high resolution format

[toonertime]

has anyone any advice to give on creating
high resolution animation?

Specifically, once
it is rendered out of AS in an hr setting,
how should it be dealt with in a movie
editing program? What codecs to compress it to, etc?

[slowtiger]

First: you need a real HD video editing program. Look into the specs of your software to see which formats are supported.

Second: What's the use in creating HD if you want to compress your movie? If you really need to use HD, you usually will deal with a post production facility, a film recording site, or a TV producer, and they all will demand best quality pictures. Often they insist on getting your movie delivered as uncompressed TIFF sequences.

The usual way is to produce a true HD master file without compression, to maintain best quality, and from this produce versions for different use: a downsized and compressed version for web, another downsized version for DVD. Your TV producer will convert the HD material into whatever meets the broadcast requirements.

Lesson learnt: If you use HD, you don't use compression during production. Never. Invest in hard drives.

[toonertime]

Thanks for the info, Mr. Tiger

The reason I was posting was there are sites
like Mytoons and Vimeo that will accept high res,
but file sizes are limited.

I am really just a hobby animator, working out inner
angst in 2d.

http://www.vimeo.com/1513293

Any suggestions on a
modestly priced video editing software?

[mkelley]

First of all, if you're creating vector art don't bother with HD in AS -- you aren't going to get an advantage with it. Even the broadcast stations doing most of their content in HD are still producing their "cartoons" in standard res (and even standard aspect ratios).

Which brings up the second point -- don't confuse HD with aspect ratios. You can produce widescreen animations if you like and don't need to make them HD. Our series is done in widescreen and plays just fine on any HD widescreen TV.

As ST is saying, there isn't much point in using compression if your goal is HD. So let's broaden it further -- putting HD on a website that accepts it is kind of silly, as you're going to compress your work and thus lose whatever hi-res you start out with. However, if you are determined to go this route then render your stuff out without compression and use Quicktime to create the final animation.

[toonertime]

Thank you both for the education on hi rez

It seems I will just change the aspect ratio
and be done with it!

[jeff]

I'd beg to differ with just about everything mkelley says. First, Vimeo's HD files are better quality than their SD files. Second, the statement that vector animation isn't better in HD is hogwash. And lastly, all HD work uses different forms of compression - without compression, file sizes would be unfeasibly huge

[mkelley]

I never said that any site's HD files weren't better -- only that if you are going to go that route using Quicktime to achieve the final output is the way to go (and do NOT use compression when outputting from AS).

As to the rest -- you just don't get it. Obviously you don't understand high definition or you wouldn't make the statements you make.

[chucky]

Interesting point here, of course it is better to do single frames uncompressed for any format, normally tga, but st says tiff for some purposes.
HDMi uses 10 bit colour for greater depth.
I was surprised to learn a couple of days ago, that on a live action shoot I have been working on the HD images that where shot using the very latest genesis system (top of the range HD recording) all with film quality lenses and lighting methods, actually output a (slightly) compressed format.- weird, especially considering the huge expense and quality of the recorded subject matter.

[slowtiger]

If one really likes to research about High Definition one should go and read Quantel's "Digital Factbook". It is one of the most comprehensive sources in this field. You should get it here (for free): http://quantel.com/site/en.nsf/html/library_dfb

[jeff]

Toonertime - the information you need for uploading to Vimeo in high definition is contained on their HD FAQ page: http://vimeo.com/help/hd#whats_hd where you will see their recommended settings regarding compression, framerate etc. I have watched some clips full screen on this site and the quality is very good. Even their standard definition clips look far sharper and cleaner than the standard fare on YouTube.

Ignore the issue of interlace. That's irrelevant to output from AS.

[jeff]

OK Toonertime, I have just posted a very simple test piece at http://www.vimeo.com/1532899 for you to see.

I found that the H264 codec option in Quicktime doesn't seem to work on my Windows XP machine, so I used the Sorensen 3 codec option. The quality option was set to high. The filesize was just under 2Mb, so I reckon you have to be very careful on your settings or you may end up with enormous files.

[toonertime]

I have played around with lots of codecs and
formats, with different results. All this can become
a real challenge!