How to export a Uncompressed MP4 file in After Effects?

[haydeng16700868]

Hi everyone,

I am creating a Facebook Video cover and I would like to export it in MP4 format and uncompressed. How can I do this?

Many thanks.

[Jose Panadero · Accepted solution]

You can't do it. MP4 specification only accepts H264 or H265 codecs for video (based on the MPEG4 file specifications) inside an MP4 container. If you need an uncompressed file probably you need to create an .AVI or .MOV file

[haydeng16700868]

Thanks Jose for your detailed response.

The problem I found is that when I render the mp4 file from After Effects it looks blurry when I upload it as the Facebook cover. Is there anyway around this? To get a sharper Facebook video cover? Or is it Facebook compressing the video file which is causing this?

Many thanks.

[Byron Cortez]

MP4 is a compression codec that is why it is specially designed for the Web just because to be a lightweight file, if you want a file without compression then you should not think about uploading it to the Web and worse on a cover, files without compression have another use, for example to make multigenerations such as postproduction or broadcast workflow.

[haydeng16700868]

Thanks Byron Cortez,

When I upload the MP4 file which has been rendered on After Effects to Facebook as a Facebook video cover the quality is bad, the video is blurry and not crisp.

Is there anything I can do so that the MP4 video created and rendered in After Effects looks sharp when its uploaded to Facebook as a Facebook cover video?

Many thanks

[Jose Panadero]

As Byron Cortez tells you, it is a problem on the facebook side. When you upload a video file that is not "facebook compliant" their systems encode the video in an adequate format, so you loose the quality control on your video file. What I suggest you is to encode the video in MP4 before uploading, maintaining the bit rate as high as possible (around 16-20Mbits/sec using a high profile encoding). You can use Adobe Media Encoder (included in your CC subscription) to prepare the file for facebook upload. Anyway as H264 is a "delivery" compressed format, you will not see the sharpness of your original AE composition.

[Byron Cortez]

This has nothing to do with After Effects but with Facebook. As far as I know you can't do anything, you don't have quality control or compression when uploading to a social network, each one has its compression method when you upload a video or image, so I think you should settle for uploading the best MP4 quality possible so that Facebook compression does not deteriorate so much. I'm not a specialist in social networks but it is what I know about them.

[Rick Gerard]

All streaming services will recompress your video. Facebook does a lousy job. The closer you match the specifications for the streaming services the better the conversion will be. Use the AME presets that match your streaming service and don't fiddle with custom settings until you have the equivalent of a Master's Degree in Video formats and compression. Your videos will look as good as they can look when streamed on the internet.