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

Similar Messages

What is the best way to compress longer HD videos for the web

I am struggling with the best way to post HD, as well as SD videos to the web - Vimeo as well as YouTube sites. Some of my files are up to an hour long, and above.
I've tried mp4, H.264 compression, multi-pass, as well as ProRes in various settings. The files are either too small or too large. I have an stand-alone Flash encoder, but it seems to take an inordinate amount of time.
My computer only has a Duo Core - its the first Intel processor. Is it too slow to process these large Video files?
ANY advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Peter

as well as YouTube sites. Some of my files are up to an hour long, and above.
There are quite a few videos on YouTube that are up to 3 hours long. If you are having issues uploading long YouTube movies, have you contacted their tech support?
(10.6.3)
Use Software Update to update your os and anything else that needs to be updated.

Best way to save HQ video for the web?

What´s the best settings for great video-quality for the web?
I have a 5 min long clip I´d like to put on my website.
I would like it to be 480x360 and with good quality. It´s ok if the file gets 30-40 MB.
I have tryed the Expert Settings, Quicktime Movie, Broadband - High, but the movie gets "striped".
What´s wrong?
A lot Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hi Magnus40,
I'm not sure what you are doing to create this problem. I create web movies all the time and have never had this problem, although, I never use the advanced settings cos I have never had to. When you go to the Quicktime export pane in iMovie you have the quality choices from full quality to web. When you select one of these it gives an estimate of the file size. For that length clip you should not need to use any setting besides full quality. I'd say the problem is coming from the 480x360 aspect ratio. This is what is compressing the file. Have you tried exporting it as full quality and then uploading it? The only problem you face by doing this is, it will take a long time for the movie to load on your website. For a short clip you may find that the CD ROM setting is sufficient.
Good luck.
SR

Recomended configurations for creating video for the web

I'm working on a project creating video segments for the web (no plans for broadcast of DVD) and I'm looking for opinions on the most efficient way to use FCP to do this. We are shooting with an HD camera with a green screen and composting a couple of additional layers of Motion graphics and we found that the render times were really long. I'm looking for ways to mitigate this, on thing we did was switch from shooting in 1080p to 720p. We also tried shooting at 24fps instead of the broadcast 60fps and that cut our render time by a good percentage. Since the final product is going to be 640 by 360 at 15fps it seems like a good trade off but are there any down sides I'm not thinking of.
I was also wondering if there might be an advantage to working at the size of the final product, if the FCP sequence were 640 by 360 would there be any advantages in terms of render times and what might the disadvantages would be.
This is my first semi-professional project, just been a hobbyist up until now so any advice is appreciated.

MoSaT wrote:
We are shooting with an HD camera with a green screen and composting a couple of additional layers of Motion graphics and we found that the render times were really long. I'm looking for ways to mitigate this, on thing we did was switch from shooting in 1080p to 720p. We also tried shooting at 24fps instead of the broadcast 60fps and that cut our render time by a good percentage.
those simple steps reduced the number of pixels in each frame from about a million to 750,00, about 25%; and you reduced the number of frames from 30 or 60 to 24 or 48. So, yeah, your rendering times are going down. If your Motion project has ten HD layers you're saving tons of processing.
MoSaT wrote:
This is my first semi-professional project, just been a hobbyist up until now so any advice is appreciated.
Since the final product is going to be 640 by 360 at 15fps it seems like a good trade off but are there any down sides I'm not thinking of.
Absolutely. But you engaged the project without knowing how you were going to accomplish anything; implies your plans for improving workflow will be similarly incomplete. We all got by with NTSC and plan ol' DV for decades. The web is a low end distribution system, not a theatrical viewing experience. You can force your viewers to download a huge file and watch it on their TVs or you can open it up in weensy teeny window on their iPhones.
MoSaT wrote:
I was also wondering if there might be an advantage to working at the size of the final product, if the FCP sequence were 640 by 360 would there be any advantages in terms of render times and what might the disadvantages would be.
Purists will be correct in telling you better source footage results in better uploads. I will tell you that's true but it's academic. Your realworld needs are based on your web upload, not your plans to archive high def footage for future exploitation.
Here's what I'd do: Work backwards. Figure out what your upload needs are--exactly. Research Compressor and other compression systems to determine how you are going to process your project to get the target output. Now decide what format that software wants to process to create the best results. then figure out how you want to provide that input for the compression application. then figure out what the tradeoffs are for your original footage in terms of your camera resources, your skills with the camera, and your mistaken impression that effects and chromakey should be fast.
bogiesan

Exporting video for the web for windows Media player

What software can i use to compress an AVI file for the web. The finished product will be WMA file.

