Best Codec to deliver logo animation

T

TheMusician

Well-known member
Hi. I am animating a clients logo into a short 15 second video that they can use to market themselves on their website, to add to the end of commercials or short clips or adds that they will deliver on many mediums such as broadcast, the web, mobile devices. I usually deliver in a final MPEG-2 or h.264 but rarely in an uncompressed or lightly compressed format like an intermediate. Many come to mind but I don't know what is the best to use - uncompressed AVI, uncompressed MOV? What do you think is the best codec to deliver something to a client that they will add to their own work before compressing that almost any editor can work with?
 
If I were your client, I would want at least ProRes422, but would even more strongly preferred straight uncompressed. Animations done digitally will really suffer from recompression. I'd strongly encourage delivering an uncompressed "master" they can use however they wish/need.

However, if you want or need to make it EDL-ready, why not just ask the client? Maybe ProRes is OK, uncompressed won't edit natively, or H.264 is preferred or some arcane reason?
 
Unfortunately, it is for a new start-up doctors office so they don't know what they want or need. I intend to give them HD and SD versions of h.264 files for easy quick embedding into a website. But I also want to provide them with a "master" like you said in the event that they want to make a commercial or shoot their own interviews and want to start or end the video with the animation I have made. So what do you think is the most universal Mac & PC uncompressed codec to use? Quicktime? Isn't ProRes Mac-only?
 
Higher bit-rate low-compression CODECs would produce the best quality: ProRes 422, Cineform 10-bit 4:2:2, AVID DNxHD 10-bit 4:2:2

Does your animation support an alpha-channel so it can be dropped on to other images?
 
Good point re an alpha channel version - presuming that makes sense for the logo design, of course.
 
If it's only 15 seconds long, an uncompressed avi is only about 290-300MB. You could deliver that plus an uncompressed mov file (animation codec?) and the client would be covered. I know the avi supports an alpha channel, pretty sure the mov does as well.

Hope this helps.
Ken
 
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