Export sub-5MB wmv in Final Cut Pro?

[David Roth weiss]

You will never, ever get a WMV out of FCP using flip4mac that is decent quality at anything even close to the bitrate required to achieve your target file size. In fact, I’ll bet you won’t even like the quality of a WMV file encoded at an incredibly high bitrate. I’ve encountered the same problem without any solution.

There are some posts suggesting Sorenson Squeeze or other tools that may improvve quality, but the flip4mac solution in all likelihood will never be adequate for your needs.

Hope this helps…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

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[Zoe Griffiths]

Thanks David. I know I’m going to struggle to get anything I’m happy with – a 5MB limit is ridiculous anyway – but this is the output that has been requested…

I know it’s going to be bad quality, but any ideas on how to make the best of it, either through flip4mac or an alternative, would be really appreciated.

[Shane Ross]

5MB…that’s an arbitrary number. How long is the piece? Something that is 30 seconds with those settings will look a lot better than something that is 15 min.

And yes, Sorenson would do a far better job. That’s what I use for making WMVs.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Zoe Griffiths]

I completely agree. I feel 5MB is pretty pointless, but apparently that’s all their intranet can cope with.

The piece is 3 minutes long. I can get a substandard, but not terrible quality at 16MB, but any smaller and it’s just awful.

Can you suggest any settings in Sorenson that might work ok?

[Bret Williams]

If its streaming, the file size should not be an issues. The data rate should be the issue. If they insist on the file size being 5mb, then all you can do is shorten the video or make it look pixelated. You didn’t mention the length.

At these small file sizes, audio starts to be a big factor. Often overlooked. You can make the audio mono, make sure it’s compressed like mp3 or AAC, and since it’s mono you can get away with it being 64 or 32 instead of 128 or 256 Kbps.

[Chris Tompkins]

The client wants the total file size under 5mb.

Look into professional compression software like Episode or Squeeze. These tools are must in this business.

Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC

[Adam White]

Hi Zoe,

I feel your pain on this one – occassionaly we get asked to supply WMVs at absurdly low sizes like this. I’d agree with David – you will never be truly happy with a WMV, whatever the bitrate, as in my experience they tend to just look horrendous on a Mac. However If you have access to a PC and take a look at them on it, you’ll find they dont look as bad as you thought when you played back on a Mac.

We use Telestream Episode which does a sterling job. Just use one of the many WMV presets built in to begin with, tweak it to your specifications and away you go. Episode is the only software I’ve ever seen spit out an acceptable WMV on a mac, so its an essential thing to have in the tool kit if you ask me. It also can produce just about any other format you can think of so its worth having! *sales pitch over

[Bret Williams]

Those are 2 pieces of software I have not found to be a must in this business by any means. WMV creation is near extinct, and I’ve demoed Episode for creating SD DVDs from HD and the results were exactly the same as Compressor. Cruddy. The best way I’ve found to do that is to run the master HD file through AE to make an SD master. Then compress that. That’s a piece of software I find indispensable. That and PS and Illustrator. Pretty much the Adobe production bundle, which would also have Adobe media encoder for any flash needs plus encore.