You are using AVI! Seriously, as mentioned, depending on your output target and the content used in your project, compression is an art in itself. There are distribution codecs which use AVI as a container out there, but those are a different case. Note that for some formats, 2 pass makes a night and day difference, while for others, nothing as drastic as most users seem to believe.Īll of this is a moot point for AVI, because the default AVI codecs don't offer these encoding options, which are more the realm of distribution formats like FLV, MPEG-4/H264 or WMV. Above all, because it doesn't support 2 pass encoding. Regarding encoding efficiency, yes, AE is less efficient than dedicated encoding solutions. And the thing is, the most compressed formats benefit enormously from having an uncompressed file as a source. So, pristine video files with huge sizes are a good thing - people then wonder why trailers at, for instance look so good. You typically use this high quality video file as a source for compressed flavors for distribution. And in any case, when you're rendering a production quality master, file size is usually not your main concern. There could be similar quality thresholds with smaller sizes if you pick other AVIcodecs, but that's a different subject. So, obviously this produces huge file sizes. So, AME could default to something completely different as a starting point to produce an AVI file.ĪE defaults to uncompressed video when you pick AVI as a format.

It's pretty much an empty container box, which doesn't imply a quality level. Make sure you pick a web preset to keep a small file size, and also pay attention to the comment field inside the format options dialog, which may instruct you to change the frame size in the Output Module (or it may fail to render the file).

Because of this, it's not as widespread and not the best option if you are concerned with having a file that anybody will be able to watch without installing anything.Īfter Effects is not a dedicated encoding application, but it can create both FLV and H264 files from the Render Queue.

H264 has amazing quality, and is supported by Quicktime and also the most recent versions of Flash. So it's not the best option to produce a video file that looks good while keeping the file size/data rate low.įormats like FLV (Flash video) and H264 (the advanced version of MPEG-4) are better candidates for this.įLV is supported by the Flash plug-in and provides good quality at low data rates, and it's almost universally playable. To oversimplfy a complex matter, AVI is not really a distribution format.

Avi file size reducer