After effects , Aspect ratio and YouTube

JohnnySix

So my composition is set to 1280x720 (16:9 ), I export AVI to DVCPro with aspect Ratio 16:9, I upload to youtube, my video is crushed into a 4:3 between the black pillars of doom.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2PsPXBEjLc[/ame]

How did I fail?




edit : Should note I plan to create more animations with max, and do the final text/colouring etc in After effects, I'm not just randomly making videos of pizza input, it's just a demonstration of how the upload fails miserably.

kodde

AVI to DVCPro? Why?

YouTube's own recommended codecs
"Codec: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 preferred."

When I upload to YouTube I usually cut and edit in Premiere, export as raw .avi and then I encode in either VirtualDUB or SUPER. Encoding it as a high bitrate Xvid in Virtual has worked fine for me so far. I have uploaded 720p videos in this manner and hasn't been any problems.

You don't have any wonky pixel aspect ratio settings right? If you are going to be using material from 3DSMax then just stick to square pixels 1:1 all the way.

renderhjs

yup you most likely have fucked up pixel ratio settings in AE (like dated TV stuff),- stick to square pixels (ctrl + k, or composition setup).

also never try to export/ compress videos from within AE, everything that is not RAW or MPEG2 is bullshit slow in AE. The devs once said that that core of AE is still not updated for modern codecs and so rendering to h264 can be become very very slow.
Its better to do it like kodde suggested with Virtual dub (codec > video code, then F7 to save) or SUper.


To me AE belongs on the Adobe worst developers list, next to Illustrator and Premiere. They just lag each release many years behind other companies and still don't know how to fix core stuff but ask a lot of money. I wish someone would kick their balls so that they would hire better devs in the teams.

JohnnySix

Yeah, is version CS or something, not the latest, but I would have thought anything post 2005 would at least support HD or 16:9 output with ease.

Seems it's one of many issues (the main one being the lack of a codec to import .mp3 format for sound..! )

The actual output screen is more than a little vague , at least in terms of knowing what's gonna come down the pipe - as a lot of the video compression options simply have a large slider from low >> best quality and often don't have any indication of pixel aspect ratio , resolution nor aspect ratio of the final image.

If it comes to upgrade time - what would be the best alternative? I really like the fact After effects comes with bundled motion tracker, keying etc.

Without going out the far end and buying software with all the hardware stuff (physical control desk thing ) - what are the alternatives to After effects?

kodde

For compositing i'd go for something like Nuke or Digital Fusion, both being very powerful node based apps. There's Combustion as well which I think is quite similar, but I don't know how it compares to the other two.

When it comes to editing/cutting video I really don't have any experience beyond Premiere. I'd like to know alternatives for this as well.

I think most highend compositing apps do decent 2D-tracking, but for 3D tracking you could consider stand-alone tracking apps. Boujo and PFTrack are those I know of.

Sandro

If you don't do compositing profesionally then it's a good idea to stick with after effects. It's a very nice app fueling almost entire tv/motion design market and is good for all-around compositing, has tons of great cheap plugins and is easy to use.

You're going to have much tougher time if you go for apps like nuke, which is geared towards film vfx, is expensive and requires deeper knowledge of compositing magic.