How low should i go for H.264
 

Hi, I wondering if someone had done some test with compressing to H.264 for web viewing and will like to share their results with us.

I'm trying to figure out how low should I go with it without making it look too bad. I know that this is a very subjective thing but still will be nice to hear what is the limit for you.

This particular vid..is about 15 min... 720p..for exposureroom.... I did a test at 5mbps and it takes way to long to download for viewing...

Should i go for 4mbps? or will that make it look horrible? any lower? Ideas?

Thanks and Merry xmass..

O

Its pretty subjective. I usually encode to 6Mbps, sometime as low as 5Mbps @ 720. If you need to go below that, you may find better results going with 720x480 and reducing to 3 Mbps.

Don't forget that whatever bit rate you use that all the video hosting services will compress it down yet again. For 1920x1080 on Vimeo it's about 5Mbps, on SmugMug about 7Mbps etc So you want to use at least the maximum bit rate that your video hosting service will be using. I generally output at about 8Mbps before uploading.

Thanks Roger...yes..I'm always afraid of going below 5mbps...

I didn't know that.... ..will look into that...wondering: how come the file size stays the same if they recompress at lower bit rate?

My problem is with work at around 15min long and the time it takes to download...

On Vimeo the file for download is the one that you uploaded but the file that gets played is the copy that Vimeo compress down to 5Mbps for 1080p.

Also remember that the transcoder makes a HUGE difference.

For this application, use Handbrake which uses x264.

At half the bit rate of NLEs such as Vegas, it still produces better visual quality.

Vimeo hosts in 720p exclusively for HD, encoded at 5mbps h.264. It's best to handle the down-conversion in-house, or you risk letting Vimeo handle it poorly.

Renny:

That is incorrect info on Vimeo.

From the Vimeo site (this is actually old news they have not updated to present tense):
First up: 1080p support. If you're a Plus user, you can now optionally upgrade new or existing 1080p videos to be played back in full 1080p. To do this, go to the settings page of your video, then click "video file", then check the "Display this video in 1080p" box. Your video will re-encode and soon be available in 1080p to everyone! We're calling this feature experimental: that means to use caution before enabling 1080p, since viewers may experience choppy playback. Remember that very few computers have 1920x1080 monitors and 720p will load about twice as fast. You can always uncheck the box to go back to 720p. We'll be improving this feature as we get feedback, so please let us know how it's working for you in this forum thread!

Second: AVCHD support. We've actually had this in beta for a long time, but never fully announced it to the world. If you shoot or edit in AVCHD, you can now upload the .MTS or .M2S file directly.

There are several FAQs in Vimeo help on how to encode your material. And as I said before, if you are not familiar with X264 and Handbrake, get up to speed.

Jeff

thanks
 

I'm not familiar with handbrake..heard of it but never looked into it...I will take a look at it right now.

I'm using Adobe media encoder to make my mp4..is handbrake better..or a lot better than this?



Thanks so so much. I was getting sad that there wasn't any good option for 10 min clips @ 720p on internet..without taking forever to load. Thank u.

no prores?
 

I just learned that handbrake doesn't support ProRes....... now..that will screw up my workflow.

I usually covert my DVCPROHD and my MPEG-4 to prores 422 to edit on my FCP. will i have to change my workflow to use handbrake? how is best?

PD. My mac is not intel ...so i'm using a windows for handbrake and othet programs like AME.

Thanks

Jeff: Interesting, I missed the 1080p feature. I wish I was a plus user to try that out...
Also, when I said Vimeo hosts in H.264, I mean the videos are encoded in MP4 for playback. Of course you can upload a variety of formats, they just get converted for playback.

Osmany: Do you have Apple Compressor? If you have Final Cut Studio, it should have been included for conversions like this. If you upload in anything over 5mbps, it will be crunched down to 5mbps. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just means you don't get full control over the compression.

If you don't have Compressor, try exporting an mpeg4 .mov file from Final Cut instead of ProRes, that should be compressible with HandBrake.