Cant get a seamless loop no matter what I try

To what format are you encoding your loop and what program are you using to encode ??

Asking this coz if you're on AE CS4 or below, you would be encoding your loops in another program, just like i use TMPGEncXpress4 to encode my .AVI files to .MPEG-2

Also I would suggest you that most of the footage dreams like the ones you've recorded from your camera loop better if you use the following method-

After Effects Looping Tutorial

For the animations created in After Effects, you can use the settings to set the loop time, almost all plugins too have the option to set loop time.

Anyways, if you do not succeed with any of the above or find them tough, then simply do the following-

Split your video into 2 halfs, drag the 2nd to the end of the Comp, holding down shift, make sure you maintain a little overlapping between both the layers,click on the top layer, hit T to bring up the Opacity of the layer, click the stop watch, move a few frames ahead just where the 2nd layer begins, here just bring the opacity down to zero, this will crossfade and your output video will loop seamlessly

For any further help, you can sure pm me anytime,

Amitsaran.

I have AE CS5. I have found that WMV is the best quality to render out. I have tried AVI but it is ALWAYS jerky and very bad quality. 

After the video renders to a WMV, It has a flash at the end. Like I said in the top post, the video LOOPS perfectly before its rendered out. Its almost like the last frame or two is blank after render. This also happens no matter what I render it out to. (AVI, MPG, WMV, etc)

 I use Any Video Converter to convert the WMV to MPG. But the quality is like 60%. Looks terrible and still flashes at the end. I also have WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe. The Quality is maybe 75-80% and the flash becomes more of a slight twitch. 

You need to output to an uncompressed AVI from After Effects and encode it to MPEG2 in a program like TMPGEnc 4.0 xpress. Make sure to do all of your editing work in After Effects and only use TMPGEnc 4.0 xpress for your final encoding.

The WMV format output from After Effects is causing the flash at the loop point. The reason why is because WMV is compressed. Uncompressed AVI has no quality loss and will not have a flsh at the end. Since you are not going to be playing the AVI and only using it to encode to another format, the fact that it jerks while trying to play in real time doesn't matter.

After Effects CS5 will output directly to MPEG2 but I haven't had good luck with it so far. The few I tried ended up with a pause at the loop. There may be a way around this but I haven't spent the time to figure out the cause and fix. Once I do, I will be using it exclusively.

This thread shows my general settings for TMPGEnc although I vary the bitrate from 20k to 10k depending what I'm trying to acheive. I always use the frame rate and resolution of my original and never use the filters in the program. If you try to edit your video with TMPGEnc, you will a end up with a pause at the loop 99.9% of the time.

There is a free encoder out there that I've heard some say they have used named "Super". I have never used it so I don't know what it can do.

Lastly, your current encoding software may do the trick as long as you input an uncompressed AVI when encoding.

I tried the AVI encoding on my last dream. It came out to over 9GB. Anytime I tried to do anything with it, it froze my computer for nearly 15 minutes. For a while I thought  killed my computer. It wouldnt do crap!!!!!!. I just had yet ANOTHER Dream rejected because it has a slight twitch. I know I cant compete with the top 5 dream makers but I am positive I can give Number 6 through 100000 a run for their money if I could only get the loop right. I am seriously pulling my hair out on this. 

Thank you two for you reply. But I spent over 1000 bux on my computer, and over 1000 bux on After effercts, I can no longer shell out money for programs like TMPEGEnc4.0. I get my enjoyment from sharing. I dont make a penny of what I do. I also make vwallpapers for iPhones and iPads. All 100 % free. I even refuse donations. It drives me MAD to get rejected! I will send either or both of you a copy of my latest dream to see if you can seamlessly loop it, then tell me how I can do it with the programs I have. (AE, Any video converter, Virtualdub, Windows live Movie Maker, or, WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe.

Ya, most AVI's I use are 10 or so gigs but I can work with them fine.

Try going straight to MPEG2 then. It should be an output choice for you in After Effects CS5, it is in mine. It will output to a .mv2 extention, just rename the extention to .mpg

Have you tried SUPER © Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer? It's a free encoder.

Also, I'll be happy to assist, PM me.

I am trying just about everything. I am trying not to give up just yet......

 I think I finally got it. We shall see if the Mod excepts it. I had tried the Mpeg2 from AE many times but it always turned out terrible and wouldnt loop well. It was because I had the bitrate all wrong. Thank you once again for your help CarGuy. If this works, I will only need to make my Dreams much smaller. I just saw how large they are compared to most others. 

Happy to see you are getting closer.  

It's a trial and error thing but you will figure it out eventually. Even with all of the ones I've done, I have one whip my tail every so often.

If I can be of further assistance, just ask.

Pizentu, I don't have After Effects, but I use Magix Movie Edit Pro. When I first started using Movie Pro to make dreams, I was getting the same flashes. I wasted countless hours on dreams that flashed at the end. I finally realized, that in the timeline, there is a bracket at the first of the clip and at the end of the clip. When I pulled the ending bracket in just a hair, the rendered clip looped perfectly when I made a Dream. Like I said, I don't have After Effects and I don't know if there are brackets in the timeline of After Effects, but this solution worked for me. I hope this helps you out.

  Thanks. I am downloading a trial version now. I hope it helps. I have made a few new dreams but no matter what I do, I keep getting jerks or flashes at the end of the clip. Its getting frustrating.

  Hoping the magic Movie program will help me. 

 **** EDIT ****

 After downloading this program. I have rendered out the video just about every way possible. I am still getting the pause and or flash at the end. 

 **** Edit #2 ***** 

 I moved the brackets to render 5 seconds of a 30 second clip just to test it. It is still rendering the full 30 second video. What am I doing wrong?