First, I know AVI or a PNG sequence will give the cleanest output, but at the cost of huge files.

So for a final product to share, that leaves us with two options (on my computer, anyway):

• WMV (VC-1)
• MP4 (H.264)

(32-bit iClone also gives me a "Flash" output option, but let's not go there right now.)

It seems like MP4, and even MP3 are touted a being such great formats for sharing; good quality with relatively small file sizes.  And MP4 is newer, so newer is better, right?

But my experience seems to contradict that.  I always thought  WMV, at similar settings, gave better visual results that MP3.  MP4 seems visually equivalent to WMV to me.

But then there's the file size.  For a 1280x720 resolution:

• WMV = 172MB
• MP4 = 217MB  (about 25% larger)

 

SO THE QUESTION IS:

• WHY would you want to use MP4?
• Any benefits?
• I feel like it is assumed a person would use MP4, but I'm not seeing any reason to do so.  Am I missing something?

 

THE REST OF THE PICTURE:

I will be doing post-iClone editing, adding titles, music, and sound effects, etc.  Does that influence your answer?  My NLE tool seems equally happy importing either format. 

For the very final output, my NLE tool can also output both formats.  It renders MP4 faster, but when it comes to the final product, I don't mind if it takes 30 minutes rather than 10 minutes to render, especially for the small file to store, share, and upload, especially since it looks the same to me.

I can upload formats to Vimeo.  I can even play both formats on my shiny new smartphone.

Do I simply have bad eyes, and am not sensitive to the differences? 

One last thing...  When I'm "done" with the project, I'll probably re-rendering everything to a 1920x1080 resolution, meaning I'll have to go through both iClone and my NLE one last time, but that's a simple matter of swapping out the files (no impact on the other tracks in the NLE).

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wmv has this pixelated effect, and mp4 has the onion skin effect - the smaller the file the more the distortion.

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WMV (VC-1) HD is encoded to take advantage of 64 Bit OS. The Output File Size is roughly 4 times larger than MP4 HD for the same Resolution.

My experiments show that Export from iClone to Uncompressed AVI & Imported into S12 for iClone Post Production Editing (You need to Background Render the Uncompressed AV1 before Editing) & Export to MP4 HD for Upload to Vimeo, gives the best result.

That being-said, I'll experiment with Importing my Pinhead S12 Project into S16 for Export. S16 has a better & faster Render Engine with more Kbs options than S12.. 

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This is in opposition to your results: I render out in Full Frames (Uncompressed), then convert to MP4... WMV produces fine enough quality, but is not useful for NLE post production. Then again, MP4 is not the greatest to use in post production either.

Attached is a sizes image comparison of the same project, using two methods; one directly from iClone as WMV, and the other converted to MP4 from Full Frames Uncompressed, using Format Factory.

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I render in iClone to PNG image sequences, which gives you some compression, but is still lossless.

I then render to MP4 (H.264) in Vegas. Main reason is that YouTube renders to MP4 as well. It is also platform-independent, whereas WMV is Windows-specific.  Using image sequences I can also easily render to other formats, such as Blu-Ray or DVD widescreen.

You need a lot of disck space, but I archive projects I'm finished with, so that my main data hard drive doesn't get filled up so much.

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Thanks for the info, guys.

I'll have to try this again, maybe at "full HD" (1920x1024) resolution and see if I get similar results again, with WMV being smaller.

I feel like I'm "supposed" to use H.264, but I wasn't seeing the advantage.

Good comment about native formats, especially about YouTube.  I use Vimeo, and it does its own conversion anyway, so unless you are on a Mac and want to download the original file, it shouldn't matter.  It'd still play in your browser.

I suppose I shouldn't be afraid of the AVI format.  I've got tons of disk space, and I could even keep the final AVI of all the interim clips that go into the NLE and not break a sweat.  (No need to keep 17 copies of each sub-section, though, no matter what format I use.)

It makes sense that a "post-processing" AVI-to-MP4 converter would give the best results.  I know that on DVDs, you can have two-pass (or more) converters that optimize the compression for maximum quality and minimum file size.  You can more sophisticated in the compression that what you'd have the patience for while doing your iClone export.

Of course, we all know the truth that I'm avoiding... with my Pinhead project, WMV-vs-MP4 is the least of my "quality" issues. 

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

Viking: one reason to prefer image sequences over uncompressed AVI you don't have to deal with gigantic files, just many small ones. It's also easier to rerender part of a sequence or to do batch processing of images in, for example, Photoshop for various efects. I no longer use that option, but it is a possibility.

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