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I have a composition of 1500 x 643. I need this format for a moviebanner in a website. My assets are in 4K, very good quality.

I can render it as an AVI, best quality. Then it's almost 4 GB for 30 seconds.

When I choose H264, it has problems with framerate and the size (it resizes, ...). What do I have to choose as render settings to have a good quality movie (+30mb? instead of 4Gb), for web with my custom size?

I use After Effects CS5.

EDIT: After changing the settings to an odd resolution, I can export as H.264.. But I don't like the quality. The size is 3.3Mb, it could be a little bit more. How can I get better quality for this export?

My screens: No Adobe Media Encoder Queue Composition settings Export settings Export settings 2 Bitrate

The results can you find here: https://wetransfer.com/downloads/a15013dad2f4bc5c0b4ce0aa92cb821c20170508063926/347bd4

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2 Answers 2

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Are you using the inbuilt After Effects render queue? It's a bit easier to use custom settings when you use the Adobe Media Encoder instead. AME comes with After Effects and is installed automatically when you install AE. Simply open the composition you want to export in After Effects and select Composition → Add to Adobe Media Encoder Queue. This will open AME and add the current state of your composition to the render queue (this might take some time). Once you see the item in the render queue, press the highlighted format designation to open the Export Settings dialogue.

AME render queue

AME export settings

In the Export Settings, you can change the format (codec/container) as well as the other export parameters. Make sure to set the dimensions (Width/Height) to whatever you need them to be. To bring down the size, the most important option is the bitrate setting (Target / Maximum Bitrate for H.264).

Read this for an explanation of bitrate and it's relation to the resolution of your video and this for the math you need to figure out the appopriate bitrate dependent of your desired output size. Since you mentioned you need the video for your website, you might also be interested in my post here regarding recommended encoding settings for web video.

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  • I can export with odd resolution. But the quality isn't super good. See my post.
    – Finduilas
    May 8, 2017 at 6:42
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    @Finduilas Your bitrate is way too low, that's why you get the crappy quality. Please read the posts I linked in my answer, I don't want to write the same thing twice. Also you don't need to use level 5.1, 4.2 should be sufficient for your resolution and bitrate. Keep stib's answer regarding video dimensions in mind as well when setting up your export.
    – MoritzLost
    May 8, 2017 at 11:00
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    Sorry, I readed it, and now it seems to be clear.. Hope this will result in a good quality.
    – Finduilas
    May 8, 2017 at 11:27
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    It works like a charm ;-). Thanks to everyone for the help.
    – Finduilas
    May 9, 2017 at 14:28
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You won't be able to render it to h.264 because of the odd number of pixels in the vertical resolution (odd as in not even, not odd as in unusual).

You simply can't encode h.264 video with odd numbers as either one of the frame dimensions, that's just part of the codec. This is true for quite a few codecs (any that use macroblocks).

I actually can't think of a codec where I'd be confident that you can encode. Maybe uncompressed, something like v210, or Apple Animation. Certainly nothing that you could deliver over the internet.

You need to lose or gain one row of pixels, because it will make your encoding waaaay simpler.

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  • And if I use odd number, then H264 will be available? Thats necessary because I want to use it in html5 video..
    – Finduilas
    May 5, 2017 at 15:06
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    No, h.264 can only accept pixel dimensions that are even numbers. Theoretically you'll get the best compression if the dimensions are multiples of 8. 1496 x 640 would be good for example, and close to your original aspect ratio.
    – stib
    May 6, 2017 at 11:25
  • I can export with odd resolution. But the quality isn't super good. See my post.
    – Finduilas
    May 8, 2017 at 6:42
  • if the dimensions are multiples of 8 --> 16, since that's the MB size. that's just part of the codec. --> it's not a H.264 restriction. Normally video is 4:2:0 i.e. chroma is subsampled at half the luma rate, so H.264 encoders enforce a mod 2 requirement, so that decoders expecting to apply a chroma sample to a 2x2 luma grid don't fail. But if you encode to 4:4:4, odd values aren't an issue. What Adobe is probably doing is setting a cropping flag that the H.264 spec allows for, to discard one pixel row/column from the decoded output. But I haven't checked Adobe's bitstream output, though.
    – Gyan
    May 8, 2017 at 9:11
  • I will try this!
    – Finduilas
    May 8, 2017 at 11:27

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