Looped render doesn't loop correctly

[AlexVFX]

I have a 15 second clip in AE that I'm looping with audio. When I play it back in AE it loops perfectly with no delay. My frame range is 00.00-14.23seconds. 

When I render the composition and playback the render, the loop seems to have a big pause in the audio at the head of the shot. What is causing this? If it works fine in AE, what is causing the loop to NOT work when I render? 

Project Settings:

24 fps

44.100 Khz

Audio file is a .wav 

[Rick Gerard]

99% probability it is the media player you are using to loop the rendered video.

[Kyle Hamrick]

How are you exporting this file, in what format, and what are you using to play it back? It's entirely possible one of those is the culprit instead of anything actually happening within AE. Are you able to provide this exported file as an example?

[AlexVFX]

Thanks Kyle. I tried playing in quicktime and windows media player and it doesnt loop well in either. 

I brought the rendered file back into AE and it plays back fine there. 

Lastly...this video is meant to be published on Instagram Reels. I tried to publish on there and it looks like the loop is still bad, but not as bad as when its being played in a media player. Its such shame that all that hard work to create a perfect loop goes out the door once rendered. It just seems so odd?

[Rick Gerard]

For a video loop to be seamless the first and last frame should be identical, then you need to back up one frame and trim the comp to that frame. If you leave the first and last frame identical the loop will hesitate. 

A good frame rate for a loop on a social media platform is 12 or 15 fps. 30 fps would be the absolute max, but it's almost impossible to tell the difference between 30 and 12 fps for most projects. Make sure that you also follow the social media frame size guidelines and always deliver a properly compressed H.264 MP4.

[Zero_Alpha]

Hi Rick,

Hey sorry just bit confussed with your reply, can you break it down for me. Are you saying the first and last frames need to indetical but you need to cut the last frame? would'nt this make the first and last frame "not" indentical.

I have a 5sec/301frame animation, so are you saying I need to cut it to 300 frames? I've got it looping perfect in AE but the online media player has a slight stall. Also I seen and improvement edcoding with Handbrake as opposed to ME. Thanks

[defaultjyj1aigs8o34]

would'nt this make the first and last frame "not" indentical.

Exactly. Basically end one frame before the start so the start carries on after the last frame finishes.

Bitrate seems to impact my loops significantly. Higher Mbps = smoother transitions from end to start.