WMA is Windows Media Audio. I think what you meant is WMV (Windows Media Video). To export to that format on a Mac you'll need Flip4ac, available from www.flip4mac.com Once you've installed it, it adds the WMV and WMA export option to QT and other apps such as Sorenson Squeeze.
-DH

Exporting widescreen anamorphic video for the web

I have a project in fce which is filmed in widescreen anamorphic at 720, 576 the setup in fce is dv-pal anamorphic and anamorphic is checked in item properties. When I export using quicktime using h.264 encoder it shows at as widescreen in the preview but when I open it after export it is squashed. I know that is because it is anamorphic but how can i export for the web and get the correct image? If I was doing full scale I could just change the resolution from 720 to 1024 but what if I want to do lower resoultion is there a better way? Thanks.

WMA is Windows Media Audio. I think what you meant is WMV (Windows Media Video). To export to that format on a Mac you'll need Flip4ac, available from www.flip4mac.com Once you've installed it, it adds the WMV and WMA export option to QT and other apps such as Sorenson Squeeze.
-DH

Preparing video for the web...I am lost

Hello all,
I had a project that began in imovie 06. It is an hour long production that i wan to prepare for use on a web site. I know that an hour long video is asking a lot of a web audience but the work is unique in that it is a poet reading a very long poem. I want to get this right for the few people who will actually want to see this thing.
My workflow is as follows. Share the video from iMovie 06 with expert settings set to Quicktime. High quality 480 x 360 letterboxed AAc 128. The resulting hour long video is 360mb
I open that video in Quicktime 7.6.4 then I copy and paste the first 15 min to a new player. From that new player I Export for Web and create the three standard versions. The problem is that the desktop version is 105mb and iPhone versions is 108mb. Both are bigger than the section of the movie that i started with 90MB. This suggests to me that there is a lot wrong with my workflow.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Re-read your last paragraph for the obvious clues to your troubles. Going from 90 MB to a larger file size means you are "up-sampling" previously compressed data.
Even though your 12 GB file seems absurdly large now it will become highly compressed when using the "Export for Web" feature of QuickTime Player Pro.
Do some simple "one minute" test files from your DV source file. Compare settings (pen and paper) and dimensions and audio quality. Ask some questions about the source file. Do you really need "stereo" sound when "mono" would be half as large? AAC audio is good but do you need 128 when 64 would be half as large in file size?
Is this a "talking head" (little motion) video track? Could you replace the video track with some still image files and still achieve your goal?
Just something to think over.

Compressing photos for the web

I'm new to mac and iPhoto.
When I bring in photos from my camera into iPhoto,
their file size is way too big for emailing and the web.
(over 1mb)
is it possible to compress and edit photos in iPhoto?
Or do i have to use another program such as Photoshop?
thanks

teresita
If you're on a MBP then I'm going to guess that you're using iPhoto 6, not v5. (You've posted in the v5 forum).
Select the pics you want to use and go File -> Export and in the resulting dialogue you have the option to resize the pics, among other options. Then complete the export to the desktop. iPhoto will make a copy of the pics with your changes on the desktop. You can use these for emailing and uploading. After they're used, you can trash them - they are only copies.
If you're using Apple's Mail for email, you can resize the pics in the Mail window (look at the bottom right of the window. You can also create these emails from within iPhoto if you're using Mail, Entourage, AOL or Eudora.
Regards
TD

Shooting video for the web

I am shooting a spot for a client that is requesting an 18fps deliverable for use on the web and the spot needs to play in real time. I have never heard of this and I can't seam to find any information on it. Does anyone know how this works and what the possible sound syncing issues I can avoid?

you made it sound so easy and it was thank you! I tried to manipulate the frame rate in Compressor and Cinema tools but I couldn't find a custom frame rate option. I ended up finding it in FCP under the quicktime conversion.

Compressing movie for the web

Hello All!
Im fairly new to director but have lots of experience with flash. Hope it will become handy
I have eLearning movie that I plan to distribute over the internet but the published dcr is 22mb which is not ideal for preloading. I guess that I need to optimize all the images and audio files inside the movie. My target file size is about 3 to 5mb.
I have some questions, ill be glad to get some inputs
1. as I understand I can compress individual images using director or using external editor (like fireworks). Which way is the preferred one?
2. Since I have hundreds of images to optimize I wonder if there is any script or xtra that knows to batch the compression task?
3. Regarding to audio compression. Can I use external editor? Or I must delete the audio files and re-import them as mp4?
Im using director 11.5 on mac.
Thanks a lot
Shay

Hi again,
I investigate the dir file and I discover lots of audio files in swa format. All of them contain makeover voice. Im pretty sure they should be converted into mp3 or mp4. The big question is how do I do it?
Remind you that i'm using director 11.5 on mac which has not compress audio option in publish settings.
Thanks
Shay

Best Video Compression for the web???

