Compressing video for Flash

Hello. I have a group of short movies shot for the web. Since I upgraded to the latest version of Compressor, I have had problems encoding the movies (made in FCP7), for delivery to Flash. When I bring them into Flash, it says that it 'doesn't recognize the format blah blah blah, although the videos might have been created for use on web or devices'.
I tried making the videos .mov (this was the ideal format, as I seemed to be able to achieve the most efficient compression that way). I also tried encoding them as .mp4, but Flash still rejected them. I am at at total loss. The worst part is now I am, at least temporarily forced to use Adobe Media Encoder, and the file size is much larger and the quality is nowhere close to what I'm getting out of compressor. I'm sure that I'm probably missing something here, as I am relatively new to compressor, but I do know the program well enough to try all the obvious options.
Any suggestions/tips for encoding movies in the latest version of Compressor for use in Flash?

I guess I'm really trying to find out how Compressor encodes for Flash properly. I just get so much
better quality and smaller files with Compressor.
"BETTER QUALITY" is rarely objective. There are too many tradeoffs in bitrate, frame rate, frame size, codec tweaks, and multiple pass encoding runs. Flash is a wrapper, like Quicktime, sort of, and there are several true Flash encoders that use wildly different true Flash codecs and compression algorithms.
Google and versiontracker both returned about 15 different products for the Mac and dozens for PC including some cards. Some are cheap.
http://www.sothinkmedia.com/flash-video-encoder/
http://www.video-to-flash-encoder.com/
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Best/flash-encoder.html
http://www.geovid.com/Flashto_Video_EncoderPRO
http://www.kibisis.com/kibisis/index.asp/
http://www.ustream.tv/higher-quality
http://flash-video-encoder1.software.informer.com/
http://download.cnet.com/Wondershare-Video-to-Flash-Encoder/3000-2194_4-10473277 .html
Here's an obsolete Flash encoder comparison chart:
http://www.mediacollege.com/adobe/flash/video/encoders/
bogiesan

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Preparing video for Flash

I have some video that I have prepared to play in Flash on a website, but I am having mucho problems getting Flash to recognize the files I want to play. I am using the Final Cut Studio - FCP to prep, and Compressor to encode. I must be doing something wrong encoding or preparing the video for Flash. I'd use Adobe Encoder, but it doesn't compress anywhere close to the efficiency necessary, so I'm trying to properly perpare them in Compressor.
Any suggestions/tips?

I was using Compressor for all my encoding, but I finally just gave up on that and used the Adobe Media Encoder. I admit, it works better than I gave it credit for. So everything works fine now, but I'm a little surprised that Flash doesn't readily ingest codecs from Compressor. Encoder works fine, but Compressor defintely gives you a better 'bang for the buck' IRT quality vs. file size.
Thanks for the help.

Importing Video for flash player 7

Hi, im importing video for use on flash player 7. before
importing i note that the audio and video quality is perfect.
however after importing i notice the audio quality is not as good.
i need to import with the audio embedded with the video in the
timeline. i notice there are several audio settings (kbps) but im
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What all browser did you check your output on? Can you also check on a different machine, playing it locally.
Can you try and set your CPLIBS files to the latest files available in the patch--
Please try the patch available here -- incase you have not till now-- http://forums.adobe.com/message/4623434
Let me know if this works?
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Compressing Video for DVD Burn Makes Text Look jagged

