Is H.264 the way to go?

[Walter Biscardi]

I use H.264 for everything here as I have found it the best. Typically 800 – 2500kpbs is what I render in depending on how long the piece is and what the client is happy with.

In Compressor you can set an In and Out point so you can render a short test file first and send that off to the client to ensure they’re happy with the files before you render everything.

I would expect that to take in the neighborhood of about 3 hours with that machine though, kind of suprised it’s taking that long for a 30 minute render. We still have one of those here and to take a 26 minute show and compress it to MPEG-2 for DVD takes about 2 hours or so.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Steve Eisen]

Elgato Turbo.264 is the perfect solution.

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Walter Biscardi]

[Steve Eisen] “Elgato Turbo.264 is the perfect solution.”

Does this have any advantage over the QMaster Distributed processing? We’ve set up 2 to 8 instances on our Mac Pro’s and Compressor screams on a single machine when you do this.

On a G5 you probably still need the help of another app, but I was curious how this compares to just using the QMaster.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!

[Richard Harrington]

Best $79 ever spent

https://www.vidpodcaster.com/files/turboh264.html

Richard M. Harrington, PMP

Author: Photoshop for Video, Understanding Adobe Photoshop, and ATS:iWork

[Arnie Schlissel]

Me want! I’m going to get one today!

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/

[Kevin Monahan]

The trouble with H.264 is that although it looks great and has small file sizes, most people do not the the most current version of QT installed, especially PC people.

I found this out while shopping around my new demo reel. I am sure I have lost a few interviews because they just gave up trying to view my reel.

I just made a QT 6 MPEG 4 file that is much more easily viewed on PCs. It’s quite large to get even similar quality, but that is the price I have to pay for getting the right people to view the reel.

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Chris Borjis]

[Kevin Monahan] “The trouble with H.264 is that although it looks great and has small file sizes, most people do not the the most current version of QT installed, especially PC people.”

that is still a very real problem. mpeg4 won’t help much either because h.264 is a flavor of mpeg4.

If a client of mine insists on a quicktime to reach the masses the only option is a sorensen 3 codec quicktime. Anyone with quicktime can play that.

Only trouble is, there are systems out there without quicktime.

So I usually insist on flash video since it has the highest compatibility being on nearly every platform in existence and if you don’t have it, it installs in a few seconds without any effort.

When flash player finally supports H.264 it will be a day of celebration! 🙂

[David Roth weiss]

Guys, quit shaking in your boots and gear up now for Web distribution using h.264 without fear.

The latest Flash Players will play h.264 as well as Flash, thus giving h.264 the same cross-platform penetration that before made Flash so attractive.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Arnie Schlissel]

I think that Windows Media Player also supports H.264. As does VLC player, and a few other linux oriented players. In short, it’s pretty widely supported accross all platforms and architecutres.

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/

[Kevin Monahan]

Great Walter. Can you point me to a tutorial which describes how to get from FCP to Flash Video to a web page? Moreover, how to make it work with iWeb?

It must be a very arcane workflow, because everything on the Adobe site is so convoluted that this simple task is nowhere to be found. If it is, it must be buried somewhere.

When I did work for Macromedia back in the day, I talked to the product manager of Flash and told him that a simple flash video workflow should be spoon fed to the masses. Still, I cannot find it.

Any help?

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro