Exporting to the Web
 

Are there any specific export options that are best when uploading video to the web?

I am trying to find the options that give me the best quality when exporting from Avid. We are shooting SD and exporting SD, but we are getting pixelated and sometimes stuttered audio.

Any ideas?

What settings have you tried using to export so far?

BTW, sometimes it's the player you're using to view the file, not the actual file Avid creates.

Export Options
 

What we're really looking for is an interlacing fix in Avid Media composer. Our final output comes through Flash Video Encoder (we don't use Sorensen to encode to Flash because our version of Sorensen doesn't have the same flexibility in encoding to Flash that FVE has), so we first have to render out a high quality file that we can then run through FVE. However we are having a tough time getting a high quality file without interlacing. Our final video size is 448x252, so it is too large to just drop a field, which would be ideal if we were doing 360x240. We were encoding an uncompressed avi, and it was working perfectly, but any time we encode a video longer than two minutes or so, we get an error stating that the maximum file size for an avi has been reached.



We've since begun doing quicktime files using the compressed Meridien codec at 100% quality, but no matter what we choose in the codec options (2:1 progressive, etc) we are getting interlacing. On some projects we use Sony Vegas, and it works perfectly with the correct combination of clip and project properties, such as "disable resample" and "Reduce interlace flicker"in the clip properties, and "Interpolate" and "Full resolution rendering quality="best" in the project properties. However, we haven't seen anything resembling those clip or project properties in Avid.



Anyone have a de-interlacing fix in Avid for files meant for the web and larger than 360x240? Are there capture, project or clip properties that will help with this?

You said "SD" but exactly what are both your source file format and your project format settings?

When I posted this originally, our new project setting had a "format" of "30i NTSC".

Our "import" settings had a video resolution of DV25 411 MXF. Within those settings, in the "options" button, we had the "File field order" set to "Even (lower field first)" on the "Image" tab, and an aspect ratio of "601/709". Our "Color levels" were "RGB".

Since I posted this originally, I did a little experimentation and changed the field order on the import settings from "Even (lower field first)" to "Non-interlaced". We then did an export test with settings similar to those mentioned in my earlier post, except we changed the "resolution" within the Avid Meridian compressed codec to "2:1 single field". The interlacing problem seems to be fixed, and the file seems to be high quality.

However, my understanding of the import and export settings that I changed is that I dropped out half of the information from my original 720x480 60i video, and being that my export size (448x252) is larger than half the height and half the width of that original 720x480 source video, there should be a drop in quality since only a single field is used to fill that space.

Is my understanding correct, and is there a better way to take out the interlacing without dropping quality?

Chris,

There may be a better way to do this in Avid than how you're doing it, but I'm not aware of one.

You may want to look at a program called TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0. It's around $100 and is excellent at changing formats, resolutions, compression, deinterlacing and more.

My understanding is that when you choose Single Field in Avid, it only uses the first field, so it's kind of brute force way to deinterlace, but probably not a bad one.

Chris,

You might want to try exporting as Windows Media and choosing "Progressive" for video type, and experimenting with 30 versus 60 for FPS.

HTH.