We’ve got your ultimate guide to exporting your After Effects projects to MP4, with or without Media Encoder. However, if you don’t have Media Encoder or just prefer to have an alternative, there are still ways to compress your After Effects projects. So, how do you take your massive After Effects projects and convert them into the much smaller MP4 format? Thankfully Adobe typically bundles their Media Encoder platform with After Effects subscriptions, making compressing After Effects projects easy. If you’re here, you’re likely a video producer that is ready to share your latest creation with every screen you can get it on, which means that you’re looking to take advantage of the universal compatibility and small file size that MP4 provides. However, for the average video producer, these drawbacks will likely not matter much to you. If you’re planning on making copy after copy of your file, or you’re producing content that you want to ensure stays secure and not vulnerable to piracy, MP4 may not be the best format for you.

It can use a lot of computing power to play MP4 files.

It is an easy format to illegally reproduce and distribute.

This limits the amount of times you can re-compress the file until it is no longer recognizable.

It’s a “lossy” compression format, meaning file information is lost during each compression.

If you’re looking for a file format that allows you to share on any computer or mobile device with ease, and you don’t plan on reproducing it over and over, MP4 is the perfect format for you. It allows you to attach multiple kinds of files in the package, including metadata.It has a high amount of compression, which provides a smaller file size.It’s one of the most universal file formats.

Choosing to use the MP4 format comes down to how you plan on using and sharing your video files. If you want to share your sweet video effects to Instagram or TikTok, MP4 is your best bet.Īs with anything in life, the MP4 video format has a lot of pros and cons. MP4 is a popular video format option because of its universal compatibility, especially on smartphones. Thankfully, that’s where our favorite compressed video file format comes in. Unfortunately, it also produces gargantuan video file sizes that are nearly impossible to share. After Effects is feature-packed to allow you to create literally anything you can imagine in your video projects.

Video codec after effects