I have read a number of discussions about which codec to use to compress video for the web and I’ve done my own tests and bar the longer encode time, which is not a problem to me, H.264 seems to come out as the best. I can get a superb quality, small enough for a quick download EXCEPT… this website needs to be friendly to the PC community.
What do you all suggest I do?
Go with lower quality MPEG-4 or Sorenson 3 and have my work look “not so good” or use awesome H.264 and provide a link to download the codec, which busy PC people will probably not bother to do.
This is my dilemma.
Thanks in advance for any advice.

I love the results I get when using H.264. Even low data rate files look good (even when I display them double size).
But it requires your page visitors have QuickTime 7 installed to view your QT files.
QuickTime 7 is nearly a year old and most of your Mac viewers will have it installed. It is also "bundled" with the iTunes software download that many PC users have installed.
H.264 is the only codec that requires version 7. Any other choice can be played using older versions of QuickTime.
As much as I like H.264 its installed viewer base doesn't reflect the visitors system settings for Web work. If your crowd is savvy to QuickTime they will not mind the download to upgrade. If you use tracking software on your visitors you'll be able to see if they hang around for the download.
MPEG-4 may be a better Web use choice.

Exporting FCP 16:9 to QT for the web in 16:9?

Hello everyone,
I recently began doing my projects in 16:9 mode. I shoot them with my GL2's in 16:9, then capture to FCP as usual. FCP then automatically recognizes the 16:9 footage and adjusts everything perfectly for me. I figured out how to get the footage to DVDSP by 'forcing letterbox'. This plays the true 16:9 footage on a widescreen TV perfectly.
Now, I've come to another bridge that I can't seem to cross... that is... exporting the video to QT for the web in 16:9. I did a lot of searching here and all of the topics related to this did not help me at all. So, what I'm going to do is explain what I used to do when I shot in 4:3 mode:
1. In FCP... File>Export>QT Conversion
2. Format: QT Movie> Options
3. Settings> Sorenson Video 3
4. Frame Rate>15
5. Key Frames: Every 150 frames
6. Compressor> Medium
7. Data Rate: Automatic
8. OK
9. Sound>Settings>Mpeg-4 Audio, 16bit, Stereo
10. OK
11. Prepare for Internet Streaming> Fast Start
12. OK
13. SAVE
This usually turns a full sized 5 minute clip into a nice little presentation for the web no larger than 35 or so MB's. You can see a boat load of files like that on my website at (www.buerhausdesign.com).
Now, what I want to do is get a similar sized video for the web, only in 16:9 as I'm now shooting and editing in 16:9.
Does anyone have step-by-step instructions on how to do this? I know it's possible as I see movie trailors in 16:9 all the time in QT.
Any help would be appreciated:)
Matt

Nope, tried all of that. It stretches the image way beyond 16:9. Currently, if I export as a 4:3 file, the widescreen displays correctly, but I get two black bars at the top and bottom of the frame. Manually sizing to a 16:9 size, to say 720x404, stretches everything... including the unwanted black bars.
When I export to DVDSP, the black bars go away when I 'force letterbox'. There's gotta be a way to get it to work in QT.

