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Encoding Videos for Online Viewing
3.863.863.863.863.8614votes
Author: Shiv Kumar Views: 3335   Favorited: 0 Comments: 24
May 22, 2008 05:54 AM
Filed Under:  FAQ
Tags:  Help, Video Encoding

Encoding Videos for Online Viewing

Encoding videos for online viewing purposes can be a daunting subject for a lot of us. To make things more confusing you have a multitude of “containers” (Quick time, Flash Video, Windows Media etc.) and a multitude of codecs (Encoders/Decoders) and most containers typically support many if not all codecs. So the choices available in just the combination of containers and codecs alone are huge.

Quality Of Video

The quality of video is primarily governed by the Video Bit rate used during encoding. The eventual file size is also directly proportional to the Video Bit rate used during encoding. The larger the dimensions of the encoded video, the higher the video bit rate needs to be in order to maintain the quality of video.

Encoding Settings for HD Video

If your video is HD we recommend the following:

  1. Dimensions 1280x720
  2. VBR 2 Pass
  3. Video Bit Rate of 3000-3500Kbps
  4. Audio Bit Rate of 192-224Kbps

For audio, make sure the source audio’s bit rate is higher than the audio bit rate setting you use. Most MP3 files available online are encoded at a bit rate of 128Kbps and lower. So if your source audio is 128Kbps then use this setting for your audio. In other words the audio bit rate you use during encoding should never be higher than the original. The same goes for video too but the settings mentioned above are well below the original HD source video’s bit rate.
FCP Users: The “best” quality is no good for HD video. So please override the settings and use those mentioned above.

Please read this blog post for more information.
 

 Exporting Recommendations for Final Cut Pro

For those members that use Final Cut Pro below are some screen shots with recommended settings.
 

 

 
 
 

Do your Quicktime movies seem a little washed out?

If you are working on a Mac, you might find the video looking “washed out” once it is uploaded to ExposureRoom.  The same QuickTime file that was produced on a Mac will appear less saturated when played on a Windows PC.  The link below is to an article written by one of our members, Marco Menestrina on how to solve this problem.

 

Comments



Marlon Diaz    July 03, 2008 06:51 PM

HD is the best. if you guys use apple compressor for encoding i have a preset i can email u to convert your videos to HD. preset is: quicktime h.264, dimensions 1280x720, video bit rate at 3000kbps. the quality is great.you can peep some HD videos i got uploaded around the internet, you can search "mad vision productions" on Vimeo.com , Dailymotion.com , and see my HQ music videos shot with Canon XH-A1.

Shiv Kumar    July 03, 2008 07:21 PM

Marlon,

So what's stopping you from uploading your videos here. Our quality is far superior than any other website :).

Christian Carmona    July 25, 2008 02:40 AM

Muchas gracias

Gracias Marlon, la verdad a mi me sirvió mucho tu ayuda.

Stef Chalang    August 24, 2008 10:56 AM

Best Online Video!

I have tried them all..... Vimeo, Dailymotion, Youtube, Google etc... XR has the best definition, best audio... smooth delivery, easy upload...
Love it... so far. I hope not all viewers will have tu upgrade their Flash Player like I did have to... but, hey, everybody should have the latest one... so they can watch my fantastic content ;-)

Suggestion: would be nice to be able to choose the frame used for the thumbnail...

Good show! Splendid app... good luck.

Stef

Shiv Kumar    August 24, 2008 11:10 AM

Stef,

Welcome to ExposureRoom! Thanks for the wonderful compliments! Your suggestion is already a feature.

I'm going to point you to our news page. This page has all the features and things that have been added over time. In there you'll find the all sorts of goodies!
ExposureRoom News

Or you could click on the Thumbnail link next to one of your assets.

