Best format to export video to
 

I have a 1 minute long segment that I would like to post on the web. I would like to keep it under 70 Meg. There are so many options. (wmv, mov, rtv, etc..) My video is in 720 x 480 16:9 at 24P. I would like to go slightly smaller in size (i.e. 620 x 380 or a bit less) plus have the best picture quality possible. I do not intend for this to be streaming, People will simply just download it.

I get confused when I have tio select bitrate, vbr, etc.

Any help would be appreciateded.

Hi Tim,

I think the simplest way is to use WMV. Premiere will out put pretty good wmv files which will probably be the most universally viewable for web delivery. There are a number of preset settings in PPro you can try a few of those to see which you prefer... I set mine for around 512 throughput, which lets most people with broadband watch them no problem....

You'll no doubt get better quality if you mess around with Quicktime on a Mac, these are the best quality web delivered clips I've see. But as you're on a PC, you'll struggle with the Mac formats.

As you've seen there are several possible formats..but Windows media is a good place to start.

Regards
Gareth

Tim, I've found out that QuickTime is one of the niceset delivery methods. I usually take my final video and output it to an AVI file (DV codec). I then Open it with QuickTime Pro (~$40.00) and then Export it using the 'Broadband (High)' option. Of course you can tweak the resolution, etc. if you want. This outputs a high quality MOV file using H.264 and AAC. The only thing I dislike about QuickTime is that it seems to desaturate the video a lot, so you need to up the saturation in your project before outputting to an AVI. Then, when QT converts it, it'll look a lot better. The file ends up being about 5MB per minute (using only Single Pass) and that's really good res (486 x 270 widescreen) and really high audio (16-bit stereo 48 KHz). I'm sure you could get the size down a lot smaller if you were willing to drop the audio bitrate and decrease video quality a bit.

I agree with the assessment about desaturation with H264, I seem to get a better look because of it in .wmv. Trouble with Quicktime is updating the viewers too. In my experience, at least on PC side, practically everyone has Windows Media Player, an a good portion are updated.

Thanks for all the advice. I'm going to give the quicktime a shot. I'll let you know how I nake out with it.

Thanks again for taking the time to explain.

Tim

From what I have seen, the saturation problem apparently lies in the QuickTime Player itself. If the H.264 footage is played in VLC media player the saturation is fine.

I would recommend using WMV files for web streaming. Seem to be easiest for end users to open and get the benefit from.

Thanks for the advice Steve. I appreciate it!

Tim