Minimising/reducing H.264 mp4 size in Media Encoder

[timc57343945]

hello all, I'm new both to the forum and After Effects, so thanks in advance for any help.

I have a 2min:25sec animation in AE. I would like to render it out as H.264 mp4 but the file size is at best 38MB. I have dropped the bitrate to 2.5min 5max.

I believe a colleague produced exactly the same file (different animation) and their final file is only 2.9MB !

Any tips on how to achieve this please? (the are almost exact same file, some different type)

[David Arbor]

2.9 MB for a 2.5 minute animation is going to be extremely low quality. 38 MB is a very appropriate (and small) size for something that long. Without knowing the content of your animation better settings can't be recommended. Fast moving objects, like particles, or thin lines that are animating will need more data than something that is static in your frame.

You also didn't mention the starting resolution and desired output resolution. If you reduce your resolution then you can reduce your quality without it being as noticeable as a higher resolution file with a lower quality setting.

What's the reason you need to make your file so much smaller?

You could encode using HEVC, which is H.265 for a smaller file, but it will take quite a bit longer to encode because that codec requires far more processing power.

But again, knowing what you're after (or rather, why you're after a smaller file size) can help inform your decision. 

[timc57343945]

Thanks v.much David. It needs to be 1080p for a TV screen display. Being new to AE I wasn't sure what sort of size to expect, so thanks for that info that 38MB is reasonable. Its just that I'm assuming I should also be able to get it down to about 3MB as it was done before. Makes it easier for emailing to people etc. The file has only animated text and colour blocks and logo, no imported video. I will try HVEC, if there are any links to settings or tutorials on achieving small file size that would be great. Thanks for your time on this

[David Arbor]

You're welcome. Not only is 38 MB reasonable, it's actually incredibly small in the world of video. 

In general, you shouldn't be emailing videos because they can take a long time to send and receive, and also some email providers have attachment limits that would prevent you from sending larger files. Uploading to YouTube and sending a review link, or sharing a Dropbox, Google Drive, or Creative Cloud link are better alternatives. 

Video encoding is a very complex topic and something that can take a while to get a handle, and really a "feel" for what settings to use. Here are a couple articles that touch on the subject, though:

https://wipster.io/blog-for-creative-teams-who-want-better-collaboration-tools/the-editors-guide-to-...

https://wipster.io/blog-for-creative-teams-who-want-better-collaboration-tools/understanding-adobe-p...