HD video compressed for the web

I was doing some testing trying to figure out the best way to compress the HD video I get from the Sony XDCAM HD for the web (streaming). I shoot in HD (1080/30P) because it's needed for our videos. The web streaming is secondary.
I would prefer to make the web videos .flv because it works best and most easily cross-platform. In the real world, the majority of users have Windows PCs, which made me hesitant to use h.264 (.m4v) because it probably would require the average user to download things they may not wan to. Nonetheless, it has to be viewable on all computers in all browers.
So, I took three 10 second clips of steady camera video with audio from the camera that I used in all tests. I will refer to them by clip number...
Clip 1: 30P 16:9 High quality, 10sec=45mb
Clip 2: 30P 16:9 Low Quality, 10sec=24mb
Clip 3: 60i 16:9 High Quality, 10sec=45mb
First I tested making FLV is Adobe CS3 Encoder using the High Quality (700) setting.
Test 1 used size 848x480 (16:9)
Clip 1: 1.3mb
Clip 2: 1.1mb
Clip 3: 1.2mb
Comments: Looked very crisp, audio was clean, slightly darker image than original on default settings
Test 2 used size 480x270 (16:9)
Clip 1: 1.2mb
Clip 2: 1.1mb
Clip 3: 1.1mb
Comments: Looked very crisp, audio was clean, slightly darker image than original on default settings
Next, I tested making .m4v using the h.264 iPod settings in Compressor.
Test 1 used size 640x370.
Clip 1: 240kb
Clip 2: 1440kb
Clip 3: 204kb
Comments: Image wasn't quite as clean as the Flash files, but still good. Much lighter/brighter than the Flash files also. Low Quality HD video had high file size... why? I don't know, but I don't shoot on LQ for things anyway.
Test 2 used size 320x180.
Clip 1: 160kb
Clip 2: 865kb
Clip 3: 865kb
Comments: Image wasn't quite as clean as the Flash files, but still good. Much lighter/brighter than the Flash files also. Low Quality HD video had high file size... also the 60i file...why? I don't know.
In conclusion, I'm lucky that I shoot 30P since it worked well in all areas. The h264 codec provides a much smaller file size than Flash, with a good image. Amazing considering we started with a 45MB clip. What are the standards for aspect ratios for putting 16:9 video on the web? I haven't heard much set in stone like you have for 4:3 video. Nonetheless, the 640x360 or 480x270 seem to be a nice size for most uses.
I have heard that in Flash 9 you can chance the m4v extension to flv and it will work. IF that is true, that would be great because now my concern is that a base Windows PC cannot play these .m4v images without plugins/codecs. I suppose right now its a tradeoff between smaller file size/less compatibility with h264 or larger file size, great compatibility with Flash.
Any comments or suggestions to help out would be great. I typed this fast so forgive me if I left out any important info.

Hi APPLE27:
One comment from your post that immediately caught my attention was this, "Nonetheless, it has to be viewable on all computers in all browsers."
Unfortunately, it is unrealistic to expect one digital video file to be viewable on "all computers in all browsers" as there are simply too may variations in both hardware and software.
A common approach when offering digital video is to provide two formats to choose from and then within each of those two formats a few versions of the video for different bandwidths.
For example, a web site might offer Video for Windows and QuickTime. For each of these, there would be a low bandwidth Video for Windows file and QuickTime file and a high bandwidth Video for Windows file and QuickTime file (four files total). Of course, there's also Flash Video, Real Video, MPEG1, and so on.
For better or worse, YouTube.com has allowed video content creators the realistic expectation of creating a digital video file that is viewable on "most computers". But, the video is unavoidably tied to that web site.
When it comes to online distribution of video, it's still very open ended.
Also, computers are not all that's out there. Mobile devices are a huge market and you'd be hard pressed to create a single digital video file that will play on all mobile devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, Palm Treo, Sony PSP, etc.) either from local storage or from a mobile browser.
QuickTime offers a solution for creating a referencing movie - one file that links to other digital video files, but it too is imperfect at best when it comes to reaching the broadest audience possible.
With my few comments here, I'm just scratching the surface. But, it all starts where you are right now: caring about the image quality when exporting from your edited master.
-Warren

Should I deinterlase my movie before compressing to a h264 file for the web

Hi I have a movie in fcp that I want to compress for the web. I am going to compress it to a h264 file using quicktime. I was wondering if I should deinterlace the movie before compressing it
thanks sam

I have done it both ways and on computer monitors at least its always been my experience that DEINTERLACING the video looks better. Quite a bit better.
Now there are 2 main ways to do it. And I've gotten similar results both ways. You can deinterlace from within Final Cut Pro which works fine or you can set Compressor to Deinterlace. Now I've read articles on why one is better than the next, but at least with Final Cut Pro 5.1.4 in the videos I've worked on I can't tell the difference. It looks good both ways.
Hope that helps-

Advice on saving DVD video and re-sizing for the web

Hello...
I'm looking into purchasing a copy of Adobe Premiere - but I need advice on which version I need - and if it can do what I'm after.
I want to transfer my own video work from DVDs and save them as MPEG4 files. I then want to upload them on to my website. They'll be about 10 minutes each each DVD will have several videos on them.
Is Adobe Premiere able to do this...? If so which version would suit me best? It's simply to do the above with no editing, just re-sizing for the web and saving as an MPEG4 file.
Thank you for your help and time in advance.
philip

For web video creation, I use a program called V2F. It creates Flash rather than mp4, but if you're not stuck on that format, the files are very good quality.

Compressing video for the web

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for