Using Premiere? Need to get your animation in the right format? It's the same every year: You will get trapped by QuickTime.
- Get your animation ready for export according to Autodesk's instructions for slate, audio, etc.
- When you go to Export Movie, go into the export settings (on the save file dialog) and make sure you have:
- General: File Type is QuickTime, other options should be default
- Video: Compressor is "DV/DVCPRO - NTSC" and the frame size is 720x480, fps is 29.97, pixel aspect ratio (did you remember this when you animated?) is 0.9. Under the Compressor's "Configure..." choose Scan Mode Progressive and 4:3 aspect ratio.
- Keyframe and Rendering: Fields should be "No Fields (Progressive Scan)"
- Audio: Uncompressed 48kHz 15-bit sound
- When you go to play back your shiny new MOV is QT, you might be astonished to notice how terribly crappy it looks. Fear not. QT is in low-quality mode for some reason. Set QuickTime to high quality: In QuickTime Player, Edit > Preferences > Player Preferences > Use high quality video setting when available.
Have fun and good luck with your animation!