Home → NodeBox 3 →

nb3 (mac) : Exported Movie : Black only (or Red)

• Edit

thoolb

29 Nov, 2013 10:47 PM

NB3 exported a movie which shows fine in OS X 10.7.5 / Quicktime 7 but appears as pure Black only in Quicktime 10 and as just Red area in AfterEffects CS5. – Any hints to solve this problem?

p.s.: What are details of NodeBox' Export Movie h264/mp4 settings?
Is there any spot I can alter movie export settings without programming skills, f.i. via a document property setting or via text editing a file of the applications content folder on a Mac?

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Frederik De Ble... on 02 Dec, 2013 10:00 AM

   

   Hi,

   Movie settings are hard-coded in the Movie.java file and associated Format files, such as MP4VideoFormat. There are some export settings also stored in the program as FFMPEG profile files, located in the application folder / .app package. MPEG4 uses the "slow" preset so you could try tweaking that.

   Is there a specific setting you'd like? Maybe we can add an "advanced" option where you could specify your own settings?

   • Screen_Shot_2013-12-02_at_10.55.07.png 92.7 KB
   • Edit

2. 2 Posted by thoolb on 02 Dec, 2013 05:54 PM

   

   Thanks for the info and file path.

   Is there a specific setting you'd like? Maybe we can add an "advanced" option where you could specify your own settings?

   No specific codec setting desired –it would depend on various uses. You are defenitely right to mention in the other topic that single image export is best for best quality. So, movie is for quick compromise mainly.

   Besides, there may be an easy way to codec settings (I do not know, just guess): NodeBox eventually could "just grep" the Quicktime seetings via system resource files (– at least in MacOS) ?

   But, I would appreciate a check box to enable another setting: the output page size (for single/range/movie). Sometimes it is desired to respect the document property setting, sometimes it might be prefered to export the used area only.

   • Edit

3. 3 Posted by thoolb on 03 Dec, 2013 09:14 AM

   

   Sorry, I might misunderstood your question. I just had a look into the seetings in the FFpresets folder - now I wonder which one is used to render "MP4 Video" [ : there are several called "slow" in the presets folder ]

   Since there are several small formats in the pulldown menu I'd say for the "MP4 Video" the lossless max qualitiy would be a reasonable choice, which appears to be in file "libx264-lossless_max.ffpreset". (might be set in NodeBox already, I can't tell).

   Also, since NodeBox can create very large page sizes, it might be useful to get a pop up message when a movie size larger than the H264 specification is in the render list. Those max. pixel dimensions depend on the chosen render quality level.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Levels)

   • Edit

4. Support Staff 4 Posted by Frederik De Ble... on 03 Dec, 2013 09:38 AM

   

   Hi,

   Since we don't use QuickTime but FFMPEG for export it would not be possible to read in the QuickTime presets. However, those presets might serve as a useful guide when we define our own profiles. Something like "fast and dirty", "good quality for YouTube", and "lossless" for production.

   Would that cover your use cases?

   • Edit

5. 5 Posted by thoolb on 03 Dec, 2013 04:09 PM

   

   Momentary NodeBox offers 7 video settings. That's more than enough, imho. Or do you mean to reduce them to three? I would not miss any of those. (But I'd prefer another one, see below).

   The selection/description should not be focused on low, medium, large only but on their compatibility, too. For instance "low" for direct sharing would run on all sorts of hard-/software, "medium" could run on PCs (phones exluded, eventually tablets included), "large" is meant for postproduction.

   I'd appreciate to read the specs before rendering:
   The • container (file format), the • codec (name), the • compression (max. data rate), the • dimension (max. pixel).

   Momentary NB mentions the dimensions for the • "Android" settings only. The "iPhone/iPod" seems to output 320 px and • "iPad" does 768 px (which is iPad2, not retina). • "MP4 Video" does full size, and, interesting, even larger than its codecs specs (h264 limit: 4096 px), though I can open such export in QT 7 only, not in QT10. [To work with this large NB exported dimension I did export it from QT 7 again (which, I guess, demands the QT Pro version).] So, I'd recommend to offer a codec as "large/lossless" which does neither crop or scale the output nor results in compatibility issues – with best compromise of file size;)

   Alternatives to mp4/h264 could be for instance:
   The • Apple "Animation" codec is very lossless – but results in enormous file size. (f.i.: my recently exported "MP4" with 5000px, 90 MB, got converted to "Animation" with 1.2 GB !)
   The • Apple "ProRes" codec would be a resonable substitute to Animation, with Alpha, too – but it might not be available for NodeBox, especially on all three platforms?
   The • Google "VP9" reads compromising in wiki (I haven't experienced it yet). It's open, for various platforms, supports Alpha. Just I don't know its limitations yet, especially loss/quality and dimensions. Also, though a quick test could get imported to AfterEffects I don't really know about its compatibility for postprocessing. QT 7 does open it, QT does not, hm.

   (…) Enough text for know - before my thoughts run in a totally different/wrong direction. – What do you think?

   [ Attached 4 short samples to see output dimensions from a .ndbx with 5000x5000 px. – Interesting besides: compare their colors ;) ]

   • Android_480x320_320x320.mp4 3.31 KB
   • iPhone-iPod_480x300_320x320.mp4 3.91 KB
   • iPad_XxY_768x768.mp4 10.1 KB
   • MP4-Video_XxY_5000x5000_full_qt7.mp4 17 KB
   • Edit