[Craig Seeman]

You’re starting out with 1920×1080(interlace?) HD files and you want them smaller.

Many people use “stream” when they mean “progressive download” – BIG difference!

Are you hosting on an HTTP type or MMS type server? They “serve” very different purposes.

If you’re hosting on HTTP and I assume you’re using Flip4Mac to create WMV files then try:

WMV 9 Standard
2 Pass Variable bit rate
Q=0 (zero)
Bit rate 500kbits/second
Key frame every 5.0 seconds (you may want to experiment with this depending on content)
Type Interlace Upper Field First (but you should really check this in the Summary Field in Compressor)
Size 320×180 – should be small enough not to stress most playback computers on broadband
Frame Rate 29.97 fps if you’re NTSC, 25 fps if you’re PAL, 23.98 if that was your way of working.
Output Type – Progressive.

Audio
WMA 9 Standard
One Pass CBR
64Kbps, 44.1khz, Stereo

The above file should be about 564kbps/second and look pretty good and work on all but the slowest broad band connections.

Make sure you check your source field order.

[Craig Seeman]

You can apply angle names or it will use reel name (I believe) but it’s best to name angles so you have control over the order.

[Craig Seeman]

I believe camera is about $6G without P2 cards and about $10G with two 3G cards (that hold about 8 minutes each in DVCPRO HD mode I believe). Only records HD to the cards or to the above mentioned forthcoming Firestore.

[Craig Seeman]

How were you encoding the audio? Note the preset says 150 minutes with Dolby Digital Audio or 120 minutes with AIFF.

[Craig Seeman]

David, did they have to pay your court costs? Did they “stiff” their lawyer too?

[Craig Seeman]

MPEG1 is close to universal but will probably give you poorist quality. You have to juggle between target market and target computer.

WMV9 files can playback on a a properly updated WMP7.1 on a Windows 98 box. Flip4Mac works fine in Compressor 2. Great if you want to batch encode. You could consider a higher data rate file for presentation from projector on a fast computer and lower data rate file for desktop playback on older laptops.

[Craig Seeman]

If you’re starting with presets, make sure you’re not using any of the 1.2 presets (now in your Custom folder) in 2.0.

Compressor 2 has many controls so you do need to get a grasp on all them. Data rate has big impact as well as CBR, VBR, 2 Pass VBR etc.. Adding compression markers during dissolves and other “challenging” scenes can help.

[Craig Seeman]

I’ll second the above recommendation. Be aware that the book uses Color Finesse in its examples (a very good but expensive FCP plugin but the demo is free.).

Intelligent Assistant (Phillip Hodgetts) has a good tutorial CD that’s FCP specific. “Practical Color Correction for FCP.”

Now if only Apple would get Hue Match to work more accurately.

[Craig Seeman]

In Compressor 2 Encoder pane there’s a checkbox for Multiplexed Mpeg-1/Layer 2 Audio. This creates and MPEG-2 Transport stream with multiplexed audio.

[Craig Seeman]

I’ve seen that strange problem where you have to drag in the file to Squeeze. I haven’t had the crashing though using the CD preset though.

Try the following:
Repair Disk Permissions
Toss Squeeze Preferences
Export from FCP as Self Contained

Playback self contained movie in Quicktime first and make sure that file is without issues.

Then place in Squeeze.

Sorenson Squeeze 4.2 for Mac should be going into Beta soon so we should make sure they hear about repeatable issues and check that they’ve been solved in the beta.