Compression for video on the web
 

I've seen some great looking video on this site and am wondering how you guys are compressing stuff for the web. As much detail as you can proviode would be appreciated. This seems to be almost a secret art and so little is really posted about it with so many different settings and software available.

I gather that H.264 is the secret weapon.
My main questions are .

1. How big a file can you post these days. I thought I needed to keep my data rates down to 500 kbytes/sec which meant little windows that were highly compressed.
But these files must be much bigger with largher data rates.

2. What are you using to do the compression? I have an old Mac G4 1200 MgHz and Compressor really slows down when doing H.264
Its way faster using Quicktime conversion H.264 straight out of Final Cut pro. Is that sufficient?
Do I need something else?
I haven't even tried to post HD footage yet.

3. Any tips on settings?

Thanks - Lenny Levy

The Flash On2 encoder is quite good as well, if you want to show your video in a Flash (or partial Flash) page. At ColonelCrush.com we use Sorenson's version of the On2 encoder with two passes. Our resolution is 480x270 (16:9), and we use about 360 kbps for the video and 128 kbps for audio, as I recall.

Lenny,
Of course the lower the data rate the faster the download,
H264 is great and came a long way since it came out, I got some great result using Compressor, just to give you an idea you can go to www.woa.tv
those are videos I did and compressed, all HD size in QT and WM.
For WM HD it's a little more complicated especially if working on the mac.
The best results I got was by exporting my movies on a PC and using Cleaner for windows. I was able to get clean 720p videos running at 1800kbits/s and 4000kbits for 1080p
350kbits/s for 320X180 and 550kbits/s for 480x270, those size are if your source is HD of course.
Last, every videos are different, you need to adjust some of the settings like key frames etc.
Frame Controls settings in Compressor are great especially when your need to resize the video.
Flash is great but only for smaller frame size.

Eric,

Thanks for the reply.
Actually your site with all those choices was very useful.
I found that my QT player had hiccups and still frames with everything over 500kbits though. Sometimes even that size. Is that typical?
Are there other variables besides bit rate that affect how something will download?

I have an older G4 single processor with 12MHz proc on SBC DSL.

I am interested in knowing how to decide on the number of keyframes.
How does that affect file size and download speed?
Do you use more if there is more movement in the image?

I just posted something on a site for a client and that had a bitrate of of 600kbits and that played fine. That was 320x240 though.

I guess these are a lot of questions and I may just call you.

Lenny Levy

Hello Eric,
Nice work on those vids...
Did you shoot and edit those as well??
I did notice interlacing on some of the videos?
Was all this originally for TV?
Thanks

Thanks,
yes I shot and edited them.
we're working on a bunch more, they were all produced for this site who's in Beta mode right now.
e.