[Lulu Malmgren]

I have roughly 9 hrs of footage in total, which I will creatively edit down into a short observational film.

I haven’t batch captured so I have 16 thirty minute chunks of captured footage, so I thought the best way to work through it all was to just put everything in the timeline and work through it all like a sculpture. I’m basically watching it all through chronologically and cutting out all the dud bits, to see how much footage I actually have to work with – and using the blade tool to cut up the original 30 minute chunks up into clips I want to use.

Hopefully will end up with around 4 hrs on my timeline – which should be a good amount to start playing with for the 10 minute film.

[Lulu Malmgren]

Hey thanks, I get that now, but it’s still quite time consuming as have to re-select the clip aster each blade cut…

[Lulu Malmgren]

Hi

Sorry I didn’t get that..

Pressing Shift then down arrow doesn’t seem to do anything. Pressing down arrow on it’s own take it to the next edit point. Doesn’t recognise where there are the original dv start/stop points…

x

[Lulu Malmgren]

Brian, thank you so much for the updated article! It was sincerely a great help – you clarified what was important, which has basically helped me to just upload and then move on with more editing.

It actually looks like that any video uploaded now has an option for high or low quality (at the bottom right corner of the video), but I’m still tempted to lave the ‘hack/&fmt=18″ note next to at least one video, as a testament of my frantic forum/googling efforts.

Many thanks again,

Poppie

[Lulu Malmgren]

Great – thanks for that.

Sticking with compressor – plus uploaded a new version with the info above and it works well. Still feel like i might be missing something. My footage looks more blocky than normal.

Have made my own custom compressor setting:

Format: QT movie
H.264
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
Key Frames: 290
Frame Reordering ticked (this was defaulted?…)
Data rate: 3906 kbits/sec
Quality: High
Encoding: Best quality (Multi-pass)
Audio: AAC, Stereo, 48.000 kHz, 192kbps, best quality render setting
Frame Controls –
Resize filter: Better linear filter (defaulted)
OUtput fields: Progressive
Dinterlaced: Best (Motion Compensated)
Retiming control: Best (High Quality motion compensated)
Filters: Sharpen (10.0), Deinterlaced (sharp)
Frame size: 640×480
Pixel Aspect: NTSC CCIR 601/DV 16:9
Padding: Custom

It’s compressing now – am going to upload and see if there is a difference. Trial and error mode.

Am picking up what works best; would love to know what some of the options above mean. Learning completely off-the-cuff here.

Thanks for your post!

Poppie

[Lulu Malmgren]

Hi Len, thanks for the response…

[I’ve seen something called a greasemonkey script for firefox to either put the =18 link in the page or auto-append it.] I’m more interested in other people seeing the quality version: i.e. prospective employers. I have attached a note in the description next to the vid – following your page; see original Mustique film:

https://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YeofQsfydj4&feature=related

[It looks like all the settings should be OK.] I will upload one more version (Mustique12) with the following settings: do you think it matters if I export to QT movie, or export using QT compression? Someone suggested export straight to QT instead of using the Final Cut Studio program compressor – I could also full export to QT (file size is 1.98GB), then compress in QTP. What do you reckon?

Compression type: H.264
Frame Rate: Current fps
Key Frames: Every 15 frames
Frame Reordering: Ticked box
Data Rate: 720 kbits/sec
Compressor quality: High
Encoding: Fast encode (Single-pass)
Size: 640×480
Dinterlace Source Video: Un-ticked box

Sound: AAC format
Rate: 48.000 kHz
Render Settings: Normal Quality
MPEG AAC LC Encoder settings:
Encoding strategy: Average bit rate
Target bit rate: 320 kbps

[4Mbps is arbitrary because with YT’s 1GB limit, you can upload a 10 minute vid with over 13Mbps total rate. Perhaps maxing out with 720p is good idea if you believe YT will survive well into several upgrades later when HD may be the norm on a global scale.]

