Does anyone need help with this?

If you render out of the timeline in FCP, the default settings will make your file too large.

Things you can do....

1) When you complete your film, click

"Export">

"Using Quicktime Conversion">

"Options">

"Settings">

"Compression Type"> pulldown Sorenson Video 3

Now you can change the data rate...if you drop this down to even 2400 or 1800, you can maintain quality at the required size.

Another thing you can reduce to compress your file is the audio quality.

Return to the menu where you pushed the "Settings" (entitled "Movie Settings") and click on the "Settings" the Sound heading....you can reduce to 32khz without much loss in audio quality, and this will shrink your file.

The UWOL Challenge is also a great opportunity to make friends with Compressor. You can do all these same things and more, and it tends to render your file faster than FCP.

Maybe someone else who works in other NLEs can offer some additional advice. I tried to make this a step-by-step quickie tutorial, because I know some of you have never output for the web before. For some of you, this may even be a first film, in which case, you have my complete respect and admiration, for taking the plunge.

I hope this helps new users. Maybe we can hear basics from some other platform users.

Maybe someone else who works in other NLEs can offer some additional advice. I tried to make this a step-by-step quickie tutorial, because I know some of you have never output for the web before. For some of you, this may even be a first film, in which case, you have my complete respect and admiration, for taking the plunge.

I hope this helps new users. Maybe we can hear basics from some other platform users.

I'll make a stab at this. A few of us in DVC7 who don't have NLE's that output to a .mov format tried to use QuickTime 7 Pro and messages indicated somewhat miserable results. QT7 Pro seemed to lighten tones overall and softened detail significantly.

So I wound up submitting mine in .mp4 and at least one other indicated theirs would be .wmv

For this one I had time to "mess" with the beast and here's what I came up with:

In Pinnacle Studio 10.7 plus I output to full DV in an .avi file.
Opened that in QT7 Pro and selected Export.
Under SETTINGS selected Sorenson Video 3, KEY Frames and DATA Rate both AUTOMATIC and COMPRESSOR Quality Medium.
Size: 428x240 for 16:9 as specified
Filter: Set Brightness at -7 and Sharpening at +2

After saving, that gave me a result that I was not ashamed to look at. The "window" is a bit on the small side (I like to see the screen filled but the image still sharp) but the color and clarity of a 3CCD camera was there.

So I hope this helps a few of you folks.

thanks so much for chiming in, bruce. i wish this whole cross-platform biz would go away. as i said in the beginning, there will be some learning curves, and i am wide open to other formats which are cross-platform. it's ridiculous that an equally accessible, true cross-platform codec still eludes us.

any other PC users care to share their experience with conforming their video to sorenson or mp4? i'd love to hear about it. (i don't have a context for it, but i'd love to hear about it!)

p.s. there is currently no uploaded .wmv file. i don't even think the uploader will accept it, since it is programmed to receive .mov file extensions. if you want to upload a .wmv file, you can do so on your own website and post a link to it in your feedback thread, for viewers who might want to view the better quality...

I posted my video yesterday, and compressed it using my trial download of Vegas 7. I don't know if it appears optimal- this is the first video I have uploaded to the web, so my learning curve for this contest has been very steep, between learning video editing software, and how to upload to the web. I did the editing in DV and then I used the Render option in Vegas 7 and selected Quicktime as the format. I selected the 3 MB template, since the other templates displayed a lot of compression artifacts - blurring and loss of color. I created a custom frame size of 428x240 since I shot the video at 16:9 instead of 4:3 (my camera is the Panasonic PV-GS500, and I've been playing with its widescreen abilities). I reduced the bit rate to about 240 Kbps to get the size under 50 MB for my video. I didn't do any sharpening or colors. I did set the audio to be 48 KHz and high quality. I was happy to be able to cut it to just under 3 minutes (without the credits), and down to 50 MB. Hopefully as the contests progress I will learn better how to tweak video. But I feel I've already won, having learned so much by doing this contest. The last time I did anything with video other than just shooting it was over 15 years ago, and tools and capabilities certainly have changed a lot since then. Thanks!

thanks for sharing your experience, ruth. i uploaded my first-ever web video for a DV Challenge (DVC #2, i think....), so i know how nerve-wracking it is to learn on the fly with a deadline looming. all part of the fun n games! it sounds as if you did a lot better than i did, my first time around.

one tip to get the smaller file size is to lower the audio...at web size, you can pretty much drop it to 32 khz without much loss. most of us are setting our entries to music--there's not as much critical dialogue as in a DVC entry, so reducing audio quality is one of the best ways to reduce file size.

