Compression tip

[totitefilms]

Can someone share some tips of how to compress the 6 minute movie to 50MB using either AE or QuickTime pro :)? I have uncompress avi file which is around 7GB in size. Thanks.

[Wild Imagination Films]

What did you shoot and then edit on?

[Robbie Comeau]

Sorry to hi-jack, but I shot on the A1. any tips to export nice quality under 50mb?

[totitefilms]

What did you shoot and then edit on?

I use HV20 and AE but I have Quicktime pro also.

[Jared Meyer]

You'll need to experiment with the QT settings a bit to see how close you can get to the 50mb limit.

Play around with the dimensions. Try starting with 960 x 540. (Assuming it's 16:9) If that's way too big, you could try crunching it down to 720 x 405, and so on.

Best bang for your buck in the compression quality setting is halfway between Medium and High on the slider.

You can cut the size of the file significantly by adjusting the sound compression. IMA 4:1 is what I use when I want a compact file. Depending on your sound mix, you might be able to get away with going to mono, and cutting the rate as low as 32 kHz.

It's not an exact science, so just keep adjusting parameters until you see what you deem an acceptable compromise between the quality of the sound, the quality of the image, the dimensions of the frame, and the size of the file.

[ugafan]

i plan on rendering mpeg-4 with a size of 640x360.

[William_Robinette]

i plan on rendering mpeg-4 with a size of 640x360.

Same. Just some simple math with my runtime (5.5 minutes) I am looking at a little under 1.2mbps. How much under depends on how much I can squash my audio track.

[totitefilms]

Thanks everyone. I'll play around with the settings to see if I can get it under 50MB.

[killamill]

Hey people, follow this "tutorial"... works pretty good.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/h264.html

Good luck everyone!...

[Bernie Hipos]

hi what i did was to set my audio to:

AAC, normal, mono and 32kbps.

for video:
set everything to best-h.264, 24fps, 480x240 for that widescreen look (make sure you have created a widescreen sequence then just crop your image to make it look wide)

don't forget to uncheck "optimize for download" this will reduce the quality a bit.

by the way i shot my film using 4:3 mode. once done i dragged the file to itunes and convert it to mp4 and there you go i have my file just under 50mb. hope this helps.

[Matty_g]

Crazyberns,
Just so you know 480x240 is a 2:1 aspect ratio.
The only ratios they are accepting for the fest are 16x9 and cinemascope.

My plan is the fit the 2:1 into a 16x9 frame and have black bars on the top/bottom.

[Jason Ramsey]

Guys... I've been compressing h264 .mov's, and I've had great success using a restricted bit rate, rather than the slider... multipass.... and (the big one I think) mp4 audio.

Try mp4 audio with 32khz, stereo, 16bit. Should sound real nice, and will not take your file size through the roof. You can save lot of space by choosing the right coded for your audio compression.

640 x 360 should be extremely easily doable for any of the films with the above parameters. I should think most folks should be able to get at least 960x540 (16:9) out of it. The larger the frame size, the higher the bitrate requirement to get decent quality of course. And, depending on how bit demanding your film is, you will be able to get away with larger framesizes.

look in the 900 - 1070 kilobits/second range using multi-pass at 960x540.

Good luck to you guys. I hope to see some good compression this time around (as much as I'd love to be the only one with a big large frame size :) )

Later,
Jason

[totitefilms]

Jason,

Thanks for the tips. I got it working now.

[Wild Imagination Films]

Well hell, I just realized I edited the entire project, after shooting the entire project, in the wrong aspect ratio. So now my 16:9 render has black bars on either side.

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Crazyberns,
Just so you know 480x240 is a 2:1 aspect ratio.
The only ratios they are accepting for the fest are 16x9 and cinemascope.

My plan is the fit the 2:1 into a 16x9 frame and have black bars on the top/bottom.
Yes, but what if we are just cutting out the black bars? I mean, I know plenty of people who own 16:9 screens but they have devices to make them even wider, masking devices that come up from the bottom and down from the top in order to crop out black bars in 2:35:1 movies, or wider wider movies like Ben Hur.

If we are just removing black bars or if we crop our movies for a more WIDEscreen look isn't that fine?

Or do we really need to look at black bars at the top and bottom. Seems silly.


Mike

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Larry responded to my PM.


There are no resolution restrictions. Some people provide a 4:3 version with black bars, others crop to the resolution (preferred). Just make sure you stay at 50MB or under.:thumbsup:

[Rodney V. Smith]

what's everyne using to compress their stuff with anyway? I just got the Main Concept MP4 encoder and discovered the Premiere Pro CS3 will use that encoder. Just managed to finagle my settings to under 50MB but until the it finishes encoding, dunno what the quality will be...

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

I'm using QT Pro with great success.

[Robbie Comeau]

Final cut worked for me. 1060 bit rate and I was golden!

[ExtremeSleuth]

i'm having trouble getting my film down to 50 MB. i shot the film using a CineAlta F900. What would be the best way to compress it down and keep the widescreen ratio? i haven't used final cut enough yet.

[Jason Ramsey]

Try the settings I laid out in the above post.

Later,
Jason

[Jason Ramsey]

Just wanted to add:

It appears that a couple of entries had problems with audio not working on PC's. It appears that the entries in question used a mac and encoded with mp4 audio.

So, if any last minute folks happen to try those settings, it appears that AAC audio is going to be a better option for you if you are on a mac... Looks like something to do with the naming convention that is going on with the mac world. Just wanted to throw that out there in case folks are using my suggested settings. Don't want anyone thinking I'm trying to screw you :) So, to recap... if you are on a mac, might be best to avoid mpeg4 audio and stick with aac or something else.

Later,
Jason