Which is best Quicktime format?

[iMovieShop]

Do anybody know which is best compression format in meaning of size/quality for compressing 3d animations without loosing too much on quality?

Best
iMovieShop.com

[guns1inger]

For what purpose ?

[iMovieShop]

For compressing 3D animations. To have crisp and clear quality but not to have big file size. And to have quality without jpeg artifacts.

[Cornucopia]

Again, for what purpose?

1. Intermediate storage, w/ future (re)-editing?
2. Distribution (disc, broadcast/streaming)?

You're questions would lead me to talk about #1, but then you add in buzzwords that sound like you're expecting answers about #2.

BTW, "Jpeg" artifacts are DCT-related. You get those with Mid-through-Low bitrate examples in any technology that uses DCT. This includes:

DV (<edited in)
JPEG
MJPEG
MPG1
MPG2
MPG4
h.264
DivX/Xvid (aka ~MPG4)
Flash (aka ~MPG4)
WMV (aka ~MPG4)

Sounds like one of those is what you were thinking about. To avoid them, you're either going to have to encode at a lot higher bitrate than what you were thinking, or you're going to have to use a different encoding technology--Wavelet (like JPEG2000) or Lossless (Lagarith, HuffYUV, QT Animation)--which are also of much higher bitrate.

Scott

[Cornucopia]

Also, you didn't mention anything about target bitrates/filesizes or color spaces. If you know you're only going to need 8bit indexed color, the choices would be much different than 12bit 4:2:0 YUV, or for 24bit RGB.

...be more specific...

Scott

[iMovieShop]

Hi
Sorry for making confusion here.
I need good compression for 3d animations. I need smaller file sizes for easier distribution but people will edit these files further. You can take a look at my website and you will know what I talking about.

http://www.imovieshop.com

Best regards

[guns1inger]

You are looking for a hard compromise. Generally, anything that has been compressed for small file size is not great for editing because

a. it has already suffered a quality loss due to the initial compression

b. will suffer substantially more when it is inevitably compressed again

If most of your loops are in the 5 - 10 second range, I would not compromise on the quality. DV would be the lowest I would go. Most of your customers will have the bandwidth to download these clips, and will appreciate the quality and easy with which they can use them. DV is also the most conducive to further editing.

For the higher resolution clips you might consider one of the HD codecs (H.264), but I would steer clear of Apple's implementation if possible.

[BJ_M]

i wouldn't even use apple's dv qt codec ... i would stick to animation or targa or blackmagic qt codec .... otherwise the quality loss is to great - plus since the source is progressive .. best to stick to a frame based structure