Thanks for the encouragement, Meryem. It was a challenge in more than one sense of the word, but it was a great experience. I found it perfect for getting me to finally start doing something with my camera, which I've had since late last year but not really done much with. So far I've mainly just been shooting nature videos in the back yard, but not doing anything with what I shot. So with this contest inspiring me to start learning Vegas, I feel like I've now at least made a start at editing and working creatively with my videos.

I thought about lowering the audio quality, but actually this video is very dependent on audio, so I didn't want to take a chance of making it unintelligible. But I'll keep that in mind for future contests!

Thanks for the contest, it has really motivated me.

Ruth

it's ridiculous that an equally accessible, true cross-platform codec still eludes us.

I believe you'll find that MPEG1 is cross platform.

-gb-

I tried uploading my video as a wmv-file, but it was rejected after 20 min.
So I baught Sorenseon, and it worked out fine, uploading.
For this matter i found a link to this little joke, in a Norwegian forum.
It's about explorer, netscape and firefox, what browser is the best one?
I hope it makes you laugh, too :-)

http://www.firefoxflicks.com/flick/index.php?id=19542&c=false

LOL - Geir Inge, that was nice :-)

As a PC guy, I will give you my experience with this matter. Seriously it's a jungle out there! Tons of Non Linear Editors (NLE) and much more to choose from than in the Mac-world where you have Imovie and FCP.

I'm using Avid Liquid 7.1 myself as a NLE and this is perfect for my use. I'm sure that others which are using Vegas, Premier, Canopus etc. are saying the same. For everyday use where you don't have to concern about web-delivery your NLE is your friend most of the time.

What I have found is that you have to use a special software to get a decent result. Bruce's advice above is very good. What I found with QT-Pro is that it generate a rather large file compared with e.g Sorensen Squeeze Suite. As an example I generated an avi-file from my source in Avid Liquid. The avi-file was approx. 550MB in size. The QT-Pro compressed this file to more than 60MB in 428x240 using Sorenson 3 codec, while the Sorenson Squeeze Suite did the same at a size of just 28MB!
Playing bofh files side by side I couldn't tell which was compressed in QT or the other. What I'm trying to say is that you should be aware that it can be smart to take a look at different solutions. I know that Sorenson Squeeze Suite is expensive but it have a veeery nice and effective compression codec compared with e.g. QT-Pro.

I also found that when you use such a small size as 428x240 you have to be aware that small object in your film maybe doesn't show up so good as you think it will. My tip is to have this in your mind when your are planning and shooting your film. Go nearer to get this tiny objects larger with good lightning will help.

Well, I'm still out doing some more shooting for the challenge. I'm going up in the mountains for a couple of days now. Hopefully the weather will be fine to get some nice shot of the sky.
Sunday will be my D-day or editing-day, where I will put together and send in my contribution. This have been very fun so far and I have spend many hours out in the wild, pushing some limits to get decent footage in not so good weather conditions

Good luck to you all I think we are all winners!

i don't want people to have to buy new software to participate. the whole point was to avoid unnecessary downloads, which don't even require any additional money, just space on our hard drives. adding additional costs to participating was certainly not our intent!

greg, i have never used mpeg1 for anything. you've mentioned it before. does it conform to a .mov extension (that's why flash it not on our cross-platform codec list, the uploader only accepts .mov extensions....i don't know enough about it to discuss why that is, but it's one parameter.)

so, if MPEG1 conforms to .mov, we will add it to the list of acceptable codecs. so we can have sorenson 3, mp4, and mpeg1.

this is the single stickiest issue, and the one that will take the most effort to work out. thank you for the feedback and for staying with us as we work out the process.....

by the next Challenge, we should be able tol make it frictionless, from all of the information we have received from the first one....

p.s. geir -- that short video was a hoot!

Well that's uploaded that, then ... it had to be .mov, which is fair enough, if .mov can be played on mac as clearly as .wmv plays back on my pc. Will pc users get feedback on that?

It may not be possible to "optimize playback quality" under Preferences for Quicktime Player on a pc. I could not improve it. Qt played back with frequent smudging and pixellation for me, while Windows Media Player showed me an unblemished .wmv version of the same file squeezed to the same rates. Both files came to 20MB using 1Mbps_Stream in Sorenson 3.

I think FLASH (FLV) would be best at it plays on all computers.

