Video quality with flv component

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to improve the reproduction of a video incorporated into a website. The original .mov was 60 MB at 1280 x 720px. Using the Adobe media encoder I converted to FLV ( to add cue points for several small mc animations) and reduced dimensions to obtain filesize of 12MB. Video was brought into the SWF with the flv component. File loads quickly enough online- not too much in the way of delays waiting for video to start etc, however the reproduction is a little jumpy in several places and a little out of sync. I'm wondering if this is completely a result of the conversion process or whether the flv component might also be struggling with this filesize. I believe there is a FLVPlayback 2.5 component I released after my flash version CS4. Could anyone advise if I would gain improvements in the reproduction if I used this instead ?
Also - throughout the video I appear to have gained what looks like borders around the video, but only on the left and right sides, not all the way around (see screenshot). I'm not entirely sure whether this is a result of the conversion process with the adobe media encoder or whether this is something which has resulted within the flash file. And also on the last frame, the background colour of the video is completely strange. I had set to match the webpage, however as you can see in the screenshot attached, there's a strange graduation in colour that simply does not make sense to me - I would very much like to resolve as it looks very unprofesional.
Grateful for any assistance with any of the above issues
Thanks so much in advance !

Answer 1

On your first point of quality and file size, they are really un-related. Only when you concider the video bitrate and display dimensions can you judge whether a particular file size will result in a good quality or poor quality video. The FLV Playback component really does not affect the quality one way or another.. it only displays what it's told to display. If you have other issues like
"however the reproduction is a little jumpy in several places and a little out of sync"
it's more likely that something was introduced during the conversion process.
But first, a little review of video bitrate:
Video bit rate
One of the principle of goal setting is to "Begin with the end in mind". In this case it'll be very hard to give good recommendations because the end is not defined. So I'll just make a few assumptions and you can correct me as needed.
First, I'll assume that since you are converting to Flash, you want to deliver this video over the Internet. If that's true, then we'll have to make some assumptions on the Internet connection download speeds of your potential viewers. Let's just say that most have at least a 1.5Mb connection or faster.
OK, that would mean that a video bitrate of half that should usually provide a video download that is not interupped by buffering (most of the time anyway). So assuming a video bitrate of 750kbps, what would the optimum display dimensions be?
Before we decide, here's a little info about bitrate. For highest quality playback, the video bitrate is tied directly to the display dimensions. That is, the larger the display, the more incoming data is required to properly display the video. Think of bitrate in terms of a can of paint. If you have 1 quart of paint, you might be able to do a very nice job on a 32 X 24 foot area. But if you try to stretch that same amount of paint out over a 64 X 48 foot area, the coverage will not be nearly as good and you get poor results.
In the same way, a video displayed at 640 X 480 pixels will require 4 times the bitrate as a video displayed at 320 X 240 pixels to produce the same quality. So for example a video with a bitrate of 100kbps, displayed at 160 X 120 will produce the same quality results as a video with a bitrate of 1600kbps if displayed at 640 X 480.
So to boil it all down, video bitrates of 750kbps, even up to 1000kbps can usually get delivered of the Internet on most high speed connections. Higher bit rates may work for really fast connections but will cause problems for viewers with slower connections. Video display size has a direct bearing on the final quality. In the 750 to 1000kbps range, display size should be kept around 450 or 500 width max (and whatever height the aspect ratio calls for). Yes it can be displayed larger, but the quality will suffer.
Sound like your audio settings are fine, especially for Internet delivery.
As for framerate, maintain the original raw video framerate for best results. So if the video was shot at 24fps, leave it.
As for video converters, do you have the Flash 8 Video Converter? It works just fine for video to be delivered over the Internet. Remember, you are taking a Cadillac version of video (h.264 HD) and stuffing it into a Chevy body to get it to work over the Internet.
As for slight borders in the display, it's most likely that somewhere in the conversion process or setting the dimensions of the FLVPlayback that the display/video dimensions got mismatched... even by a few pixels. So video is 480 x 360 while FLVPlayback is 480 x 356 or something like that. There is also the possibility that the FLVPlayback is trying to maintain the correct aspect ratio but the dimension is just a little off. So if the display is a little too short for the width, you could get black bars on either side. If the display is a little too narrow for the height, you will get black bars top and bottom.
So play with the display dimensions and see if you can correct it. If you can't, it may be in the video itself... test in another, FLV video player.
Best of luck on your project!
Adninjastrator