Hello,
I'm currently at the final steps of a lengthy video production project and am struggling to make the text elements of my finished video display correctly after compression prior to burning it to DVD.
I create and produce music for a living and don't have nearly as much experience with video editing. I'm a bit new to all of this and am using FCE 4.0.1 to create my video & Compressor and DVD Studio Pro 2 to compress and author video for DVD.
*My main issue is this:*
I'm using an imported still image as the title card for my film. It's a mixture of large plain Helvetica Neu font text with some additional stylized lettering created in Photoshop (which is why I'm not using FCE's built-in text generators for the title card). The typography isn't very wild and crazy, it's basically big bold letters and a few gentle curves. I exported the image (1200x600) from Photoshop as a .png and imported it into FCE.
When I export my finished video file (.png title card and all) out of FCE, I export it as a raw uncompressed Quicktime file:
Apple Intermediate Codec 1440x1080i
29.97 fps
Pixel Aspect Ratio: HD (1440x1080) (Anamorphic not checked).
Field Dominance: Upper (Odd).
(It displays in quicktime at 1920x1080 though.)
After initially exporting from FCE, the title card image and all the other text in my movie created from FCE's built-in text generators look fine. It's only after I compress the finished movie in DVD Studio Pro or Compressor that I get jagged looking edges on the curves of my letters, primarily the title card image (the text generated by FCE's generators holds up okay).
In compressor I'm using the "MPEG-2 6.2 Mbps 2-pass settings for DVD" preset and in DVD Studio Pro. Using '2 pass VBR', 'Best' motion tracking, 'best' and 'highest quality' on all the compression settings I can find. I'm encoding at a total rate of 6.5Mb/sec max and 6Mb/sec average. These are standards for compressing to DVD and since I'm preparing a master for reproduction, I've been told I shouldn't increase the data rate over this or I'll run into player compatibility issues down the line.
Any ideas on how I can make this text image last through the compression process and still look clean and crisp without having to increase the data rate of compression? I'm going to play with different file formats for now, but it that doesn't work I don't know where to go from there.
Thank you for any help insights you can provide.

I started with a variety of HD raw footage (most of it gathered on Canon 5D Mkii SLR Digital camera in the form of: H.624 1920x1080) but converted all my raw footage prior to editing into:
Apple Intermediate Codec 1440x1080i
29.97 fps
Pixel Aspect Ratio: HD (1440x1080) (Anamorphic not checked).
Field Dominance: Upper (Odd).
I edited everything in Final Cut Express 4.0.1 using the AVCHD Apple Intermediate Codec 1440x1080i60 at 29.97 fps sequence preset.
When I finished editing all my video I exported it as a raw uncompressed quicktime file which is also:
Apple Intermediate Codec 1440x1080i
29.97 fps
Pixel Aspect Ratio: HD (1440x1080) (Anamorphic not checked).
Field Dominance: Upper (Odd).
But when played in quicktime this finished video displays at 1920x1080, which I'm happy with. (I'm assuming this is the proper behavior of Apple Intermediate Codec? It seemed to take 1920x1080 footage, converted it to 1440x1080, and then spit it back out as 1920x1080 after the whole editing process.)
But seeing as how my issue is with an image file I'm creating in Photoshop and importing into my video sequence, I don't quite understand how the rest of my footage would really effect it. I've made sure to create the image using the same dimensions and pixel aspect ratio as my sequence frames by using one of the standard Photoshop screen templates (HD widescreen 1440x1080). I save my title card image as a non-interlaced .png file and import it into FCE.
When I place the imported image on the timeline, FCE doesn't resize it because it matches the frame dimensions of the sequence. When I view the image at 100% in FCE's viewer all of the image's lines, curves, and shapes display properly as they appear in my original photoshop file.
But for some reason FCE treats this imported .png image file as a 'rendered proxy.' So while it looks fine in FCE prior to rendering and exporting, when I export the video sequence containing this newly imported title card image, the resulting uncompressed quicktime file contains jagged horizontal lines across some of the characters in the title card image. It almost looks as if there's some interlacing issue going on.
However after much experimentation and trial and error I landed on a custom compression setting in Compressor that seemed to take care of this issue. I did as you recommended and selected a high quality 7.5 Mbps encoding preset (7.5 Mbps max/6.4 Mbps average), but noticed a 2 pass VBR rendered better results. What really seemed to do the trick was adding a deinterlace filter to the compression preset, and that miraculously seemed to eliminate the jagged lines in my title card image, restoring it to its original appearance (at least during my initial inspection in Compressor's preview mode).
After letting Compressor crank away, I looked at the finished compressed video in quicktime and the jagged interlaced-looking lines in my title card image have returned. Compressor's preview was somehow misguided.
Now my plan is to burn this compressed video to a DVD and view it on a TV to see if maybe these jagged lines in the final compressed version are only being caused by viewing on my computer's monitor. I'm hoping this is the case, otherwise I'm at a loss of what to do next.
If you need any more details please let me know. Otherwise I hope this is enough to give you a better idea of what issues I'm dealing with.
Thanks again for your insights.

