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

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