Web Video

[Brit Mansell]

Hey guys, first post here, so please take it easy on me.

My history: I've been a web designer for about 14 years now. I've recently been trying to transition my design business into a "media studio" producing digital media (photo shoots, video shoots, etc) along with the web presence. http://www.isoaxis.com

My first camera purchase was a Canon HG10 which was very convenient due to the hard drive, but it using AVCHD made editing a little difficult. My thought was that since most of the video would probably end up on the web anyway, the HG10 would be enough.

After the HG10 didn't work out too well, I bought a XH-A1. I shot with it last weekend at a drag racing event. The raw footage looks amazing when played back on a HDTV (from the camera), but I can't seem to get good results when editing/exporting.

I've been reading (using the search button) and "trial-and-erroring" for a few days now and I don't seem to be making any progress.

My setup:
PC - Intel Quad Core, 4MB RAM, 512MB on video card
Premiere Pro CS3

Video last weekend was shot at 60i, but I used the "full auto" mode on the camera. It literally arrived via UPS on my way out of town so I didn't have any time to play with it before the event. I know full auto is not the preferred shooting method. No flames please.

I pulled the video in with HDVSplit then imported to PP. From there, I think I've tried about everything possible to get it to look professional. My current task is to get some good quality (high compression) video onto Vimeo. I see plenty of examples of high quality footage at low file sizes (~100MB) and I can't get that quality at anywhere near that file size. Example: http://www.vimeo.com/1007129 (less than 100MB file uploaded for this one). They don't take FLV files, so it looks like MOV is the best option for compression.

I'm not looking for you guys to solve my problems for me, but I was hoping you had some good resources that may help with my specific setup.

Any info is appreciated.


thanks,
.brit

[Steven Gotz]

Here is a tutorial for Vimeo exports using Premiere Pro.

http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/images/pcs3-h264.jpg

[Will Mahoney]

Gents,
Vimeo is fine for most people, but I haven't been able to get my clips to play too smoothly there. Plus, I'm using Premier Elements and the Quicktime exporting options don't work too well.

Anywho, I've been using ExposureRoom.com with no problems. I can upload HD WMV files and they play just fine. Plus there are rating systems and comments and it's a whole community thing. Go check it out.

[Brit Mansell]

Originally Posted by Steven Gotz

Here is a tutorial for Vimeo exports using Premiere Pro.

http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/images/pcs3-h264.jpg

That's what I used that produced the unacceptable results. I'm thinking there is a problem somewhere else. I say that because the video looks great when playing from the camera and I'm using what seems to be the standard export settings (taken from the same link as above), yet it still looks terrible and has a large file size.

I will try to get a short sample up this evening. So you guys can see what I'm seeing.


.b

[Julian Frost]

Originally Posted by Steven Gotz

Here is a tutorial for Vimeo exports using Premiere Pro.

http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/images/pcs3-h264.jpg

Eugenia told me that Vimeo is not set up to do anything other than 24fps, so shooting in anything other than 24F will yield less than desirable results unless you export/interpret the footage accordingly, prior to uploading. I found that strange, especially as the link in the tutorial shows 29.97 for the framerate!

I think I'll be checking out ExposureRoom soon.

[Brit Mansell]

Originally Posted by Julian Frost

Eugenia told me that Vimeo is not set up to do anything other than 24fps

That's good to know.

However, my problem exists before I even upload the file to Vimeo. The exported file isn't great quality and the file size is excessive when compared to the MOV files available on Vimeo (associated as a download for each clip).

[Steven Gotz]

I tried posting one myself today just to see.

http://vimeo.com/1014540

I used the Adobe Media Encoder and created a Quicktime MOV file using the H.264 codec. It came out pretty good I think. Not quite as good as the 25Mbps data rate would allow, but the 5Mbps that I used seems adequate. I did deinterlace upon export and scaled down to 1280X720.

The audio is set for 44.1

[Brit Mansell]

That quality is exactly what I'm after. Plus your file size seems sufficient. I'm going to give it another shot when I get back to the office. Thanks for the help.


.b

[Brit Mansell]

Originally Posted by Steven Gotz

I tried posting one myself today just to see.

http://vimeo.com/1014540

I used the Adobe Media Encoder and created a Quicktime MOV file

How were you able to specify MOV through the Adobe Media Encoder? Mine always come out as mp4 files.


.b

[Steven Gotz]

Start by selecting Quicktime (right where you would normally select H.264) or Windows Media or Realplayer etc) and then H.264 as the codec used in the Quicktime.

[Brit Mansell]

I've tried several different exports since my last post and I think I have narrowed it down to a few different things. First off, my data rate wasn't high enough. I had to reduce the rate due to Vimeo's 500MB file limit and since my clips were long that degraded the quality quite a bit. Second of all, I needed to turn off the AGC on the camera. That introduced some artifacting that wasn't as noticeable until the video was compressed. All in all, I'm fairly happy with the quality of the export now, as compared to the original footage. Now, I just need to work on learning to actually shoot video and generate good content. :-)

Here's my latest test: http://www.vimeo.com/1017792

Thanks for the help.