Adding Video to the Web.
 

I have a little sports related website that I do and am adding a small video page to it. I just learned how to add the video to and still learning some things. However, I think my quality is diminished once it goes from the .avi file to the flash file. Here are two examples.

I have read somewhere that 30p is better for Web purposes and looking for opinions?

Linked footage:
1.) Is my neighbors son playing the drums (He is five BTW) 60i, Av Iris 1.6, XL2, 3x lens
2.) My son playing basketball 60i, Tv Shutter 60,XL2, 20x lens

http://visualboxscore.com/Video/default.aspx

The purpose here is to not worry so much about my videography/camera skills. I am mainly looking at the footage and how to make it as clear as possible. I think the flash video is very bad compared to the original avi.

The compressed files will always have less quality than the AVIs. But you can get a good compression :)

Can you tell us the flash video settings? It looks like you are using a low bit rate. If you can increase that a little bit and maybe play with the resolution you will be OK.

Flash can work nicely once you get it setup for your needs.

Re: 30p - Two things come to mind.

1. All video you watch on computers IS progressive, that's the only way computers display video. Compression software does the deinterlacing for you, but they are not all created equal - some do a better job than others. I achieved best results deinterlacing with VirtualDub BEFORE compressing.

2. If you're asking about FILMING progressive, the answer is yes, filming progressive will yield a sharper picture, especially on fast moving scenes like in sports.

I am using the adobe flash video encoder. Currently on the 30 day trial until find something I like.

The setting's I used are:
Soresan Spark (No idea what this is)
Quality: High
Max Date Rate: 700kbps
Frame Rate: Same as source
Key Frame Rate: Automatic

Actual Html Code:
Thanks for the help.

Virtual dub is it a freebie? and can I just take an avi file and deinterlace it?

That is really strange. I wonder if the trial has a limit or something. The only thing I could think of is maybe it was encoded at a lower resolution than 510 by 288 and the player you are using isnt very good at scaling it? I recommend the JW FLV Player. Can you give me the FLV file name/location and I will try downloading to look at the actual FLV

Yes on both questions. It can do a lot more than just deinterlacing, check it out.

But depending on your NLE you might be able to use that to output a deinterlaced video.

I don't think it has a limit because to get the real version all I do is give them the money and they provide me the registration key. I think I have the full version now.

Thanks for the help.

http://visualboxscore.com/Video/zack/zack_on_drums.flv

Yeah quality is about same even when playing with a local player or the one I use ( http://www.simplethoughtproductions....ads/drums.html)

Maybe try scaling down the resolution a tad if you can for that bit rate. I prefer a smaller better looking video over a larger resolution video with less quality.

Josh,
Thanks for the help. I will get it figured out eventually and yes the size will be a first step. I just learned this in the last couple days and will be making several changes.

Have you cosidered converting to DIVX file?
It's great quality, but visiters would have to download the software to be able to watch.

You can download what you need here. http://www.divx.com/

Is it as easy to add to sites as flash?

Fairly easy to add but it requires the user installing their package and is not as commonly used as Flash. While both require the user to install something 98% of people who are looking for video all ready have Flash installed. If you really want great quality you can use .mp4 files with any decent flash player and require people to update to the latest version of flash (2 minute install process) and have a great looking file using flash. On the next major update this will be taken care for you though.

Josh,
Thanks..
Do you know of any good tutorials or guidance for doing this?

I am still kinda stuck in learning how to de-interlace a file.

Well what software do you have? If you are compressing out of a video editor deinterlacing can also be called progressive. So you would want to turn that on. I use Sorenson Squeeze for my compression needs.

Over the week end I have attempted to achieve this with Virtual dub as the Ervin comments on above.

I have Pinnacle Studio and have no idea if it will do this or not?

I am not sure how to do it with VDub but I am sure some tutorials can be found.

http://www.guthspot.se/video/#deinterlacesmooth

and

http://www.100fps.com/

Come up.

You could also use the help feature of Pinnacle. I have not used that program in ages but I imagine its compressor might have the needed feature.

Compression for the web
 

One of the things that has finally sold me on HD is the performance now possible on the web. I am really impressed with the quality of video I see on Vimeo. I am especially impressed with the HD videos on this site. So my question is, if one has the Sorenson Squeeze Compression Suite, is it possible to achieve exactly the same quality and size on ones own Windows Server. The Flash player used by Vimeo is just a custom skin ( i think). I'd be most interested in seeing this discussion go into more depth with details on tweaked settings inside Squeeze!

Have any of you gotten into Flash encoding or built any web video using Flash CS3 components from sites like www.afcomponents.com and www.flashloaded.com
?

I see that there is an increasing tendency to just let sites like Vimeo take care of all these techie details but if one is building a web presence for marketing it seems better to keep things all on one's own site...

With the right tools such as Sorenson Squeeze you can do anything really. I compress all of my videos and keep them on my website (www.simplethoughtproductions.com) for the same reason you list. But I use Sorenson and a Prebuilt player to deal with all of that rather than make my own flash site. While I like flash for video I hate it for websites :)

web video
 

I hate flash too, I really don't think its as good as Quicktime and all the machinations one has to go through to make it work make it a royal pain. I looked at your site and experienced a typical problem...the spinning gear, indicating slow download speed. With QT you see it loading and cacheing and you can play anything provided you are prepared to wait for it...it doesn't seem that way with flash. Anyway, what do you think of the Vimeo quality ad do you know how to match it?

I see that Sorenson has added a new codec to its Flash squeeze and called it Squeeze 4.8. It includes H.264, AAC, HE-AAC, MP4. I don't seem to have this in the 4.5 Compression Suite. Know anything about this...?


Tim

Which Video did you play? There are 2 videos on my site that require the latest version of flash to play because they use H264 files instead of FLV. The rest play for pretty much everyone. Most vidoes will take about 5 seconds to buffer as I load the key frames which allows people to jump anywhere int he video after that. Squeeze 4.5 has everything any other product has, minus the advanced flash onVP6 but I think this is a waste as adobe is trying to move to H.264 videos which are better anyways.

Video compression
 

I played the first one - Rollins Womens Lacrosse March 22nd.
I am on a rather poor rural wireless internet connection. I am also on Mac OS X Leopard and have installed the latest Flash 9 player
Do you have any idea what the parameters might be for the Vimeo Flash?

Strange that it was giving you buffering issues. That particular file is 32MB. Most people on broadband are able to have it playing within 5 seconds though. I am not sure what Vimeo uses. I know they ask for 720 videos to be between 3000 and 5000kbs MPEG4 h264s but Im fairly sure their FLVs are closer to just 1000kbs but I don't know without getting a hold of the actual FLV file and inspecting the meta data.

For fun I created my own HD Flash Video at a resolution of 1280*720 @ 30FPS Keyframed every 30 Frames @ 1500Kbps for video and 128kbps for stereo audio. 55 Second Video is 10.7MB

http://www.simplethoughtproductions....s/hd_test.html

web video
 

I like the way you have arranged your videos. Do you do all the web page production yourself? Notice you are using php. Was looking at some similar means of displaying my videos

The website is powered by Wordpress with a custom theme. The videos are displayed by using a script called Thickbox and the JW FLV player. While I tinker with the insides and such I am not a very good programer for that sort of stuff.