What does 'lossless' mean in After Effects's movie making format?

I

ironpony

Carbonite Member
One of the movie making codecs is called lossless, and I haven't heard of that one, nor can I find much on it, when I ask around or google it. Thanks.
 
It's not actually a codec called "lossless," it's a setting with that name. The actual codec that the default Lossless setting uses in AE is the Animation codec.
 
> The actual codec that the default Lossless setting uses in AE is the Animation codec.
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That's correct on Mac OS, where the default is QuickTime. On Windows, where the default is AVI, the codec used is None, which is actually uncompressed. Note that QuickTime Animation is lossless but it is not uncompressed; there is compression, but it is 100% reversible (i.e., lossless).
 
Okay thanks. I thought that's might be what it meant on windows cause the footage looks exactly the same as the original, quality wise. So how come Premiere Pro does not have a lossless feature then, so I can export into AE, lossless?
 
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> So how come Premiere Pro does not have a lossless feature then, so I can export into AE, lossless?
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I think that you misunderstand. You can use exactly the same formats and codecs from Premiere Pro. Just output to a QuickTime movie using Animation or AVI using none, exactly the same as in After Effects.
 
Okay thanks so 'Microsoft uncompressed AVI' is pretty much the same as nothing lost then, is what you are saying? If so, when I try to export at that, it asks me all kinds of things, like what width and height I want the video etc. If it's uncompressed, then why is it asking me to choose how big it's going to be? It also asks about other quality settings, that it shouldn't if it's giving it to you in it's original codec and format.
 
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ironpony said:
Okay thanks so 'Microsoft uncompressed AVI' is pretty much the same as nothing lost then, is what you are saying? If so, when I try to export at that, it asks me all kinds of things, like what width and height I want the video etc. If it's uncompressed, then why is it asking me to choose how big it's going to be? It also asks about other quality settings, that it shouldn't if it's giving it to you in it's original codec and format.
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Uncompressed is not the same as untouched. Before compression comes:

Pixel resolution
Color pixel resolution 4:4:4 / 4:2:0
Frame rate
Color resolution 8bit / 10bit / 12 bit
 
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