Compressing video for iPod using QuickTime 7 Pro ("expert")

Hi all,
I purchased QuickTime 7 Pro thinking I would be able to compress 640x480 H.264 video for an iPod. I have a specific application that requires precise control over the compression -- that is, the no-option "Movie to iPod" export setting ain't gonna cut it.
I have tried many, many different setting combinations using "Movie to MPEG-4" and "Movie to QuickTime Movie" under "File" --> "Export" in QuickTime, and I have been careful to limit sizes and bitrates per iPod tech specs as published on the Apple Web site. However, while all of the H.264 files I have output will open in iTunes, none of them will sync to my iPod. Videos I output using standard MPEG-4 compression will sync to my iPod (and look awful), but videos using H.264 will not.
Does anyone know what settings I can use to export 640x480 H.264 video to my iPod, and how I can have more control over the process than just "Movie to iPod?"
Thanks!
-- Joey
What I got (the technical details):
WinXP Pro with all the latest updates on Intel
5G 60GB iPod w/ firmware ver 1.2
QuickTime 7.1.3 Pro
iTunes 7.0.1.8
multiple Wintel machines Windows XP Pro

Welcome to the discussions, Joeysirmons.
The developer that created VisualHub (Only for the Mac) has discovered how to create iPod compatible 640x480 video where the user has full control over the compression. The changes he made were to some public libraries so these methods should be finding their way to the ffmpeg based tools for Windows soon.

Compressing video for n97 using MAC ONLY SOFTWARE

Hi, i have several videos that wont play on n97, plays fine on a ipod video. I beleive they are all h264 encoded.
I have access to the following apps to compress video.
Mpeg streamclip
Quicktime PRO
iSquint
Final Cut Pro
Compressor
ANyone have good settings to use - the max i can use for good quality?
Also, anyway to re-compress my h264 videos so that degradation is kept to a minimum?
I am a MAC* user with a Nokia n97 - oh dear
*Mac is short for Macintosh, a computer made by a company called Apple.

Resolution: nHD 640x360
Bitrate: 1.5 Mbps or 1 Mbps
Framerate: 29.97 or 25 or whatever the source is.
Codec: h264 AVC baseline profile
That's what I would use.
Any re-encoding you do will add degradation, why do you need to re-encode?
640K Should be enough for everybody
El_Loco Nokia Video Blog

Creating Video for Flash 7 in CS3

I have a client base that has Flash Version 7 (don't know why
they dont upgrade but I was told I had to work with Flash 7 as a
standard)
I am trying to publish a Flash video (.flv file) to run on
Flash 7 or above using CS3. Would anyone have any step by step
instructions on how to accomplish this? I am using the Mac version
of CS3. When I tried to do it, the video would not play in 7 and
would ask me to load Version 9.
Any help would be greatly appreciated

hmm.. stupid me..
You can't use the FLVPlayback for Flash 7 since it wasn't
available at that time. you need to use the MediaDisplay or create
your own player using a videobject. As far as I remember the video
object was already available at that time. If you don't know how to
create a videoplayer using the videoobject you can have a look at
this tutorial I've wrote a while ago.
http://www.pixel2life.com/tutorials/count/19492/progressive_flash_video_player_part_1/
http://www.pixel2life.com/tutorials/count/22249/progressive_flash_video_player_part_2/

Compressing video for web HTML5

When I'd create a video intro for a website, I used to export to the FLV format, but since Apple's made it clear that Flash isn't going to be supported, what is the preferred way (compression format) to deliver video that will play universally on everybody's browser/hardware? I keep hearing about HTML5, but how does one create a file format to comply with that language? Is there a Compressor preset I should be using?