Pablo Sommer    September 18, 2008 04:07 PM

Compression at FCP

Hi Shiv. I tryning to post a video in EX but I can´t get the best compression. May be you can help me.
My video is 720 native. HD.
When I try to export I can´t find VBR 2 Pass. In FCP I go to
export/using quicktime conversion/ and the optiones a use are:
compression H264
data rate restrict 3500
quality best
size> 1280 x 720

BUT... I can't have nice quality. Some ideas?

thanks

Pablo

Theodore Salido    October 06, 2008 04:24 AM

Vegas mpeg compression

Hi,

Can you help me what settings to use to upload my video. I'm using sony Vegas 8.

Thanks and more power

Ajay Miranda    October 09, 2008 11:22 PM

FCP compression: mp4 vs h.264

I've seen some videos here where the source file is as big or bigger than anything I've uploaded, but the compressed streaming version has a file size that's a fraction of what my videos' compressed versions end up with. I'm wondering how that happens. My FCP export settings are .MOV files with MP4 encoding at 4400 kbps. Is it because I'm using MP4 instead of H.264? Other than that, I don't know why my streaming videos are huge (triple-digit megabytes) when files of equal length are a fraction of that. Any advice is appreciated.

Ian MacLean    October 25, 2008 01:04 PM

Frame rate v video bit rate

I'm still researching this, but I assume that encoding to a limited video bit rate makes the frame rate of the film irrelevant. In other words, whether the short is 24fps or 30fps becomes irrelevant as the variable bit rate encoding will reduce the original quality regardless. Another way to ask would be, what is the video bit rate of uncompressed 720p30?

Daniel Adderley    November 21, 2008 10:05 PM

I've got an 848 x 480 that comes out of huge no matter how I compress it. Trying for a mov with h.264 out of premier, any tips?

Shiv Kumar    November 22, 2008 10:39 AM

Daniel,

What are you trying to do withyour video? How long (minutes) is your video? Have you read the blog post this article points to?

Edward Curley    December 04, 2008 11:39 AM

Adobe CS3 Encoding for the Internet

Hello
We have projects for which we have successfully output to Flash (flv files)using On2VP6 codec and also to standard DVD (mpg-2) using the Adobe-packaged Main Concept encoder. I wanted to experiment with H.264 on one of my projects. I followed your advice ( I think I did) i.e.
1. Dimensions 1280x720
2. VBR 2 Pass
3. Video Bit Rate of 3000-3500Kbps (target 30; max 35)
4. Audio Bit Rate of 192-224Kbps
5. Deinterlaced output

The source assets are Sony HDV 1440 x 1080
We have Matrox RT.X2 and we always select that menu item for encoding rather than the Adobe option since they appear to be identical.

The sequence is about 4 minutes. The resulting file was about 750 mg. As an MPG-4 file, it opened with Quicktime. However, the playback was very jerky and within 30 seconds the A/V went badly out of synch.

What have we done wrong?

Shiv Kumar    December 05, 2008 01:19 PM

Edward,

The A/V out of sync issue is related to a difference in framerates between the original and the encoded version.

Please also note that unless your original audio is actually 192-224Kbps, setting and audio bitrate that high is simply adding to the file size without adding any quality sound. So ensure that your audio is in fact better quality than 224Kbps.

Jerky playback is an indication (most times) of a bitrate that is too high (for the machine you're playing back on). So unless you're hardware is really good and you know for a fact that it can handle the bitrate I wouldn't be too concerned.

Sorry I can't give specifics, but I hope I've given you enough direction.

Edward Curley    December 06, 2008 12:53 PM

Hardware is fast

Shiv
I have a twin dual core machine designed by One Beyond and is dedicated to editing. It should be fast enough. But let's say the bit rate is too high. What is your recommended level for a VBR 2 pass in terms of both target and maximum bit rate?

Shiv Kumar    December 20, 2008 10:54 AM

Edward,

I'm not sure I understand your question. Would you mind explaining clearly what you're trying to figure out?

Marcel Garbi    December 20, 2008 12:23 PM

Sorry, I deleted the previous post.

