Does anyone know the best codec to use, I know cinepak and microsoft are not good and divx is a bit too lossy, I really want a codec that is not very lossy or even non lossy.

.mpg is usually a good cross-platform choice. Sorenson (through Quicktime) also looks good.

It is actually an avi codec I want but thank you, anyway.

Attached Link: http://www.divx.com

Most people prefer DivX, which in my experience is by far the *least* lossy. It also yields the smallest file sizes that I've seen. You'll have a lot of settings choices to work with, some yield smaller files than others. The basic version of DivX is free, so you can experiment for awhile before upgrading to DivX Pro. Xvid is another name that has been popping up a lot lately with a positive reputation. I have the free version for viewing, I'm not sure if you need to pay for encoding options. AC3 seems to be the most popular soundstream compressor for .avi at the moment. Indeo is no longer your best option. I'm not crazy about the Microsoft codecs, either.

It is for making dvds (not pirating). When you take a divx avi and convert it to a dvd format then you get a lot of "artifacting" caused by the compression. Looking at commercial dvds I know it is not caused by their compression so it must be the divx. This isn`t really off topic either, because I will use the same codec in poser too.

I agree, potentially useful discussion for Poser animators. I think the problem you're seeing is that a DivX .avi is already compressed, so when you convert it to DVD format, which is mpeg2 if I remember correctly, you'll certainly get some noticeable artifacts. Compression upon compression, and different protocols, at that. Going the other direction, from a DVD .vob to .avi, you can avoid noticeable artifacts. It sounds like you're actually making VCDs as opposed to true DVDs, sorry if I'm wrong. Can anyone else help out, here?

The best .avi codec I've seen is the DivX. Maybe it would be good to get a little clarification. I'm under the impression, based on this statement - "It is for making dvds (not pirating) - that you are creating original source material to be converted for DVD usage. If that is correct, then your best bet is to render the material uncompressed and then, convert it to mpeg2. My understanding is that you can render uncompressed .avi files. I regularly use both "animation" and "DV" codecs for things going to DVD. I know they are both options through QuickTime but I dodn't know if they're available via the .AVI format. FWIW, I do it professionally, so I know(!) that works. Unfortunately I'm not as familiar with the .AVI format as with QuickTime so it's hard to make recommendations within that particular arena.

Don't go from divx to VCD or DVD. Start with uncompressed video/audio. For web use, stick with divx, and avoid bogus codecs like rm, mp42 and wmv3.

The problem with uncompressed AVIs is that they can be a gigabyte or more even for just a short film! I know that from bitter experience. mateo sancarlos I wouldn`t use wmv3 if that is a windows thing, I try to avoid using any microsoft programs if I can as, in my opinion, they are all pretty cr*p.

Here are links to two lossless codecs:

Huffyuv
CorePNG

They don't offer the same level of compression as lossy codecs like DivX or MPEG-2, but it's still better than no compression at all. And you can recompress with these codecs, over and over, without any image degradation, so they're well-suited for editing.

To use Huffyuv with Poser, configure the codec for RGB output (Poser's native colourspace). You might also enable the RGBA option if you wish to retain Poser's alpha channel in the video.

CorePNG has alpha-channel support, also, and in some cases it'll provide better compression than Huffyuv. It's slower, however, and is still in a beta-state, so you might experience compatibility problems with certain programs. I've used it successfully with Poser and VirtualDub, myself, but my MPEG-converter (TMPGEnc) doesn't seem to like it.

Thank you, little dragon that was exactly what I was looking for. I dont mind that the codecs dont compress well, as you say, it`s still better than no compression at all.