File size 20 times larger?

[Tim27898261hm38]

When I export a 2-minute long MP4 file in 1620x1080 (with audio) using a different 2D animation software, the file size is 9 MB. The video is crisp and sharp, and it sounds great.

When I export a 2-minute long MP4 file in 1620x1080 from PP the file size is 176 MB, nearly 20 times larger. It won't even stream from my company's SharePoint site.

If I use "Adaptive Low Bitrate" to Export from PP, it drops it down to 166 MB.  

The file size as exported from Character Animator (the source) is 213 MB in size at "High Quality." When I drop it down to "Medium Quality," the file size shrinks down to about 40% of "High Quality." 

Can someone please explain how I can retain a crisp, sharp picture and end up with a small file size? (Like that other animation software I use.)

Thank you!

[mattchristensen]

Hello, @Tim27898261hm38,

Thanks for the post.

The first question is – which codec is your other 2D software exporting to? You mentioned MP4, but that can contain either:

• H.264 aka AVC – older, will have larger files for a given visual quality
• H.265 aka HEVC – newer, will have smaller files for a given visual quality

Open the video in Premiere Pro and right click > Properties to see this, or check in QuickTime player or some other media player app. This is important because H.265/HEVC can get a similar visual quality to H.264 with roughly half the file size. So if your 2D software is exporting H.265/HEVC and in Premiere Pro you are exporting H.264, it's not a fair comparison.

Once you've settled on which codec you're using, the main lever you have to control file size is the bitrate. Smaller bitrate means smaller file size but also less visual quality. You mentioned some of the presets in Premiere Pro that do change the bitrate, but you can dig into the video export settings (click the More...) button, and get down to an actual slider for the bitrate control.

So, it's possible the bitrates you have been exporting from Premiere Pro are just way too high for the type of content you have (animation can often get away with lower bitrates than real-world footage).

I hope that helps – let me know what you find!

Sorry for the frustration.

Thank you.

[Tim27898261hm38]

When I change the setting to H.265, the file size is now 50 times larger.

I have used two other Adobe competitors to make 2D animations, and neither one of them talk about codecs or Mbps.

You tell it whether you want 1280 x 720 or 1620 x 1080. That's it. They publish to a crisp, sharp video with a tiny file size.

Can someone please provide the options I must select to get a 1620 x 1080, 2-minute animated video published to a file size that is under 15 MB?

Thanks in advance.

[Tim27898261hm38]

Update: I went back into Character Animator and changed the exported output to lowest quality for the 11 clips that comprise the video. It reduced the file sizes to about 1/3 of what they were.

I opened Premiere Pro project--that now contained the 11 smaller clips--and exported to a video that is 1 minute 52 seconds long. I used the preset: Match Source - Adaptive Low Bitrate.

The file size is 66.7 MB in size. So, I have reduced the file size to 6 times what it is when similar sized videos are exported from other tools.

[Conrad_C]

The bitrate in your screen shot says 35 megabits per second. That might be unnecessarily high, depending on the content. It is possible that Character Animator is exporting at a much lower bit rate, but you might have to inspect that file to find out.

Another way to figure out what’s going on is to inspect the video exported by Character Animator using a video analysis app such as MediaInfo (free, shown below). I can see which codec a video uses, what the bitrate was set to, etc. That all tells me how to set it up in Premiere Pro/Media Encoder to get a similar file size. Some of this information is not shown by the Properties command in Premiere Pro.

Of all the variables, the codec and the bit rate (megabits per second) are the two factors that have the most effect on file size, so even though it might be a hassle to think about it, understanding how they work makes life a lot easier later, so I never regret studying them. Like I can tell you right now that if I set the bit rate of the video above to 8 Mb/sec instead of 16 Mb/sec, file size will drop by half, because I learned that bit rate affects file size far more than frame rate or frame dimensions. Although you can’t lower it too much or quality will start to suffer.

I’m not an expert on animation and don’t use Character Animator much so I can’t give better advice than that, but I thought I heard that the colors of flat animation may compress a lot better with a codec other than the H.264/265 that tends to be the default in Premiere Pro. But I can’t remember which one it is (one of the ProRes codecs maybe?), perhaps the Adobe people know. Or, consider also asking this question over in the Character Animator community here.

(Also, throughout your posts you write “1620 x 1080” but do you really mean 1920 x 1080? 1620 doesn’t sound typical.)

[Tim27898261hm38]

FYI, I was not the one who marked any answer as correct. As far as I can tell, there is no correct answer using Adobe's Premiere Pro.

[Kevin-Monahan · Accepted solution]

My apologies, @Tim27898261hm38. I misread your post. I thought you had found a solution. I unmarked it as correct for now. I hope the community can help you solve this one.

As Matt said, if you want to use a specific frame size and codec, you need to adjust the bitrate. You can try a bitrate lower than the preset provided and then test the results.

You can also set a limit for file size. Here's a tutorial:

If you can, please report back with any results. Sorry for the hassle. Have a great weekend!

Thanks,
Kevin

[Tim27898261hm38]

Thank you for that response. I took notes in OneNote so I would retain this info indefinitely.

I must say, it is strange to me that there isn't an preset option in the Export process that says something like, "Smallest file size for a universally-playable, crisp MP4 file." I have spent over 4 hours trying to resolve this one issue. 

It is also strange to me that PP's export for a 1 min 52 second MP4 is 66 MB in size, when the other two animation software tools I use it is less than 15 MB. 

I have clicked "Correct Answer." Thank you again for your time.