Anyway, my question was about why transcoding a 720 X 576 widescreen PAL SD (16:9) video into 720 X 404 in its HD version.
I expected to find a wider version online instead of a less high one, as a result of squaring the mpeg rectangular pixels ;)

That's all.

Thanks for this lovely site and your support.

Dave Allen    December 23, 2008 12:41 AM

Contradictory bit rate setting info

I did notice that the written bitrate suggestion was 3000-3500kbps, but the screencap from FCP for outputting an HD video shows the frame rate set at 5000kbps. The two suggested settings, one text, one an image contradict each other, so if you can correct that so we know if it should be 3000-3500 per the text or 5000 kbps per the image.

I did find elsewhere that although XR can handle HD video files of any size, the max recommended is 1 gig. So that we don't have to read through al the various posts, it would be nice if that info in a post was incorporated into the FAQ's.

Another poster mentioned he doesnt' see a VBR2 output setting when exporting/compressing in FCP in the H.264 setting, and I see that question was not addressed, so if you all can respond to that...

Thanks!

Shiv Kumar    December 23, 2008 10:41 AM

Hi Dave,

You observations and suggestions are bang on. The screen captures were provided by an XR member since we don't have FCP ourselves. As a result no one at XR has been able to answer the outstanding question (VBR 2 pass) either.

If you use FCP (or other members listneing in), we'd be thrilled to receive FCP screen captures as well has address the VBR 2 pass question.

Please post your images as well as any FCP related tips/techniques to one of the newgroups so we can roll them up into the FAQs.

Thanks.

steven siegel    January 01, 2009 10:30 PM

Your suggestions regarding frame size, bit rate, etc are fine, but more basic is what Codec to use. As you mentioned, there are just so many, but it must be possible to narrow down the field. I have been playing with those in Premiere Pro 2, and find that those intended for Internet use give tiny files (1-3 MB for a 30 second clip at 640 x 360 pixels) and poor quality, while exporting as a "movie" using Quick Time, or Window Media gives huge files that stutter. Flash produces files in kilobytes! Can you suggest a happy medium for HD video?

Dave Allen    January 01, 2009 10:56 PM

I will have to look at the vbr thing..I have never seen it, but I am not expert.

I use DVKitchen to take a full size QT HDV video and output it.....what an awesome program that is, as if I can figure it out, anyone can! lol

Shiv Kumar    January 02, 2009 12:44 PM

Codecs

Steven,

This article is about encoding HD video for online purposes. As for codecs, you can use any one of the following:
1. h.264 (Quicktime, Flash video and Windows Media support this codec)
2. On2VP6 (Flash video supports this codec)
3. VC1 (Windows Media supports this codec)

The thing to remember is that the codec is separate from the video format and not all tools support all combinations.

If you're uploading to XR, Windows media, Quicktime and Flash video formats are preferred.

All 3 of the codecs listed above do well for online viewing purposes. They are optimized to produce a good quality at low bit rates.

Stuttering simply means your hardware is not able to support the bit rate the video is encoded at. Playing back a video entails decompressing every frame before playing it and that taxes the hardware.

Hope that helps?

steven siegel    January 02, 2009 06:07 PM

Shiv,
Thanks for your always prompt and helpful answers. Can you take another question?
It says somewhere on the ER site that three formats of a video will be offered: Low quality, medium and high definition. My material is always uploaded as HD (I think), but I can't find an option to play it that way, only low and medium quality. Where do you look for the HD button?

Shiv Kumar    January 02, 2009 06:16 PM

Steven,

If you upload a video that has dimensions of 1280x720 (also known as 720p), the system will generate an HD version along with the low and medium. So you'll see 3 buttons (Low, Md, HD) instead of 2.

Check out any of the Editor's choice video on the XR home page to see what to expect. Looking at your videos, I see that you've uploaded videos with a width of 640, as a result you see only the Low and Md buttons.



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