Web version of short film for Withoutabox. . .h264 ain't cuttin it

[Robert Martens]

That's the end of me, then. I tried my damndest to help the esteemed Mr. Bass with his compression issues, but after digging through everything I know about video encoding and having reality spit it all back in my face as useless, I'm drained of ideas. I've learned so much about this stuff over the past couple of years, and I know an order of magnitude more than I ever used to, but for all the success I've had working on my Windows machine, with no Mac experience I'm in no position to effectively diagnose the problem here. I'll just have to drop my ego and admit defeat.

Josh, I'm sorry I couldn't get to the bottom of this.

But while I'm here, Josh (the other one), does this:

Originally Posted by Josh Chesarek

... such as CABAC ...

mean that Quicktime decodes CABAC in H.264? I thought that was a problem. Weighted prediction, 8x8dct, CABAC, are these only problems for QT on Windows? I could have sworn those were verboten across the board for targeting Quicktime playback.

[Josh Chesarek]

Originally Posted by Robert Martens

But while I'm here, Josh (the other one), does this:

mean that Quicktime decodes CABAC in H.264? I thought that was a problem. Weighted prediction, 8x8dct, CABAC, are these only problems for QT on Windows? I could have sworn those were verboten across the board for targeting Quicktime playback.

Well to be honest I am not aware of any issue. I have been using Windows 7 for some time and it supports h264 out of the box so I never bothered to put quicktime on my system. I also almost always deliver my video via Flash Streaming as well. With that being said it should be supported without much issue. The main thing to realize is when you use these advanced features you are asking more from the viewers CPU (or graphics card possibly) which is why I opted to use some advanced features but leave it @ 720P resolution. Also note that enabling such features will disable support with the ipods and such most of the time if the resolution doesn't.

I managed to get a version of FFMPEG compiled that is about 10MB. If anyone wants I can post it on my server and provide a link to download it.

[Kevin Spahr]

I too have a film on WAB ( and last minute submission to Sundance ), which looked great before the upload but the online version looks bad. I also uploaded a trailer to IMDB - it also looks like crap.

I think it is the recompress and we're stuck with it. Does anybody have a movie on WAB that they are happy with?

I think my future entries will be done with a DVD.

[Josh Chesarek]

Originally Posted by Kevin Spahr

I think it is the recompress and we're stuck with it. Does anybody have a movie on WAB that they are happy with?

Can you reach out to the company to ask if they re-encode even if you meet their guidelines? Sometimes it is possible to encode your video so it meets their requirements (Not the recommended encodes but what they are going to re-encode to) and they will simply post it without re-encoding allowing you to get the best quality possible. Not all systems will do this though.

-Josh C.

[Josh Bass]

the best part is paying $50+ to have someone watch, judge and probably reject you (in my experience) based solely on that crappy online version. Good times.

[Kevin Spahr]

Hate to break the news, but customer service died a long time ago.

I have contacted WAB with a simple question and received no reply on that, so I see no use in asking about something as technical as a codec or asking for some sort of special consideration. So in the future I will just burn a DVD and mail it.

After all, let's be real, I feel I have a better chance of being struck by lightening than being selected for a slot at Sundance. They say that all films are watched, but how do you manage that with 10,000+ entries? I guess submitting is like gambling, you get a bit of rush until you know you're not a winner.

[Josh Bass]

Unless you're one of the elites who doesn't have to submit AT ALL and is just "in" cause you feel like it.

I'm all for DVD, but I'm trying to submit to 1 fest a week, and sometimes the deadlines pile up too fast. Hence, instant online upload.

[Allen White]

Originally Posted by Kevin Spahr

I think it is the recompress and we're stuck with it. Does anybody have a movie on WAB that they are happy with?

And this is the essence of the problem. No matter what we do on our end, we're still at the mercy of WAB's crap encoding. Worse, we have no idea what their encoder might prefer -- having dealt a lot with encoding issues, I know that there are dozens of variables that go into good encoding, so the more you know about the kind of input their encoder needs, the better off you are.

For now, their upload guidelines are as bad as most sites, and you just have to take a stab at it and see what happens. I suggest that we all keep complaining until they change something; although, their online suggestion form also seems not to work well (no response when I did it), and customer service appears to be nonexistent. So when I say complain, I mean that you should complain directly to festivals to improve the WAB service -- it's still a good idea, but it's very half-assed right now.

By the way, it's very easy to reach the Sundance office in LA. Phone number's on their site, and they always answer during biz hours. They have been very helpful.

[Allen White]

I found this recent post on the WAB forum.

https://boards.withoutabox.com/showthread.php?t=49975

The gist of it is this:

---
So...I emailed imdb.com, and was told there are no longer have resolution limitations, as long as the file is under 2mb, all should be fine.
---

The poster uploaded a 720 x 480 file, bigger than posted IMDb guidelines, and it supposedly looked better. I cannot find any other upload guidelines other than what I already posted here.

[Allen White]

I just uploaded a new video to WAB. 480x360, H.264. This looked much better than that last, and H.264 exports really, really fast.

But there's so much I hate about WAB's submission process that wrote them a long e-mail (both to WAB and to IMDb). Their system is grossly inconvenient when you are uploading works in progress that you want to change.

I uploaded an early rough cut to enter into Sundance. Also, I bought a discount package for submissions, which gives you $5 off every festival entry fee. Turns out that this discount package ONLY APPLIES TO ONE FILM. Since you can only attach one film to one project, there's no way to submit the next working version of your movie without creating an entirely new project. Once you've uploaded a new cut to a new project (and filled out the huge submission info form AGAIN), you can't use your submission discount when submitting a film in the new project!

I'm really starting to resent WAB. A great idea poorly executed is as bad as a terrible idea. The design flaws in their site are utterly glaring, and only increase the anxiety around festival submissions. If you can avoid submitting through the WAB site, do so -- you'll save yourself a lot of grief.

[Noam Osband]

One question about compressing my film for the screener:
My film is 24fps. If I compress it to 30fps, will that change the look of it? I prefer the feel of 24fps. Can I upload it as 24fps? They're recommendation is 30fps.