Best compression settings of 60i for vimeo/youtube

Micah D

Member
Hi guys,

I'm new to this forum (well I've actually been reading a ton since I just got a DVX100b) so apologies if the answer to my question is already out there, but I'm pretty sure it isn't since I've scoured the boards.

Anyway, here goes:

What's the best way to compress 60i footage for the web if I want the best possible picture?

(I know upressing from 4:3 probably isn't the best idea, since a key element of the "news broadcast look" is the classic aspect ration, but I'm kinda okay with losing that in favour of a crisper image.)

No, I won't be using 60i ever again in the future, because apparently 24p squeezed is the best thing to upres with a DVX (although I'm still not sure how some guys get their SD footage to look so good, and I'd really love a tutorial for my future projects). The only reason I shot in 60i is because the video is a "news broadcast," and I've heard 60i is the "hard news" look.

Any help/insights are appreciated. Thanks in advance.

(And I've also read that websites don't even support 60i, so shooting 60i for the web was pretty useless then right?)
 
(And I've also read that websites don't even support 60i, so shooting 60i for the web was pretty useless then right?)

Yes. For the web, always shoot progressive.

To get a clean image, you will first have to de-interlace the footage. Without nice pre-processing tools your de-interlace will result in up to 50% reduction in resolution.

Then, you will need to zoom into the frame to fill the 16:9 image. Again, without a proper scaler, you are going to get a poor result.

Final Cut Pro does not have a good de-interlacer or scaler built in. There are scriptable tools like AVIsynth that do a fantastic job (windows only) but you'll spend weeks learning how to create a script to do such a thing.

In the future you will save yourself a lot of headache if you Shoot Progressive, and widescreen on your DVX100.

In terms of achieving a hard news look, it will be very difficult to do that with video sharing services online, since they all drop your framerate to 30fps, and 60fps is what really gives you a news broadcast cadence. To Deliver 60fps video online _today_ you will need to host it yourself on your own personal webserver using your own video player. Maybe in the future Youtube will support 720 60p.
 
Demistate, I think you are meaning to talk about, 60 fields per second, and not frames, right? In which case, the 720p wouldn't help as it is 60 frames, progressive.

OP, unfortunately for you, computer displays are progressive, which is why you would never get real 60i output on youtube. Because you shot interlaced, though, your video will still have more of the "video look," but may end up with frayed edged splitting when things move around, do to the deinterlacing.
 
Micah,

I am a 60i shooter since I shoot for DVD output. Best workflow I have found for Vimeo is to encode from your timeline with Windows Media Encoder. If you have it as a plug-in to your NLE fine. If not you can output an HQ .avi file from your NLE and encode with the free version of WME. WME will deinterlace the footage for you just "tick" the box. My encoder settings for HD video are:
- Use CBR at 12,000 kb/s for short projects (3-5 min.)
- Most slider bar to highest picture quality and or high motion.
- Use CBR for video set at 192 kbps, 48 khz
Remember that Vimeo will re-encode everything you upload so I give them big HQ files to start with. You can see the results and judge for yourself at http://vimeo.com/11245132
 
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