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Optimizing for Joomla website
I am producing videos for a client website which uses Joomla as its operating system. On the advice of the web designer of the site, I forwarded to an ftp that the client has, mp4 files. When I looked at the site after the mp4 files had been put up, the video quality was not good.
The designer tells me that I could make adjustments or use another file type or both to improve quality. This has me scratching my head since I sent to him 3 test files – one .flv, one H.264, and one mp4 – earlier. He chose mp4 as the best.
I know there are adjustments that can be made if these files are created in Compressor. But, to save time, I was wondering if someone out there has suggestions of settings I might chose to optimize these files so they will really sparkling on my client’s website?
Thanks for any suggestions you can make…
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22 Replies
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Ok I run about 4 websites that use Joomla and using the AllVideo plugin, you can use just about any format.
However, if you are doing video, Youtube & Vimeo are the only way to go, unless your subject matter is confidential. You can still hide the vids on the youtube/vimeo indexing though.
Peter
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Frank,
Do you understand that the only way your video could get worse would be if the video is being recompressed somewhere in the process after you deliver it?
If that is the case, then no highly compressed web delivery format that you’re supplying will suffice, because they are being hit with a second major compression after you deliver. So, you have to upload an very lightly compressed video file so that the second compression hit doesn’t degrade it horribly. Does this make sense?
It’s your responsibility to connect the dots in order to determine your proper workflow. In this case that means that you need to research Joomla to determine if and how the site recompresses the video file that you supply, and based upon your findings, you need to create a file that withstand that recompression.
The sky is the limit when choosing the bitrate for H.264 files. You have to determine what’s necessary, keeping in kind that the file you create is not the final for web delivery version, but rather the starting point for what will become the final file.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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I’ve had great results lately using x264. see this post on using it instead of H.264:
https://realworldvideocompression.com/rwvc/2010/5/7/using-x264-plugin-in-compressor.html
Also, you should check to see if the videos are being resized in the player. If you’ve encoded them at 320×240 and they are being scaled up or down via the player, that could also cause your quality to suffer. One bit of advice I’ve learned is to keep the dimensions as multiples of 16, as described here:
https://www.flashsupport.com/books/fvst/files/tools/video_sizes.html
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David,
Joomla is a CMS and won’t ‘recompress’ the video
Peter
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Frank,
How many times a day will the video be viewed? I really urge you to think Youtube or Vimeo as my maximum video has been 60gig in a day hosting video myself.
Peter
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Peter –
This is a new site that my client has launched but they already have 3 or 4, all of which are linked to this new site. I have no idea what their traffic is on the other sites. But I can say that this client is an association with about 1500 members. And they are making a big push to maximize marketing for their member’s product. And this site has ties to the Smithsonian.
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Frank –
My company website uses Joomla as the CMS. Most of the video is embedded through Vimeo. However, several files are playing off of the server using the AllVideos plug-in. As Peter pointed out, the CMS does not compress video. All my files are Flash. I use free software called Bitrate Starter to determine the best parameters for the encodes. More times than not the quality is very good and it still looks good on the website. So the quality of your final encode should look the same when it plays on your client’s site. As David points out, check with your client to determine that your files are not being re-compressed and that they are playing at the frame size you encoded at and and not at another size as set in videos plug-in on the Joomla site.
Ken Hall
Rivendell Story Works
rivendellstoryworks.com -
Frank,
You have said the magic word, marketing. Use YouTube – it is not part of Google for nothing 🙂
Peter
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Peter, Yes, I’m aware that Joomla is a CMS, but as you said, the video player is a plugin for it. One video player plug-in in particular on WordPress doesn’t take into consideration the extra 20 pixels for the player controls, so you have to add 20 pixels to the height of the video for it to display in the original size.
As for YouTube and Vimeo, if you don’t mind their branding and terms of use (i.e. signing over complete rights of use) then they have a very easy to use system for displaying video.
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You don’t sign over rights if you get Partner status – You have complete copyright.
Peter
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