I’m guessing 720p is the kbps data rate. I havn’t yet seen an option where you can select 4mbps – only kbits/sec comes up in the custom options – even in compressor.

[Was that your cam frame rate?] How can you find out? It’s an old camera – handed down to me 7 yrs ago. One thing I thought of – hadn’t crossed my mind until you mentioned the results of too much motion for YT…I remembered that I always add a digital effect on my camera (“flash”) when filming; it was style trick I picked up off a veteran filmer; I always preferred the look of the footage with a slight movement quality, instead of the sharp normal handycam look. I only apply one nodule of the effect, and the footage looks completely fine on a tv screen/dvd etc. Perhaps I have to take this into consideration when thinking about all the motion in my videos.

[When there’s lots of motion I either soften (don’t have motion blur) slightly overall] Is this in the compression (filter) settings – do you add soften filter, or do you add this in the editing process?

Thanks for all of your help, really appreciate it – I feel like I am gaining a bit of ground. Plus it is crazy to think of what I have learnt in the last 10 days.

[Lulu Malmgren]

Hi – the &fmt=18 really works. This is the video which i’ve uploaded 10 times (obviously the last 9 are private – until I find the perfect compression settings): https://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YeofQsfydj4

when I add the &fmt=18 it really does change it. Also, I noticed a text appear under the video: Watch this video in lower quality for faster playback.

Is there any way to permanently append it to the URL. I can only add it to the address bar – can’t click into any of the URL boxes next to the video…I can see it’s permanently on your https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcaYgZoVIOE&fmt=18

Also, I tried compressing straight from FCP into Quicktime with the following settings:

Compression type: H.264
Frame Rate: Current fps
Key Frames: Every 24 frames
Frame Reordering: Ticked box
Data Rate: (default was automatic) there is an option to select restrict to ? kbits/sec
Compressor quality: High
Encoding:Fast encode (Single-pass)
Size: 480×360
Dinterlace Source Video: Ticked box

Sound: AAC format
Rate: 48.000 kHz
Render Settings: Normal Quality
MPEG AAC LC Encoder settings:
Encoding strategy:Average bit rate
Target bit rate: 320 kbps

The file size (with 8 mins of video) turned out to be 283MB. I uploaded it last night and this is the link: https://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0ZZReFjzEo

Not much difference to the first upload, which was 99MB: (H.264 for iPod video and iPhone 640×480 @ 1500 kbps, progressive, multi-pass. Audio is 44.1 kHz, stereo, m4v, Pixel aspect ratio: Square, Frame rate: 100% of source, Maximum data rate: 4 Mbps, Audio Encoder: Format: MPEG4, 44.100kHz, Bits Per Sample: 16, AAC encoder quality: high, Data rate: 128 Kbps).

I’m now going to try to use your suggested settings with an FCP Export to Quicktime Movie (instead of export using QT compression – which is what I did above).

Looking at it now, this way doesn’t have as many options as the “export using QT conversion” – I can set the frame size, pixel aspect ratio, field dominance, editing timebase, timecode rate; can select H.264 codec, and can shift the quality up to Best (in this advanced tab I can change the fps, key frame every ? frames, and limit date rate to ? kbytes/sec; Audio settings are rate (48kHz), depth 16 bit, config, channel grouped.

But if I can find a way to append the &fmt=18, i’ll just upload smaller sized videos to regain some much needed time – having spent almost 10 days trying to figure this out.

Long post – but am determined to gain a solution.

Thanks again x

[Lulu Malmgren]

Hi – thanks for responding. Vimeo – looks good. Someone has also suggested blip. Will look at those once i’ve sorted this youtube thing – for the exact reason you suggested above. Plus I really want to get a grasp of what I’m dealing with before I edit more video. I agree H.264 looks better than JPEG. Yes it was that article – I think it was written last year, so some of it might be out of date.

[Lulu Malmgren]

Thanks for responding – what kind of hacks? Also, there was no link to the page you suggested.