DVX Compression settings for Vimeo?

[righteous.]

I followed the guidelines on vimeo's website:

h.264
29.97 framerate
29.97 key frames
2000 kb/s data rate
640 x 480

This is how it turns out:
http://www.vimeo.com/10040987

*password: meow

Why does it look so bad? The edges are either muddy or blocky, and the image looks really noisy.

 

[Demistate]

Sorry, "A Weekend at Hood" was deleted at 4:07:13 Tue Mar 9, 2010. We have no more information about it on our mainframe or elsewhere.

I'm going to take a couple of guesses why things might look so bad.

With most clients I've had issues with them using Quicktime to create h.264 files. Also there is a gamma shift introduced as Quicktime wants to convert your gamma 2.2 to gamma 1.8 (to match mac gamma).

What you see in your NLE's editing window is sRGB color space at gamma 2.2. Even in FCP, if your monitor is set to gamma 1.8 (default for 10.5 and below) you will see a gamma correted image to approximiate what you will see at gama 2.2

I would recommend that you double check your gamma on a 2.2 gamma corrected device (anything other than a mac)

If you shot on a DVX-100 in a non progressive mode there is also the issue of de-interlacing the footage. Seek a professional compressionist to get the highest quality de-interlacing possible if this is for a paying client.

I would point you to a professional compressionst, but Jarred doesn't want me to without becoming a paid sponsor.

 

[righteous.]

I'm going to take a couple of guesses why things might look so bad.

With most clients I've had issues with them using Quicktime to create h.264 files. Also there is a gamma shift introduced as Quicktime wants to convert your gamma 2.2 to gamma 1.8 (to match mac gamma).

What you see in your NLE's editing window is sRGB color space at gamma 2.2. Even in FCP, if your monitor is set to gamma 1.8 (default for 10.5 and below) you will see a gamma correted image to approximiate what you will see at gama 2.2

I would recommend that you double check your gamma on a 2.2 gamma corrected device (anything other than a mac)

If you shot on a DVX-100 in a non progressive mode there is also the issue of de-interlacing the footage. Seek a professional compressionist to get the highest quality de-interlacing possible if this is for a paying client.

I would point you to a professional compressionst, but Jarred doesn't want me to without becoming a paid sponsor.

fix'd:
http://vimeo.com/10045672

The thing is, it looks totally fine in Quicktime...it's crisp and clean. Once I get it into Vimeo, the entire thing goes soft on me!
Its not too horrible, but I wonder how other people are able to get SD footage to look so crisp on Vimeo...

 

[Demistate]

fix'd:
http://vimeo.com/10045672

The thing is, it looks totally fine in Quicktime...it's crisp and clean. Once I get it into Vimeo, the entire thing goes soft on me!
Its not too horrible, but I wonder how other people are able to get SD footage to look so crisp on Vimeo...

It looks like you're not doing a high quality de-interlace to your footage. I'm pretty sure that the deinterlacing tools in FCP are pretty poor. Telestream episode pro has some decent de-interlacing pre-processing abilities, but its a very expensive piece of software.

Getting DV footage to look clean at 640x480 30P is difficult for most NLE software to do because you are scaling the footage, and de-interlacing it.