I used EDIUS 4 to cut it up and then encoding was very easy straight out of the timeline with procoder express that comes with EDIUS.

QT looks better on a MAC and WMV looks beter on a PC when watching the exact same clips...go figure....

22 megs for 3 mins mine came in at...

Having spent two days trying to get my file from 60 mB to the required 50 without making it unwatchable, may I suggest that in the future you set the size limit at 70mB? These submissions are not talking heads, they are all outdoor moving images, and difficult to compress without degradation. A few extra megabytes would really help, and not increase download times that much.

Ruth, I was going nuts trying to render my 16x9 video. I read your post about your settings, tried them and was able to upload with no problems. Thank you so much. Bob

Bob,

Glad I could help. This is the first video I've ever uploaded to the web, so I am happily pleased my post about how I did it could help someone. This contest taught me a lot, learning how to edit video with an NLE, how to compress, etc. It has been a steep but fun learning curve.

Ruth

Well that's uploaded that, then ... it had to be .mov, which is fair enough, if .mov can be played on mac as clearly as .wmv plays back on my pc. Will pc users get feedback on that?
.

In the absence of feedback I kept fiddling with compression settings and have now uploaded a 33.8Mb file [BirdlifeOver CreteSm_Prog.mov] of exact same video which is now reasonably watchable with Quicktime.

Please delete my original 20Mb file [BirdlifeOverCrete1Mbps_stream.mov].

If anyone is interested ... the new settings under Sorenson Video 3 Pro were as for Sm_Prog after adjusting the Video Data Rate to 1600, the frame size to 320 x 240 and the frame rate to 1:1. Sm_Prog is the last compression option under Quicktime in Sorenson Squeeze 4.3

Brendan, I think this has been a real challenge and learing curve to many of us.
Let's do a summing up after this first challenge when everybody has supplied their videos and the prize has been given.
I think when we all have calmed down and the stress is absent we can all give our thoughts and ideas for next challenge.

Anyway I'm very happy that this challenge take place and so many contributes in their own way. I think there's no fasit how to do this and it will be very exciting to view all contributions in the next few days.

The choreography on the Canada Goose video on your website is new to me and great fun; no doubt you were conducting the organist as well if not actually playing the organ. I'm worried about this evidence of musical awareness ... now I don't have the tiniest edge over you in any sphere of videography ... and Grant Sherman is working from a helicopter ... what's left for Paddy? ... the bog I suppose ... lots of compression going on there for sure!

PCs don't play .mov out of the box. Why is that the required extension for this contest? In order for me to conform, a PC user, I have to buy as well as download additional software. What am I missing here?

Am I missing something here? Quicktime is free to download if it hasnt already come bundled with something else....and most editing packages can spit out sorenson3 QT files. Besides we are now accepting mpeg1 and 4 as well.

Look foward to seeing your entry.

Mat

Mat,

I too had a h*ll of a time uploading from a PC base. I almost jumped into the Shark Tank out of frustration. I did render both an mpeg1 and mpeg4 version from Vegas 6d. After trying to upload to the UWOL site, both were rejected because of invalid file extensions. I also tried rendering a .mov file out of Vegas but couldn't get the file size small enough.

I also converted to Sorenson3 via QTPro7 but was unable to get my file to under 50mb (from an 800mb) .avi file. I also tried rendering as a .wmv file first (as this was significantly smaller), but QT would not open a .wmv file.
I also tried converting the .avi to divx first, but QT wouldn't open the divx file.

I ended up uploading the mpeg1 via ftp with Kevin's help.

I know you guys are doing a lot of work on this, and please don't take it the wrong way, but we need some help or direction for PC users (from PC users who've had success).

i know that we have many PC users, and i would very much love to hear from them, from a PC-centric viewpoint.

we have actually been actively soliciting suggestions from the PC base since the very beginning, and pretty much the contributions have consisted of suggesting that we admit .wmv --and very little input beyond that.

so please please, chime in by all means.

Am I missing something here? Quicktime is free to download if it hasnt already come bundled with something else....and most editing packages can spit out sorenson3 QT files. Besides we are now accepting mpeg1 and 4 as well.

Look foward to seeing your entry.

Mat

Yes it is a free download BUT I think Meryem said we didn't want people to have to download additional software to view our projects. If that is the case these should be viewable without MAC OR PC users having to dowload additional software to view. MPG1 is the only thing I can think of, at this moment, that is playable out of the box on PC and MAC. I'll still conform to the rules and am not trying to pitch a fit, BUT how is .MOV cross platform natively?

