Hi,

I'm using Adobe After Effects for video editing. I've edited some scenes and would like to export them, but I don't know what settings I should use to get the best results. I exported a scene as a sample but somehow AE sets all frames as I-frame (I don't want the original frame settings to be changed), also the extension is .mov and I want .mp4 or .m4v instead if it's possible. What video codec is the best to choose in AE? Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

Well i wouldn't do any h264 or h265 encoding out of AE or AP. I would just export as an AVI file and then encode from that to x264.
What system are you working on, windows or mac?

(2017-10-26, 09:22 PM)DoomBot Wrote: Well i wouldn't do any h264 or h265 encoding out of AE or AP. I would just export as an AVI file and then encode from that to x264.
What system are you working on, windows or mac?

I'm working on Mac OS High Sierra. I don't like avi files because they have much worse and pixelated quality than h264, or at least that's what I experienced so far.

Then go prores and use compressor to convert it to h.264

(2017-10-26, 09:41 PM)PDB Wrote: Then goes prores and use compressor to convert it to h.264

Wouldn't that decrease the quality of the video? I mean the source is already a compressed video then I convert it while export it and convert it again to h264.

(2017-10-26, 09:35 PM)menzerin Wrote:

(2017-10-26, 09:22 PM)DoomBot Wrote: Well i wouldn't do any h264 or h265 encoding out of AE or AP. I would just export as an AVI file and then encode from that to x264.
What system are you working on, windows or mac?

I'm working on Mac OS High Sierra. I don't like avi files because they have much worse and pixelated quality than h264, or at least that's what I experienced so far.

AVI is just a container, you can put video encoded using various codecs into it. For best quality, you should:

- export to AVI with a lossless codec (e.g. Lagarith)
- encode with command-line x264 (spoRv posted a great preset somewhere on this forum)
- mux the output (a .264 file) with your audio into .mkv container using MKVToolnix or a similar program

(2017-10-26, 09:54 PM)menzerin Wrote:

(2017-10-26, 09:41 PM)PDB Wrote: Then goes prores and use compressor to convert it to h.264

Wouldn't that decrease the quality of the video? I mean the source is already a compressed video then I convert it while export it and convert it again to h264.

You can't edit H264 video without loss of quality

Yes sorry i meant AVI with a lossless codec like Lagarith.

(2017-10-26, 09:54 PM)menzerin Wrote:

(2017-10-26, 09:41 PM)PDB Wrote: Then goes prores and use compressor to convert it to h.264

Wouldn't that decrease the quality of the video? I mean the source is already a compressed video then I convert it while export it and convert it again to h264.

There are so many varieties of prores (including a lossless one) that if you choose a low compression ratio one, you will never see the difference between the original compressed file and the prores. And prores is much, much better to edit in.

Unfortunately After Effects doesn't offer Lagarith as a codec option, neither AVI as a container.