H.264 is probably the codec of choice for the near future.
H.264 Is A Codec, Flash Is A Platform: One Can't Kill Off The Other
HTML5 Video

Bit rate standards for Compressing video for Captivate

I have been trying to decide whether rto use constant bit rate or a variable bit rate when compressing my video to embed in Captivate.
I have been told by Connect support that a constant bit rate is better for deploying video in Presenter but I am wondering if anyone has information as whether that is also true for Captivate. We are using captive as a means to offer a series of video question and answer sequence for a client of ours, and I am interested in getting the best quality with the smoothest performance in a progressive download flv format
For a simple talking head I am tempted to use a variable bit rate but, I cannot find anything in the seaces I have made that talk about the spec or any pros an cons to that quetsion for Captivate.
Doee anyone have any expereince with that?

I have always used constant bitrate for videos imported into Captivate and that has worked fine. However, I never tried using variable bit rate so I don't know if it will work better or worse.
My guess is that it would be better to go with constant bitrate though because Captivate do have some funny issues with FLV's sometimes and it's probably better not to "stress" captivate ;o)
/Michael
Visit my Captivate blog with tips & tricks, tutorials and Widgets.

Compressing video for vimeo from final cut

Hi,
I have 13.8 gb of video that I would like to compress so I may put it on vimeo which has a max of 5000kb.
How can I compress all this video so it can be uploaded.
thanks

Did you read and view the tutorials on the Vimeo site?
http://vimeo.com/help/compression

Compressing video for the web

I have had people ask me to make a short 30 clip for the web say of some of there sporting shots, what is the best way to go about knowing what kind of compression you use and what type of file is best.

Bill bill bill... billy B... Will!!! Willy.... BillyWill...
Search is your friend. This comes up three to two thousand times a week.
Don't expect me to spoon feed you... but export it as a quicktime conversion and use one of the presets.
I really like Broadband High... will be in h.264 and will be roughly 3 megs a minute-- will look a whole lot better than the demo reel you have up on your site right now.
Good luck,
CaptM

Compressing video for website background images

I'm building a website and hoping to have a web video play underneath a screen on the home page. The sample 11 second file on our template is an mp4 file at 1280 by 720, but it's onlye 340KB. Using media encoder I was only able to compress our 15 second clip in an mp4 format to a whopping 18 megabytes. Clearly I'm setting something improperly. I encoded using the Vimeo setting. How can I use media encoder to create such a small video file? Thanks.

Found one way to reduce the 18 mb file to 3 mb. I imported the MP4 into Photoshop then exported to Adobe Media Encoder at "low resolution." I couldn't find comparable settings in Adobe Media Encoder through the direct interface, so this means it must be possible to compress farther with this tool. Any additional ideas/suggestions? Thanks.

Optimizing / compressing video for web with Quicktime

I have a ~70mb (3 minutes long) m4v video that I need to get to a much more reasonable file size for playing on a site that will primarily be accessed via iPad.
I don't know if it matters, but the video will need to play automatically upon page load.
I've read through a few tutorials for doing this with Quicktime, however I think I'm missing something..
From the Export pop-up menu, there should seemingly be an option to choose "Movie to QuickTime Movie." I have only 480p and iPod/iPhone/iPad options(which I believe would result in a viewing frame that is too small).
How can I proceed with web-optimizing this file in Quicktime? (Or is there a better solution? I tried Sorenson Squeeze, but that had a large watermark..)