I'm a PC user, Windows XP.
Got no problems in this matter, Meryem.
I can convert/download/upload/watch etc, in many different codecs.
I'm using Sorenson 4.5 and Windows Media Encoder.
For editing I use Avid Liquid Pro 7.1.
I agreed, though, with those who say Sorenson is expensive to buy.
But I know where "she's" keeping the housewifery, so it all worked out just fine (joke).

I have much better luck and a much better image in the Windows Media format than I can get in the same size file with QT. Maybe my problem, or it may be I just can't get there. I do know our judge in this contest outputs his material to .wmv format regularly with spectacular results !!

This will be an endless discussion of which format that suit both platforms best.

I'm in the PC-base. My experience is that there are so many NLE's out there which compress in a variety of ways and with many different codecs. It's not possible to find a final solutions for all.
For the time being I'm working on Avid Liquid 7.1, even this software has many different ways to compress the footage to a suitable format.

What I found is that for best quality and small filesize you have to use software that is built for this purpose. All NLE's that I'm aware of in the pc-world don't.
There are "tons" of software (also for free) out there if you do a Google-search for "video web compression".

It's something that says: "you get what you're paying for". Therefore I decided that when I started to put my wildlife films out om my website, I bought a very nice compression suite: Sorenson Squeeze Suit. This is a quite expensive piece of software, but it compress in a speed and with a quality which is breathtaking and lots of compression options.

I'm not telling that you have to pay money to get a good compression tool, but I think you have to use some time searching the net and try out several different software to find what will suit you and your needs best.

In the mac-base I think the solutions are a little easier with only two different NLE's as far as I know, the imovie and final cut

Macs also have Avid and Premiere and a few others I'm sure.

This will be an endless discussion of which format that suit both platforms best.

I'm in the PC-base. My experience is that there are so many NLE's out there which compress in a variety of ways and with many different codecs. It's not possible to find a final solutions for all.
For the time being I'm working on Avid Liquid 7.1, even this software has many different ways to compress the footage to a suitable format.

What I found is that for best quality and small filesize you have to use software that is built for this purpose. All NLE's that I'm aware of in the pc-world don't.
There are "tons" of software (also for free) out there if you do a Google-search for "video web compression".

It's something that says: "you get what you're paying for". Therefore I decided that when I started to put my wildlife films out om my website, I bought a very nice compression suite: Sorenson Squeeze Suit. This is a quite expensive piece of software, but it compress in a speed and with a quality which is breathtaking and lots of compression options.

I'm not telling that you have to pay money to get a good compression tool, but I think you have to use some time searching the net and try out several different software to find what will suit you and your needs best.

In the mac-base I think the solutions are a little easier with only two different NLE's as far as I know, the imovie and final cut

Per Johan,

I have checked into the Sorenson Suite since your post (Thanks). While we shouldn't need this for the UWOL Challenge, I am interested in getting the Sorenson Package for encoding for the web. I don't want to hijack this thread, but I am intersted to know:

1. how big are those compressed files are on your site. They play beautifully by the way, with no buffering.

2. Does the viewer need to have QT to play them, or do they play with flashplayer as well? (I have both installed).

Thanks, sorry for the off-topic discussion.

Ok guys...Well I'm a PC user /Prem Pro as well just so you don't think I'm talking from the Apple camp, I havent used a mac in years. I haven't had a problem getting 3 minutes in sorenson3 mov format with anything I've done. Sure its probably not a clean and detailed as I would have liked but hey...thems the breaks !!

As far as the uploader goes I can only apologise. It appears at the moment we have issue with server time out of some discription....I will get it resolved, if not for UC2 then soon after!

Mat,

I know that you, Kevin and Meryem are volunteering alot of time on this, and despite our whining, we really appreciate the effort.

Mat,

I know that you, Kevin and Meryem are volunteering alot of time on this, and despite our whining, we really appreciate the effort.

Agreed and many thanks to Kevin and Meryem -I'm thankful for the opportunity to even be in the contest. I'll deal with this like any professional or hopeful would -trial and error, lol.

Wow! I just downloaded a trial version of Sorenson Suite 4.5 and it is pretty impressive. Too bad it's watermarked heavily with the Sorenson logo or I'd re-submit my entry.

I might have to buy the suite.

I just spent quite a while today editing my video to be 70 MB, since from an earlier discussion following the UWOL 1, I thought everyone had suggested the additional 20 MB would be helpful for quality, and wouldn't strain the resources of the site.

