[Help] Adobe After Effects Exporting

[menzerin]

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.

[DoomBot]

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?

[menzerin]

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.

[PDB]

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

[menzerin]

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.

[Feallan]

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

[Feallan]

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

[DoomBot]

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

[PDB]

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.

[menzerin]

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