Is there any way to know if After Effects assigns chunk size automatically or if it simply defaults to 1? The anomalous behavior (described below) has prompted me to explore chunk size options.

I should point out that I had previously experienced very promising results in Watchout by rendering to HAP-encoded QuickTime directly from After Effects (despite not being able to specify chunk size). Can ffmpeg parse sequentially numbered image files as input? Using a Quicktime as the source footage is a bit inconvenient. When encoding a QuickTime that was originally rendered from After Effects with Photo-Jpeg at Quality=7, ffmpeg issues a warning : 'depricated pixel format used.' but it encoded to HAP nevertheless. HapQ results in file sizes roughly double the size of Hap. Using Erik's command line formula, I managed to encode with ffmpeg. Over time, the most popular codecs (h264 for example) has evolved to a very high performing codec both in the terms of quality and encoding speed. You can do just about anything, and the number of codecs supported is very long. It is also a good idea to keep the number as small as possible, since each chunks adds a slight overhead.įfmpeg's user interface is not the easiest to master, but once you get the hang of it you really appreciate the flexibility. There is no point in using more chunks that there are CPU cores in the computer.

Chunks can be any number between 1 and 64. Here hap_q can be changed to hap or hap_alpha if you wish to use these flavours instead of HapQ.

This will convert Movie.mov to a HapQ movie using 4 chunks and store the result in MovieHap.mov. If you want to use ffmpeg, there are windows binaries to download here: Īssuming you are running windows: Just put ffmpeg.exe and the file you wish to convert in a folder, open a windows command prompt and navigate to that folder and issue the following command:įfmpeg -i Movie.mov -vcodec hap -format hap_q -chunks 4 MovieHap.mov Each chunk will add a slight overhead, both in the form of a slightly higher decoding time and slightly larger files, but the difference is usually (close to) negligible. It the video plays fine without using chunks, don't bother to use chunks. If the bitrate is too high, you will have to render to a lower resolution, or, if playing HapQ, switch to Hap. The compression methods are fixed and leave no room for any adjustments. As I have mentioned in previous posts, given a certain resolution and Hap flavour (Hap, HapQ or HapAlpha) there is no way to control the bitrate.

Hap codec after effects