The best codec/settings & application to run a 1080p flawlessly?

[r2builder]

Hi everyone,
I'm an artist, having a video exhibition in a few weeks where 3 of my 1080p animations will be on show.
The machines are Mac Pros with 23" cinema displays.

Just wondering how I should best set them up? They'll be running 24/7 looping one video each.

Should I use Quicktime, MPlayer, VLC?

Which codec should I use? I tried a test "highest quality" H.264 file rendered from After Effects, and the framerate was slightly jittery on VLC.

Lastly, are there any programs for the mac which would allow me to let me allocate more of the system resources to the video player?

Thanks everyone!

[SERBIAN]

I think you should play with Mplayer or QuickTime...Also you can try with some uncompressed Apple codec for highest quality...Your Mac is capable of playin 1080p h.264 just fine...For best performance make sure your file is on main hdd, not on some external drive...

[edDV]

Are your 1080p animations uncompressed? Why can't you display them as they are? Must it play from a computer or DVD player? What is the display?

[rumplestiltskin]

H264 definitely. Framerate should probably match whatever you used in your animations. Bitrate around 1500-2000kbps should be sufficient. Non-interlaced.

Why use AfterEffects? What's the spec of the source animation? Why not use something like ViddyUp or even QT Pro?

[edDV]

Why change anything? Run the animation as rendered.

Or, are you asking how to encode what you have to some other format like BluRay MPeg2/VC-1/h.264 ?

[r2builder]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Sorry, I should have been clearer.

I rendered the file from After Effects, as that's what I used to do the animations.

There are a few dropped frames when I'm playing the video back. The 23" displays are set up so that there is no scaling, the vid plays at 100%

So, I guess I'm asking - if I output a full uncompressed file from After Effects, at 10 Gb or so, what's the nicest way of compressing it so that it'll run smoothly, without losing any quality. I've since read that After Effects isn't the best tool for creating h.264 files. So, should I use ffmpegx? Sorenson Squeeze?

The file will be on the computer's HD, and filesize isn't really an issue - although I'm guessing that the bigger file size = the more frames will be dropped, as the computer can't 'keep up'.

Thanks.

[edDV]

Most display cards will hardware decompress MPeg2 but struggle with h.264. One option is use Premiere Pro in progressive project mode to compress to very high bit rate progressive MPeg2. You can exceed DVD limits (approx 9000 Kb/s) if it will be playing from the computer and get better quality. h.264 only has advantage for compression, not quality.

Test different bit rates for best balance of file size vs. smooth playback. Try something like 50,000Kb/s to start.

[Case]

The file will be on the computer's HD, and filesize isn't really an issue - although I'm guessing that the bigger file size = the more frames will be dropped, as the computer can't 'keep up'.

Not really. A highly compressed movie (H.264) will require much more CPU cycles, which may result in dropped frames. So, it is a balance between the speed of reading from disk and the speed at which it movie can be decoded.

[rumplestiltskin]

I'll suggest you try ViddyUp or ffmpegX and choose the H264 or H264 iPod 640x settings, respectively. Keep the same framerate -and- frame size. Try 1500kbps for the bitrate (although a bit of testing here would be wise).

Let us know what happens.