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Looking for best export settings for downloading from the web
Hi all, I’m hoping you can help me out with getting some settings right for downloading. I do content for an adult video site, and we need six versions, 3 wmv (high, medium and low) and 3 mov (high, medium and low).
I have an early 2008 Macbook Pro running the latest version of Snow Leopard and I’m using Final Cut Studio 3. Most of the footage starts off as DV NTSC but I export the final sequence as an uncompressed Quicktime Movie and bring it into Compressor.
That’s where I get confused. For the mov files, I’m exporting as h.264 with a frame rate of 25 fps and bitrate at 2500 for the high quality version. For the wmv high quality, I have it set at a variable bitrate of 2500 and 29.97.
These are the settings used by the other editor, yet my videos end up looking pixelated and the file sizes are pretty small. Codecs and compression are utterly baffling to me, so I’m hoping someone here can tell me what I’m doing wrong. Should the frame rate be set to “Current”? What can I try? Please help!
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2 Replies
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[Anthony Medel] “That’s where I get confused. For the mov files, I’m exporting as h.264 with a frame rate of 25 fps and bitrate at 2500 for the high quality version. For the wmv high quality, I have it set at a variable bitrate of 2500 and 29.97”
Why does one output have a frame rate of 25fps and the other of 29.97 – is the source from USA or Europe?
You need to get yourself a dedicated compression/transcoding application, like compressor, episode etc etc, if you have FCP, then you probably already have compressor.
Start playing with the presets, it won’t do WMV for you – for that you need Episode.
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Flip For Mac will do the needed .wmv conversions for you. Depending on the quality you want depends on the quality you need to purchase (the viewer is free, the encoders are not). After that, try playing around with the various presets.
The biggest mistake that people new to compression techniques make is that they try to render out long clips. The requires waiting for them to render out before viewing. In Compressor, you can set the in and out points and render out a short section. Now there are a lot of arguments for rendering out the whole piece because of changes in the motion energy, etc from scene to scene. However give the material you are working with, I would render out a 3-5 minute piece, see if it has the quality you want. If it looks bad, adjust your settings and rerender out the same piece. Put the details in the file name so you know what each is for future reference (ie. 320x240b2000kf30.mov (320×240 resolution, 2k bitrate, key frame 30)). When you get to a point that you like the results, render the entire piece.
Be sure to save your settings because you don’t want to go through this every time.
kris@wotipka.com
Image maker
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