I have a ~70mb (3 minutes long) m4v video that I need to get to a much more reasonable file size for playing on a site that will primarily be accessed via iPad.
File size is directly proportional to the combined total data rate of your file. If you want a smaller file, then you need to reduce the audio + video data rate of the file. Unfortunately, overly reducing the data rate can adversely affect the audio/video quality of the file. Depending on the encode settings (data rate, encode matrix dimensions, display dimensions, entropy option, intra/inter frame options, number of encode passes, etc.), user tolerance for minimum quality level, the specific target ISP speeds required, application to be used, etc., the possibilities are relatively endless. Basically, the file you describe above has a combined total data rate on the order of 3.1 Mbps. Such a data rate might be considered low for a full 1080p file, adequate for a 720p file, or excessive for a VGA file depending on the graphic complexity of the file. In short, it is difficult to properly answer your question without additional information or actually seeing the file in question. (I.e., proper encoding of content is as much an art as a science.)
I don't know if it matters, but the video will need to play automatically upon page load.
It may matter depending on how the web site is coded and/or how the content is to be accessed by the target iPad device.
From the Export pop-up menu, there should seemingly be an option to choose "Movie to QuickTime Movie." I have only 480p and iPod/iPhone/iPad options(which I believe would result in a viewing frame that is too small).
The option and tutorial you reference require the use of QT 7 Pro which the option you reference sounds nore like a QT X player export option. (Once, again, what you can do will depend on the software you are trying to use to create your file and a 480p file could normally be anything from an 853x480 (16:9 aspect) file to a 640x480 (4:3 aspect) file or an anamorphic 720x480 file displaying in either the 16:9 or 4:3 aspect. So I really don't know what you consider a "small" viewing frame.
How can I proceed with web-optimizing this file in Quicktime? (Or is there a better solution? I tried Sorenson Squeeze, but that had a large watermark..)
As previously mentioned, there are many applications that can be used here—QT 7 Pro, MPEG Streamclip, QT X, HandBrake, etc. to name just a few. I personally would recommend the free HandBrake app since it offers both manual and automatic preset options, as well as, allowing you to create anamorphic or non-anamorphic encodes targeting either a fixed level of quality or a target file size depening on your needs. Unfortunately, the more options you have, the more decisions you need to make which means the more you need to critically analyze your target needs/requirements—which is frequently something many video users are trying to avoid.
Basically, if you want more specific advice, you will first have to better define your specific needs here.

Compressing video for web

My friend from Australia is trying to convert a trailer for web streaming but is having troubles with the format. We filmed the videos in Nashville and then he edited the trailer in Australia but every time he sends me a copy it's pixelated... Any suggestions on what settings he should be using on the compressor?
Thanks,
Sheyla

Quality is directly related to "bandwidth" (Data Rate). How much you need is directly dependent on video size. You can usually get very good quality with 8Mbps (8000 Kbps) for 1080/30p. Exceptional quality would be in the 20Mbps + range (FCPX exports H.264 at 40+ Mbps and some higher end DSLRs and video cameras produce H.264 in that range as well.) For 720p, you can reduce that bandwidth down to about 5-6Mbps; 480p down to about 1.2Mbps. If you have high contrast fast moving scenes, you will need more bandwidth in order to avoid jpeg artifacts (blocky images.)
If you're posting videos on a "service" like YouTube or Vimeo, you should investigate their encoding specifications. For instance, a couple years ago, the maximum bandwidth supported by YouTube for 1080 video (doesn't matter the frame rate or interlaced/progressive -- just the maximum they allowed) was 5Mbps. They increased that to 8Mbps. The trick with these services is: if you encode the video with HIGHER bandwidth than they allow, they will encode that video again downwards to the limit. You never, ever want this condition to happen. There are other encoding options that should be adhered to as well:
Key Frames: Automatic
Frame Reordering: OFF!
Optimized for Streaming (makes a difference!)
Encoding: Best Quality (always use multi-pass)
(if you use these options, then you can set the Data Rate to 9400 kbits/sec -- it will almost always come under the 8Mbps limit)
Sound: MPEG-4 AAC Low Delay 48KHz bitrate 128 - 320 kbps
Check: Prepare for Internet Streaming and select Fast Start
YouTube will leave your upload alone

How do you compress video for podcasting

I am new to podcasting, and I want to put my daughters cooking show series on a podcast. How do I compress the video so it can be downloaded as a podcast?
Thanks,
Peter

Place the Timeline playhead on the frame you want to freeze and hit Shift n.
-DH

Compressing video for Flash

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