Recommend codecs for cartoon series production

[Meneedit]

Hi there.

Let me introduce myself...

My name is brett and recently a friend and I decided to start making a cartoon series.

I hope I am posting this in the right spot.

In the rare event of the series actually taking off... we want to put it on DVD.... but we'll discuss that at another time. For now, I just need a decent codec for rendering at a decent size (approx same size as VOB files)


I am using premiere pro 1.5.1.

I tried going uncompressed but about 30 seconds of uncompressed footage is 9 gig!

I recently posted this thread elsewhere and had "Huffyuv" suggested to me.

Well, I tried "Huffyuv" but the file size was still massive :(

I then proceeded to limit the data rate, still using huffyuv.

Now, 2 questions:


1. Why is it that when I limit the data rate to 1150 (VCD quality) it looks a lot higher that VCD quality?

2. Why is it that when I limit the data rate to 10 the file size is STILL massive!?

Am I missing something here?

3. Is there a really good codec for what I want to do?


Thanks guys.

[neuron2]

Welcome to the forum!

The XviD or DivX codecs would probably suit your needs.

Please read and follow the forum rules, specifically rule 9: use a proper thread title. You've also posted in the wrong forum. This forum is specifically for DV video. Your best forum for this would have been Newbies.
:readrule:

[bb]

Agreed and moved to the Newbies forum.

bb

[CWR03]

Uncompressed or Huffyuv are great to maintain the original video and is one of the easiest to edit, but it's going to require a lot of drive space. Almost anything other than MPEG-2 (which can be recorded directly to DVD) will have some, if not a lot, of quality loss. You should be able to get an MPEG-2 plugin from Adobe, but it's best to save only fully edited material this way for your final file, as it is difficult to edit later.

[Pookie]

Check out Lagarith , which is lossless and compresses better than Huffy.

[Meneedit]

thanks for your help guys! :)

coz yeah, I didnt thinh that Huffy was the way to go....

I'm pretty sure that about:

4 minutes of footage, at 720x576, encoded with Huffy, with the data rate limited to 10, is about 2.3 gig :scared:

so I'll give this other Lagarith one a try.... where can I find the latest Lagarith codec? Should I grab it from the same site I got Huffyuv from(www.free-codecs.com)?

Thanks again :) :) :)


P.S

Also, what about the other two questions:

1. Why is it that when I limit the data rate to 1150 (VCD quality) it looks a lot higher that VCD quality?

2. Why is it that when I limit the data rate to 10 the file size is STILL massive?

[neuron2]

Also, what about the other two questions:

1. Why is it that when I limit the data rate to 1150 (VCD quality) it looks a lot higher that VCD quality?

2. Why is it that when I limit the data rate to 10 the file size is STILL massive? Don't know what you are talking about. My HUFYUV codec doesn't have a data rate parameter. Maybe it's a Premiere thing that is ignored by HUFYUV.

Use Google to find Lagarith. The result is still going to be big, though. Consider XviD.

[Meneedit]

Ever sinced i moved up from DivX movies to DVDs I haven't kept up with DivX.

what's XviD? is it a hybrid of DivX?

thanks :)

[neuron2]

Try Google for information about XviD. Also do some reading here, especially the FAQ:

http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=52

(As an aside, you are showing an unwillingness to use the search capabilities and other obvious pointers available here. That will get you struck for forum rule 1 if it continues.)

[Meneedit]

thanks :)