Looking for WMV settings

[Capt Quirk]

I'm trying to get the optimal video, while keeping the file size low... duh huh
I tried using PP2's media encoder, but between it giving errors and not giving enough options, I'm not satisfied. I can get the clips pretty, or I can get them small, but I want both. Now before you say it, I intend to use Windows Media for live webcasts, so I want to keep the player for clips too.

Using Windows free media encoder, I have several new options that weren't available in Premiere, but not quite sure how to set them. I know that 2 pass VBR yields better results, and my audio is set at 48kbps 44khz VBR. My video is video bit rate is currently set at 256kbps. Where should I set frame rate and key frames?

 

[MikeGunter]

Hi,

If you intend to go live, 2-pass won't really be an option, so I'm unclear as to why you brought it up - I might be misunderstanding something.

Audio at 48KHz eats up a lot bandwidth, too, and unless you have a compelling reason to broadcast in high fidelity, I certainly would ratchet that back a lot, too, say in the 22KHz range, and encode it at something around 20Kb/s or so.

A part of what you need to come to grips with is what you can live with in the size of your video's resolution. Assuming you start with SD at 720x480 and it will be resized to a PAR (pixel aspect ratio) of 1.0 to 640x480, do you really need it that big? Can you live with 320x240? That reduces the screen real estate by 75%.

Reducing saturation by even a tiny bit helps reduce color information for the encoding and thus saves some bits for the streaming. That will depend upon what the content is, and how the saturation will impact the content. A slight reduction might warrant the savings in compression. In a live broadcast, you can do this with a low contrast filter, and/or some of the de-saturation filters in the cameras.

A lot of other elements are key, too, such as your upstream capacity. How much stress are you going to be putting on your server? Will it be streaming from your workstation? That sort of thing.

Going live, you might have limited choices in that certain software will likely recognize what you have. You'll need to live the choices on your palette. :evil:

 

[Capt Quirk]

Hey Mike- I recognize the Glacier Lilly name, and seem to remember there were some nice clips.

As for most of the whys you had, the site in question is www.guitargarage.tv , and I am focusing on guitar music videos. Take a look, and you might see where I am going. I am placing high emphasis on the audio, because it is to me more important than the video.

What I am starting off with is 720P HDV, and my final wmv's are 378x238. I tried them at 29.97 fps, and they did ok for me, but not everyone will have DSL. So I dropped them down to 15 fps, but didn't like it. Right now I am trying 19.75 fps, and it looks ok.

The live stuff is still in the planning stage. I want a couple more cameras, a switcher, and need to find a different web host. I'm also going to be moving in a couple months, which might give me different options for internet connections. I remember SurfGuru.com used to use WME to capture and RoadRunner to stream their live stuff, using a PC on location to upload the live feed to the server. That was the route I thought would work for me too.