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Exporting video for the web – settings?
Hello friends-
I have a series of short videos I have cut for a musicians website that range from 1min – 4 mins. I shot them in HD, and I want to export them as MP4s so I can make them into Flash videos to post. I have exported them several times, but my programmer tells me they are too large because they don’t load right away. When I go to export them, I am obviously using H.264, 256 kps, optimize for streaming and make the video the size I want (575 x 325).
What is the best way to export these video to make the file size smaller but retain the quality without it going to absolute doo doo?
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13 Replies
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[joey williams] “(575 x 325). “
Hi Joey,
This is an absolutely non standard size.
Is not 4×3, is not 16×9, If you are happy with the aspect of the movie, that’s OK, but ther is another thing: It doesn’t respect the macro-blocks structure with which most of the codecs (DV, MPEG, H264…)
works. The minimum block size for H264 is (if I’m not wrong) 4 x 4 pixels.
Pixels that don’t get inside any block can not be properly compressed.
This will always happens if you are using odd values for the wide or the high of your picture.
With which kind of footage are you working?
Rafael -
Hello Joey, I always have good luck exporting to H264 with a size setting of 480×360 and setting the compression quality between low and medium. There does not appear to be a large difference between setting it to low/med as opposed to medium or the highest quality setting. The higher quality settings just increase the file size by about 100%. As well, I set keyframes at about 600 frames, (and most of the stuff I do is all moving camera, handeld etc.) and it doesn’t seem to have any effect on the quality and it reduces the overall file size. Hope that helps. STU
I know alot….but not as much as the other guy.
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Thanks for responding. The media I’m working with came from an HD-MiniDV Canon camera. Like I said, I have a series of these short videos I want to use for Flash videos in a website, but in the settings I’ve been using it makes a 1min video 19M – not acceptable my programmer tells me. I really want to keep as much video/audio quality as I can without making a huge file.
Is there a size you recommend that is smaller than 575 x 325 – unfortunately, I cannot go larger at the moment.
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Hi Joey,
Depending of the footage you are using (4×3 or 16×9) you need to keep always that proportion.
I guess that you are working with 16×9, so if you just change your values to 576 x 324 you will get a perfect 16×9 picture.
About the setting for the H264, you need to know first how many MB per minute of film they let allow you.
With that you need to calculate the target data-rate.
Work always with “Automatic Keyframes”.
Rafael -
Awesome. Thanks Rafael.
I am shooting in 16:9, so I actually ended up bumping it down to 480 x 270 to make the file a smaller size. My programmer tells me I need to shoot for 5M video file size. I am very frustrated though, because it makes my video look like total crap when I crunch it down to that size, and that is using Compressor.
We are deploying this site on my own server, a brand new XServe that is hosted at a big co-location place, so bandwidth is pretty much wide open. I don’t know how to calculate how much bandwidth I have though to figure out how to really size this thing. I feel like my programmer just wants a really small file, but doesn’t really understand how the video will actually load.
I really do appreciate your info. I’m going to keep working with this.
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Hi Joey,
If the files must be 5M per second of clip, that means that you are allowed to some 666 Kbps for your H264. That’s for Audio and Video together.
If you want to keep good quality audio, AAC at 128 Kbps would be good enough.
That means that you still can set the video data rate to some 550 Kbps.
That data rate for a 480 x 270 H264, is very, very good. You can get a really crisp image.
Is more or less the data rate that I use for that size.
As I said before, set Keyframes automatic, field reordering and double pass.
Cheers,
rafael -
Thanks Rafael. I really appreciate the info. I’ve been trying to do this in Compressor all night, but haven’t got it right quite yet. I’m getting close though. Is it just as good to render it right out of FCS, or is exporting to Compressor the road to travel? Again, I really appreciate all your info. Saving my butt right now.
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You can send to Compressor or you can do the downscaling in FC but keep away of QT Conversion.
What kind of footage are you working with?
What codec is your sequence?
Are you adding effects and titles?
Give me a bit more of info and I will tell you how I would do it.
Normally I do the downsizing and de-interlacing in FC rendering in a 10b codec, so I try to get a high quality .mov with the final size and aspect ratio that my web clip will have. Then I import the .mov to Compressor to be just transcoded to H264.
To get the best resizing and de-interlacing in FC y set “Render all YUV material in High Precision” and “Render Motion Effects: BEST”.
Compressor can do all at once, but only will make a good job if you set the “Frame Control” ON.
However I prefer the first way.
Rafael -
I think that was part of my initial problem – I was using QT conversion to get it out of FC. The original footage is HD MiniDV, and I am trying to get it to a good quality MP4. The reason I want MP4 is because I’m trying to use these videos as Flash videos on websites. Flash requires an MP4, or a movie encoded in the Flash Media Encoder, which creates an F4V file.
So, to answer your specific questions:
What kind of footage are you working with?
HD MiniDV
What codec is your sequence?
I need to use H.263, in form of MP4
Are you adding effects and titles?
The only effects I’ve added are a filter for each video for some color correction and some cross dissolves. -
The easiest way is to send to Compressor from FC. Us I said, you need to set “Frame Control” ON to get a good downscaling. If you are working with Interlaced footage you need to set Compressor to de-interlace the footage too.
I must point to you that Flash Player can read H264 from QT, although is necessary to set Flash Player to do so. H264 yields better quality that the codecs used the Flash Media Encoder.
If you need to encode something with Flash Media Encoder (or any other compression application), you shouldn’t send him something already compressed (like an H264). You should send him something with the higher possible quality.
If you are not happy with what you get through Compressor, post me and I will explain you more in deep
how to do it in FC.
Cheers,
rafael
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