Really need help with video compression

[Brendan Coots]

Sorenson is a dog and you’ll be that much further along to just abandon it now. End of story.

Your best option might be MPEG-4 with a bitrate around 1800Kbps since it is compatible with WMV (you mentioned this in your closer – is WMV a required delivery container?) If you don’t have to deliver in WMV format, h.264 is a good choice, as is Flash video (FLV).

Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com

[Darby Edelen]

Are you rendering from AE with fields or not? Are you compressing to an interlaced or progressive file? How are you handling fields in the encode?

Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[Tl Westgate]

Render out the camrec files as Animation codec MOVs at 100% quality. But *be sure* you keep the files at their original pixel size. If you recorded the screen, chances are it’s at 1024×768 or higher. However, I think Camtasia defaults to scaling that down to 640×480.

I never use the presets. I do it all manually so I can be sure it’s doing what I want.

— TL

[Kevin Camp]

i’m assuming you are rendering your composite from ae/premiere as lossless or uncompressed, then going into the sorrenson software to compress (not compressing to a sorrenson codec from ae/premiere).

i’m not sure the problem is the compression… it looks like somewhere along the way (most likely in sorrenson) the camtasia captures are getting interpreted as interlaced and the software is trying to de-interlace it. the result is kind of like field doubling where you are missing the data from one set of fields and the data from the other set is being used instead…

try to find a setting in sorrenson that will allow you to tell it that the footage is progressive or not to de-interlace it prior to compression.

as far as what kind of compression to use… that depends largely on the destination (dvd, cd, web, etc…).

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Mark Landsburger]

First of all, thanks a million for all the responses. I’ll address some of the questions and give more info:

1. Yes, I do need to deliver a .wmv file

2. Not rendering to fields, or I haven’t changed the “interpret – fields” option. Should I be? Are you compressing to an interlaced or progressive file? : Sorry to say I can’t even answer that. How are you handling fields in the encode? If you mean in Sorrenson, I don’t have see an option for that. Even after years of work, this area (fields, progressive, interlaced, etc…) is my weak spot.

3. Tom: Thanks, I did set the Camtasia setting to record 1:1 and not compress, so I think that’s ok.

4. i’m assuming you are rendering your composite from ae/premiere as lossless or uncompressed, then going into the sorrenson software to compress (not compressing to a sorrenson codec from ae/premiere). Correct

i’m not sure the problem is the compression… it looks like somewhere along the way (most likely in sorrenson) the camtasia captures are getting interpreted as interlaced and the software is trying to de-interlace it. the result is kind of like field doubling where you are missing the data from one set of fields and the data from the other set is being used instead…

try to find a setting in sorrenson that will allow you to tell it that the footage is progressive or not to de-interlace it prior to compression.

Very interesting. As of now, I can’t find that option in the compressor I’ve used to interlace. I did find a interlace option in the “generic – web” filter you can apply. Since it an option, I’m guessing it doesn’t do it by default. I could be wrong though.

BUT, I’m wondering if there is something I should be doing prior with interlacing, fields, etc… that’s getting screwed up along the way.

[Kevin Camp]

if your lossless/uncompressed render looks good out of ae/pp, then the problem almost has to be with sorrenson (rather than misinterpreting the footage in ae/pp prior to rendering).

if sorrenson is expecting interlaced footage, then this may be the problem. you mentioned that there was an interlace option… i assume that is an optoin to interlace the output/compressed file. you might try enabling that to see if that helps… it would make sense that if it was removing one set of fields that having it add those fields back would solve the problem.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Tl Westgate]

[Mark Landsburger] “3. Thanks, I did set the Camtasia setting to record 1:1 and not compress, so I think that’s ok.”

Good to know that’s not the problem, though.

— TL

[Deleted User]

i know this is not probably the best choice you are looking for BUT

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/38/859471

here is a thread of some extensive training i received from class on demand about sorenson. it was pretty useful and still brand new. i just happened to get 2 copies for christmas and only need one. just a suggestion

dg

http://www.overflowuk.com