Vegas and Handbreak for web content

[John Rofrano]

[Bruce Quayle] “Just wondering if the gurus on this forum have any opinions on using Handbreak to achieve superior results when posting to U-Tube or Vimeo?”

There’s been a lot of discussion on this topic and Handbreak is an excellent encoder. I use it to make video for my kids iPod Touch all the time but I just use the preset for that format.

For the web, however, I’ve been using Sony AVC with the Internet 1280×720-30p template and a bit-rate of around 3.5Mbps and it looks pretty darn good to me. Here is an example of a friends “Woodstock” band that I shot with my Sony HCR-Z1U and encoded with Sony AVC so you can see the quality: (be sure to watch it in 720p fullscreen)

PIECE OF MY HEART
If this quality is good enough, use Sony AVC. If not, play with Handbreak.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Bruce Quayle]

Hi John,

Don’t know how much light you had to play with for this video, but the quality looks very good and is what I am looking for for my client’s videos.
Many thanks for your (as always) valuable input.

I would still be interested to know if anyone has had any experience with Handbreak beyond iPods and other such small-format devices.

Cheers,

Bruce

[John Rofrano]

[Bruce Quayle] “Don’t know how much light you had to play with for this video, but the quality looks very good and is what I am looking for for my client’s videos.”

It was shot at the Turning Point in Piermont NY. It’s your typical bar with typically poor lighting. There was nothing more than the stage lights and I was shooting from the back of the room which gives you even less light as you zoom in. I got the audio directly from the house console with my Marantz PMD660 field recorder. He gave me vocals in one channel and instruments in the other. I mixed that with the AT897 shotgun mounted on my camera for a little room tone and it all sounded rather good I thought.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Richard Thacker]

John, very nice video; unobstrusive camera work and fine post work.

You used 3.5Mbps bitrate. Why then, when I check your file with Gspot, it shows a bitrate of 637Kbps (which seems more appropriate for streaming)?

Yes, I did download it, but specifically for raising this baffling issue that I suspect you can solve for me and others.

Thank you all for an awesome and professional grade forum!

Richard

[John Rofrano]

[Richard Thacker] “You used 3.5Mbps bitrate. Why then, when I check your file with Gspot, it shows a bitrate of 637Kbps (which seems more appropriate for streaming)?”

Did you download the HD version? I delivered 3.5Mbps MP4 files to the band. They uploaded them to YouTube and who knows what YouTube did with it. So whatever they are now, they started from 3.5Mbps 720-30p out of Vegas Pro.

Here is a link to the video page on the band’s web site if you want to see more (all from the same night’s shoot):

Back to the Garden 1969 Videos

I use to be in a band with the bass player and male lead singer/guitarist/drummer many years ago.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Richard Thacker]

Ah! My tunnel vision kept me from realizing that editors make videos for other forms of delivery. I lightly edit and encode streaming videos for college teachers who make them available for students. All at 300Kbps to accomodate those on slow connections.

For two years I’ve worked with SV Studio Platinum without a hitch. I ingest DVD (VOB), Flip SD, .wmv, .dv, and .avi. I output to .wmv and .mp4.

With Studio, I always get the bitrate right on. When I specify the bitrate in Handbrake, it wavers by as much as 80. Other than that, it ecodes fast and with great looking quality.

Hey, those musicians can really garden!

Richard

[Bruce Quayle]

Thank you for all your input.
John, given your conditions, you produced a great looking (and sounding) video. Hopefully I can make this all work.
Cheers,

Bruce