Now, after sending the link to Kevin, I understand we are actually still limited to 50 MB. So I have spent another few hours trying to get it down to 50, and in spite of MANY different settings, it really looks horrible. There are lots of artifacts-- blockiness, focus coming and going, audio garbled, etc., etc....

I know I already made lots of suggestions on several threads, but I just want to explore the options here before submitting, since I spent a lot of time in editing both video and audio to get good quality, and now have to throw it away just to get it to the required size and format.

Basically, PC users need to download software to run .mov files, and granted this is free. But Mac users could download software to run .wmv files, and this is also free. So I don't understand why we couldn't just submit with either format- my 12 MB .wmv file looks far better than my 70 MB .mov file.

Alternatively, as was suggested when the contest was first announced, why not just upload all videos to youtube? They allow 100 MB, which would be more than enough to get reasonable quality from either file format. That would also eliminate the need for lots of work from anyone here to help in uploading files, problems with the upload software, etc.

Anyway, in case anyone wants to see the video to prove the points I am making here, I am pasting a link to my website where I have posted the video in several formats, to show differences in quality:

http://rockfowl.com/blogs/sample_weblog/archive/2007/03/18/wreck-creation-video.aspx

I am disappointed we really haven't changed anything from the first contest, given the problems many of us expressed at the time, especially from the PC side. It is very frustrating to spend a lot of time shooting good video, recording good audio, and working on putting it all together, only to see it get mangled in the compression phase.

For future contests, I would appreciate further dialogue on options. My first entry, I was able (likely because it was shot in SD) to compress it without too many artifacts, though I wasn't in the end very happy with the quality. For this contest, I am shooting for the first time in HD, and apparently the increase in video quality has created problems in compression, and resulted in an end video that is unacceptable, even after spending the better part of today tinkering with a variety of compression options. Any suggestions?

I am still happy with the opportunity provided by the contest for creative expression, and appreciate the hard work of everyone involved. I just hope we can all continue a discussion on formats so we can be proud of the videos we share.

Ruth

Ruth et al,

There is a definite advantage to using Sorenson Squeeze for compression to .mov. Using the trial version, I could not believe how easily, and what great results I got taking an 800mb .avi from Vegas and compressing it at 428x240 with a bitrate set at 1600 and ending up with an incredible finished product at 45mb. Total time from start to finish: 5 minutes.

Doing the same thing with QTpro7, I had a 70mb file that was not nearly as viewable. I too spent many hours rendering and re-rendering and ended up with a sub-standard product.

I was so impressed, I will likely spend the $500 to buy the product.

Hi Ken,

I keep hearing how great Sorenson is, but I am reluctant to spend $500 on software just for compression. But I will try downloading a trial version to see what all the discussion is about, since everyone seems very happy with it. I would like some way to avoid spending the better part of a day working on compressing a file, and at the end of the day, being disappointed. Thanks for the suggestion.

Ruth

Okay, I've been up half the night but finally after working with different files decided to upload this as MPEG-1 instead of the earlier file I did. It is actually smaller, at about 30 MB, and though not perfect, is better than the 50 MB QT Sorenson 3 version.

Ruth

Hey Ruth,

Sorry to hear of all your troubles trying to get your file compressed under the size limit.

I don't know what Meryem will decide to do to try and make things easier for all of us.

I do know, I'll never upload anything to YouTube.

I don't have an issue with WMV as long as it's playable on my Mac.

I download Steven Dempsey's WMV files but I have to convert them to QuickTime because with Flip4Mac they stop and stutter and sputeer and are pretty much unwatchable. So, I set them to convert over night then watch them and delete them.

So, I doubt I'd watch most of the WMV entries.

I'd love to compress in H.264 but then I guess it causes problems for the PC people.

I'm not sure if we'll ever find an answer unless we divide the challenge into Mac and PC challenges.

I know on another forum where I've entered films before it was 40meg H.264 files period.

Gotta run, I have a few hours to take the footage I shot yesterday and create something out of it for this challenge. Then the fun begins with my getting mine compressed. :)

ruth et. al.

all of your complaints are completely valid. all i can do this is apologize, at this point, for the failure to get the issues worked out by UWOL #2. i have extended the deadline to attempt to accommodate the hairball i have created. it was never my intent...ease of use was the original goal, and we've failed to create that in a 4-month period, but i promise you that we will get there--the systems are in place, just not quite yet....

see this post for answers....

