Compression settings for “Movie Trailer” quality QuickTimes

[Jeremy Garchow]

If you save the movie or when you are playing the movie in quicktime, hit apple-i to get movie info and you will find all the info you need including frame size, frame rate, data rate and codec (it’s usually h.264).

Jeremy

[Tim Baker]

Yeah…I have been using the H.264 since I am starting with HD footage out of my timeline, but they seem a lot bulkier than the ones you see that are actual movie trailers.

I will try to download one and see if I can get that info…thanks.

Tim Baker
Chameleon Mobile Video Productions
(239)849-3295
“It is not the light at the end of the tunnel that we should seek…it is the courage to take the next step in the dark that we must find.”

[Jeremy Garchow]

Well, you have to consider the length. If you are posting full videos then they will be bigger than the 1 minute trailers.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I just checked the HD version of the Apple TV ads on their main page right now. They’re 848×480 in resolution and also H.264 with AAC audio.

As for your “bulkiness” problem you have two things working against you. First is that the ad and the movie trailers are all 24 fps. I’m assuming your HDV footage is 30 fps. So even with all the same settings and same length, your video’s file size will be 125% the size of the movie trailers.

Secondly, everything on there was shot on film or very hi-rez digital format. They also used huge professional lenses. That means their footage is way sharper and way larger than what you’re starting with. That means they can compress it at a VERY high rate and still get good results. Everything’s so sharp and they’re starting with so many pixels they can really run it through the ringer and still get a good image.

You’re starting out with just barely enough pixels to make what you want. Any compression that looks great for them will probably do more damage to your video. So you’ll need a higher bit-rate to match their look.

So you’ll have to compress less than they do AND you have more frames-per-second. You can see the problem.

But don’t give up! With a bit of trial and error I’m sure you’ll get something that looks great. I’ve gotten some great results with just DV footage. Take a look:

http://www.penguintail.com/parrot/

A lot of this stuff is trial-and-error. Just keep trying different things and you’ll find something you like!

[Chris Babbitt]

That’s very informative, Jeff. Do you know how they get such high quality, yet such short download times on the i-Tunes TV shows?

[James Reid]

And on top of all that…Apple probably uses something a lot more exotic and costly than Compressor 2.1

[Tim Baker]

Thanks for the tips and info…I can always count on the Cow.

What I have is not bad on my website…I have just always been dazzled by the “trailers”. I will keep working on it.

Tim Baker
Chameleon Mobile Video Productions
(239)849-3295
“It is not the light at the end of the tunnel that we should seek…it is the courage to take the next step in the dark that we must find.”