Xara Pro X11 - massive problems exporting AVI

[NickyE]

Hi, I'm running against the clock, trying to get a title animation exported as an AVI with a transparent background. The animation is 210 frames long. At first, I had the duration for each frame set at 0.04 seconds. It exported successfully but the uncompressed file was 13GB in size! My editing program would not accept it.

So then I shortened the animation to 3 x short clips, and changed the frame duration to 0.02 seconds each, hoping that the clips would be of a manageable size. In all three, it would only export the first 1 second (exactly) of the animation.

After a bunch of other problems, including access violations, and random "serious error, and Xara needs to close", I eventually uninstalled and resintalled Xara.

I went backto my first, full length animation, and this time changed each frame to 0.01 seconds, in the hope that the final file would be manageable.

Just like the previous three, it only exports an avi exactly 1 second in duration.

I'm running Windows 7 64 bit.

I need the title for a short film to screen on ABC television and the deadline is on me, so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Egg Bramhill]

I wouldn't think 13Gb large for a AVI file.

Can you upload it to Dropbox & supply a link?

[pauland]

I wouldn't think 13Gb large for a AVI file.

It's massive!

13GB not 13MB!

How about an image sequence (frame images) to be loaded into a video editor?

[Egg Bramhill]

!!!! Sorry Paul, that is big. I can't even imagine Xara creating such a file size. Whats the animation about?

[browj2]

@NickyE,

Where did you set the duration of each frame to 0.04s? If you did this in the Properties under Moving frame in timeline by 0.04 seconds, then this is not the place. This parameter is only used when you make adjustments in the Animation frame gallery by clicking on the clock buttons to move the frame backwards or forwards by that amount.

On the properties screen, there is also Local delay. The default is 0.5s. This is the default time between frames, and this shows up in the Animation frame gallery as Frame 1 (start at 00:00:00) (display for 0.5s), Frame 2 (start at 00:00:50) (display for 0.5s), etc. To change the duration (display for), double-click on it and change the Frame properties to the desired value, or click on one of the clock buttons at the left of Frame x.

Do not confuse Frames here with frames in a video; they are not the same. If the frame rate is 30fps, but you have the display for 0.5 s, then you're animation will tween between video frames 0 and 15, but in the Animation Frame gallery, between Frames 1 and 2. You say that you have 210 frames, which I presume to be frames in Xara, not frames in the avi file. If you made these frames with the default setting of 0.5s between Frames, then your video file will be 105 minutes long, which would explain the huge avi file.

If your intention is to have a video (avi file) of 210 frames, then at 30 fps this would give a 7 second file, which would be quite small.

Why do you have 210 Frames in Xara? Are you changing things every fraction of a second that cannot be tweened? Did you give your objects names? Unnamed objects will not tween.

[browj2]

Sorry, I was called away before finishing my reply.

There are a couple of other things to note. As far as I can tell, Xara always uses 24fps despite what the user types into the properties under AVI options. If you need a file at 30fps and type in 30 as the frame rate for AVI, you will get a file that is exported at 30fps, but it will not be the length intended.

Example: set AVI options to 30fps. Create a simple animation that is 5 seconds long. With the display time at 0.5s, this will be 10 frames, as frame 10 starts at 00:04:50 and displays for 0.5s, thus taking you through to 5s. Export the animation as AVI (check the export options to make sure that it is still 30fps), import the file into an nle, like Movie Edit Pro or Video Pro X, and you will see that the file imported shows a length of only 4s. Why? Xara has a flaw in that before exporting, no matter what the AVI option is set at, the work is done internally at 24fps. Thus a 5s animation will have 24x5=120 picture frames. When you export, Xara takes the 120 individual frames (images) and produces an AVI of 120 frames at whatever frame rate that you want. So a frame rate of 30fps gives 120f/30fps=4s. If you want 25fps, you will get 120f/25fps=4.8s or 4s plus 20 frames.

So, if you need an output of 5s at 30fps, you either make it in Xara 6.25s long and export at 30fps which will give you a file of 5s, or you use the Speed effect within Movie Edit Pro Plus/Premium or VPX and make the adjustment using a factor of 0.8, then export the result to the format that you require - at the required output rate.

Confused?

John