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=89222

Meryem,

I'm sure Sundance had issues in the early days... You shouldn't take the blame, I distinctly remember the discussions we had at the beginning when we were deciding on formats, etc. You never claimed to be an expert at web compression.

I tried to get the password and username to work, but they don't. Having spent literally 24 hours working on compression and upload, I am reverting to plan B. I have put up 4 formats of my file on my website, and I put a link on the thread you pointed to in your message above. I am about to go out to shoot video for the afternoon, and literally don't have time to work on this anymore now.

What I would suggest is something like the standard DV Info contest, which I haven't entered, but have looked at lately as a point of reference. We should post videos to our own sites if we choose, in the format we want, and provide alternate formats. That way, we could work on our videos to compress them in a way that matches what we are trying to express, instead of trying to squeeze (literally with Sorenson) into a format that may really not hold the video.

Compression is a part of the video experience these days, and I think for it to be a fun and productive part of the process, there needs to be some allowance for different formats. I would be happy to provide multiple formats for this contest, ensuring both PC and Mac users could view them. But I would have enjoyed the whole thing a lot more if I had spent the last 24 hours making creative compression choices, instead of trying endlessly to compress and render a video to a format that clearly really doesn't like my video, for whatever reason.

Sorry to be complaining, but it just seems there must be a better way to resolve our Mac and PC divide than the way this is currently being set up to compress and upload files.

I do appreciate everyone's efforts in setting up this contest, and to be honest, these two videos have brought me a long way toward understanding video editing. So it has been great for me. I just would like to figure something out that works better for the final compression phase of the project, since it has been hugely frustrating for me both times.

Thanks.


Ruth

this is a good opportunity to remind everyone, the user name and password that i sent everyone are case-sensitive. that's lower-case "i" and upper case "M" --there is nothing wrong with the FTP instructions. i tested them myself.

yes, we're having issues, but the files *are* getting posted and we are doing everything we possibly can to solve the issues we have created, including an entire shift in how we will proceed with UWOL #3. no one who wants to participate will get left behind due to technical difficulties. we're committed to getting every file online.

thanks for your patience.

I uploaded my entry via FTP using this username and password last night. Worked like a charm. Using Windows...FTP to the url from explorer. A window should pop up asking for username and password. Enter those. Then you can simply drag and drop your entry to the explorer window and it should upload. You're done!

Rick

it should be as easy as rick says...to add to his easy instructions.


if you can't use Explorer as your FTP client....

then google search Cyberduck and download the free and user-friendly client. you don't even have to have the website open to use the Cyberduck client.

do the following:

open Cyberduck
at the "quick connect" window, type in "uwolchallenge.com"
go to the action window, pull down "Upload"
click on your file
a new prompt will appear, asking you for a username -- type in the username we sent you--and at
password --type in the password.

exactly as they appear in the e-mail-- and most of all, remember--

they're case sensitive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you need to have upper case where we wrote upper case, and lower where we wrote lower case....

I went to uwol.com
Went to downloader
Page not available (tried on both of my computers.

do I need to do something different than last time???

I've tried three times to upload. Is it possible the page is only available when someone else isn't uploading a video? I am definitely using the case sensitive username and password you sent, but am still having no luck with the uploading.

Ruth

Okay, I guess the 4th time is the charm. The upload finally just worked for me. But I did try the same username and password 3 times already earlier today, so you might want to see if only one file can be uploaded at a time. Since it takes a while to upload, people might be bottled up at some point toward the new deadline. Just a thought to check out how it works, since I had so much trouble uploading. I hope someone will let me know if it didn't work. I took a small version of the file- it doesn't look great, but meets the contest rules.

Ruth

I went back and tried again. I can not even get to the page. This last time I got a message that http 404 can not be found. anyway, it doesn't matter which computer I am on!!
Any help out there??

this is the address www.uwolchallenge/upload.php

Dale,
did you get an email from Meryem about FTP'ing right to the site?
If not let me know and I'll get you the info.

I finally decided on a method for encoding from a PC. First let me say that the Sorenson Squeeze demo looked great. But it is watermarked. So, I exported a DV AVI from Premiere Pro, converted it to Quicktime at the same 720X480 frame size, then converted that to 320X240.

I don't know why two conversions worked better than one, but so be it. That's what my eyes told me.

I'm off to ftp the file now...

PPro2.0 720x480p 16:9 avi
to
VirtualDub 1.61 64bit Lanczos3 resize filter 428x240 avi
to
QuickTime Pro

49.5MB!!!


(only took me 12 tries)