable from the web.
I don't edit it in anything else afterwards it's a straight Motion to the final product export.

Ah if only I could use Compressor... it stopped working for me a few months ago. I can submit tasks but they just sit there and do nothing in a queue! v. annoying >_<
Click to expand...

Here is the number one rule for any type of animation: always export with a non-compressed codec! So use the animation codec, since it's uncompressed. Yes, it takes a lot of space, but after you render it out uncompressed, you can compress it to H.264 afterwards. You should ALWAYS have an uncompressed animation, especially if you're worried about quality. My guess is, is that Motion is trying to render at the highest quality, but compress it at the same time, leaving you with the results that you're getting.:p
 
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