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jjjnyt
jjjnyt
Inspiring
August 8, 2017
Answered

Terrible Quality MP4 Video Playback in Adobe Acrobat

  • August 8, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 4119 views

Searched high and low for settings that would affect playback quality.

MP4 was created in After Effects and looks sharp when played normally.

Placing the MP4 in InDesign, creating Interactive PDF, playing video in Acrobat = looks horrible.

Please help

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Joel Geraci

Not necessarily. When the video annotation is on the page the effective resolution of playback is a combination of the size of the annotation, the zoom level of the viewer, and the resolution of the screen. Figuring out the right setting for a pixel for pixel match is nearly impossible. You're just never going to get good playback unless you either play the video in a floating window or use a custom player that doesn't scale the content.

2 replies

jjjnyt
jjjnytAuthor
Inspiring
August 9, 2017

Got it.

I guess its nice to have this feature but ultimately it's doomed to fail.

Love to have stable support for this as we do a fair amount of internal presentations where video/animation aids dramatically in demonstration. InDesign is still the primary layout application for this so if Adobe is listening it would be great to get some improvements in this area.

Joel Geraci
Community Expert
Joel GeraciCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 9, 2017

Not necessarily.

The first thing you want to do is stop using InDesign to create your interactive PDF. It's too limited and forces you to make choices that you wouldn't make if you were editing the PDF in Acrobat DC. Second, don't embed the videos on the page. Add them as attachments and use buttons to launch them. That way the video will open in the OS default video player. They'll be in a separate window but they'll look good.

jjjnyt
jjjnytAuthor
Inspiring
August 9, 2017

InDesign is necessary to create a good looking layout and typesetting. Unless I'm missing something I don't see how you could layout a presentation in Acrobat?

Not embedding videos makes sense now.

    Joel Geraci
    Community Expert
    Joel GeraciCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 8, 2017

    If the video annotation is set to play the video on the page, it's never going to look good. The video will scale based on the zoom level of the PDF page. Set the video to play in a floating window instead.

    A
    Anonymous
    August 9, 2017

    Should playback only be viewed at 100% in Acrobat?

    Joel Geraci
    Community Expert
    Joel GeraciCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    August 9, 2017

    Not necessarily. When the video annotation is on the page the effective resolution of playback is a combination of the size of the annotation, the zoom level of the viewer, and the resolution of the screen. Figuring out the right setting for a pixel for pixel match is nearly impossible. You're just never going to get good playback unless you either play the video in a floating window or use a custom player that doesn't scale the content.

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