Best compression for editing / storage
 

Howdy...

I'm producing some video in a custom size (480x270, 30fps). Of course, I can't render these out to DV, as the size is wrong. Currently, I have been rendering these to Uncompressed, but of course there, the file size is HUGE!

So, I'm wondering what the best way to compress these would be such that they can be edited further in the future without GOP issues. Basically, I'd like a general purpose compression like DV, which is good for editing and playback, but is resolution-adjustable, unlike the DV codec...

Anyone have a good idea? I'd go with cineform, but I don't think they'll support the size I need.

Thanks for your suggestions...

- Ben

Are you filming in regular format? If so, I would keep the original format for editing and compress only the final product with something like Sorensen Sqeeze that lets you adjust pretty much anything you want, including size.

Thanks for the suggestion. This is a weekly show, with over 100GB of HDV footage per week. I'm not sure I can keep all the original footage, as I'd be running out of HD space on short order. You can imagine how big that would be if I saved it as uncompressed!

On another forum, the HuffYUV was suggested. I gave that a try and it gives me nearly a 3:1 space savings over uncompress with none or little loss in compression (they claim none).

That's a huge savings for me, and will be what I use in the future for compressing my rendered files (which I do hope to save, of course).

Best,

Ben

why save any custom size at all? that workflow doesn't add up... just export the edited video in whatever native format it was shot in, so you can store it on video tape.

you can always re-size it later, to whatever spec is in vogue at the time... saving it on a smaller frame size could come back to hurt you, if you ever had to up-size it later.

remember that the tools you will be using in the future will most likely be a lot more powerful than they are now, so do your encoding then, not now.

Since I'm using video from HD, SD and computer screen captures, there is no 'native size' to save to. It' be pointless compressing it all out to HDV to store on tape when my finished size is 480x270, don't you think?

Best,

Ben

computer screens are always hi-rez definition(1024x768 or greater).

since sd is 720x480, why downsize all three formats? it sounds like you are working primarily with hdv footage, so you should go with that format, because it can be natively exported to tape for easy storage, then re-encoded to whatever format you need later on down the line.

480x270 downsizing will throw away a lot of lines of resolution that you'll never be able to get back, regardless of what codec is used.

So, I'd be upsampling all the SD stuff, and having to render everything back to HDV (I use cineform for editing). I can't imagine that's a work flow I'd enjoy. Rending to HDV takes a LONG time, and then I'd have to print it to tape (more time) and then delete the files on the HD... Hmm..

I already have the original HD footage on tape, so if I ever need to 'recapture' the stuff in HD, I can go back to that footage. It would take longer, but it's also an unlikely event, since this is all designed for 480x270.

Think I'll stick with HuffYUV, but thanks for the advice...

Ben

are you saying that it's going to be quicker to render everything to huffyuv, than it would be rendering it back to hdv? ack!

even if you did re-render everything back to hdv, you'd still take a picture quality hit.

you can't win with a workflow like that, and it happened because of the cineform intermediate step... if you were editing native hdv, there would be no question that you'd save your finished projects back out to hdv tape.

i've been doing web video for at least 10 years, and many moons ago i also saved finished edits at smaller frame sizes than they were shot at... only to regret it later, now that i encode native full-frame video for the web.

considering that you are doing a weekly show, it might be a good idea to dump that crippled cineform workflow... perhaps get an hdv hardware editing solution, which will also save you from having to render to cineform in the first place... canopus, liquid edition, matrox(?), etc.

Hi, Dan...

I'm sure your work is far superior to mine, but I am very happy with this workflow, and my only issue was the size of the uncompressed files, which has been resolved...

I guess we'll agree to disagree on this one.

Best,

Ben

Just a quick update...

I've noticed a few issues with Huffy that I haven't found with uncompressed footage...

1) Doesn't play nice with quicktime. Apple's quicktime player won't recognize a huffy-encode .avi file, even though it recognizes most other .avi's I have tried. Therefore I can't use it to convert the file to mp4, etc. Not a huge deal, as there are other ways, but good to know...

2) When convertin a Huffy file to DIVX, for some reason, the audio is a few frames out of sync. Doesn't happen when I convert from uncompressed. I notice this when converting using Vegas, DivX create, or Dr. Divx.

Again, not a deal breaker, but considering that disks are getting cheaper, I'm not sure if the benefit of Huffy will outweighs these potential liabilities...

Best,

Ben

Codec Help
 

I did my first wedding, and would like to post in forums.

Could you guys tell me, what codec and setting I should use, in Premiere Pro 1.51 to get best quality in about 50MB 10 min video

Thank you

Codec is entirely dependent on your audience. Windows Media is the best overall choice, but you need to know what your audience will accept. For me, I'd struggle with watching a 50MB stream...
Second, I'd recommend NOT using Premiere Pro for encoding anything. It's not exactly the quality that other tools, such as the free Windows Media Encoder will offer. You can set your target there. Look at 256 or 512mbps for acceptable speeds.

You might want to shotgun the audience with choices... because not everyone can necessarily view WMV (i.e. Mac users need a special player for it). I'd both WMV and Quicktime.

WMV:
The older codecs are a bit more compatible, the newer codecs (i.e. wmv9) offer better quality.
Windows Media Player should automatically download the latest codec if the user doesn't have it. In rare cases, this automatic download will fail.

Quicktime:
Same deal.
With the sorenson3 codec (QT?3? compatible), the free encoder doesn't do that great a job. The commercial version does a much better job, almost as good as Windows Media.
H.264 is excellent quality, but requires the latest version of quicktime (7), which not everyone has. H.264 takes a lot of CPU to decode.

For simplicity's sake, it may make sense not to make that many versions. Without a pro encoding tool (procoder, cleaner, squeeze, etc.), there's nothing to batch encode your video to save time.