Best FFMPEG codec for animation?

[skullmunky]

i'm converting frame sequence renders from Maya using ffmpeg on linux. i'd like to make high-quality video files to then take into editing/compositing in, say, Kdenlive, Jahshaka, Cinelerra, or on mac or windows, aftereffects. ideally i'd want to use QTRLE but apparently ffmpeg will only decode it.

is there another lossless, or close-to-lossless, codec i can use? or some good default settings to use to get high-quality results? ideally, one that'll be read by quicktime, too.

[45tripp]

with ffmpeg you basically have 4 options.
ffv1, huffyuv, dv and mjpeg.

With the first two you get lossless but,
ffv1 and huffyuv aren't yet supported in cinelerra.
don't ever expect ffv1 to work with quicktime.
i haven't seen a huffyuv plugin for quicktime...

with dv and mjpeg, you get standard editing formats and you can use what you like,
but you move into lossy.

i think your best option is jahshaka which can take huffyuv and
i believe you can come straight in from maya.

anyway,
try a few things out.

gl