best compression for HD

[MasterPride]

What are the best compression setting for exporting HD footage. I want to post full HD footage on youtube, but I do not live in a country that really gives its customers a huge bandwidth. I exported 30 seconds of HD footage, and it was 17MB, then I exported something later on and forgot the settings and it came out as 500MB for 1:30. So I'm really wondering what would be the best compression while still keeping the HD quality. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[spinnerlys]

With what software are you working, FCE, iMovie, something else?
Also what is the resolution of the video - 1920 x 1080p/i or 1440 x 1080p/i or 1280 x 720p?

I always export a video with excellent quality settings, using the codec that was used for editing.
I use Avid Media Composer, so that might differ from your software.

As I edit SD mostly and with DV and DigiBeta material mixed, I export a QuickTime Reference file and then use MPEG Streamclip to transcode the video to a properly encoded format.

When I use the H264 codec (good for YouTube) I always select the MultiPass option, quality is set to 100%, I use the Limit Date Rate option (with which you can control the final file size) and the MPEG-4 AAC audio setting.

 

[chrismacguy]

Slow Internet is the reason I deliberately shoot all my videos in SD - even then a 5-10 minute Youtube movie can end up being on the wrong side of a GB or so. (When I compress stuff at all Im whacking it into Compressor. As spinner asked, what software do you want the settings for).

 

[MasterPride]

Oh, sorry about that. I'm using FCP, with full HD 1920x1080i. Yeah, i just have an issue about shooting in SD. I just want the previous settings I had and am having trouble getting just the right quality and size. I don't want to use any 3rd party software because FCP can do it.

 

[CaptainChunk]

If you're using FCP, I'd recommend using Compressor.

Ken Stone has a good tutorial on how to properly encode video for the web:

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/compressor_h-264_movies_fcp.html

To keep the file size down, I'd limit the data rate to 2000-3000 kbits/sec. If you don't set a value, Compressor will make the largest file it can. For a 1:30 video, the file size should fall somewhere between 20-30MB using a 2000-3000 kbit/sec data rate.

 

[totoum]

quality is set to 100%, I use the Limit Date Rate option (with which you can control the final file size)

Could be wrong,but there's no point in setting the quality at 100% if you're going to limit the bitrate,the bitrate you choose is going to determine the quality,you could put the quality slider at 100% or 1% and it wouldn't make a difference.

 

[spinnerlys]

Could be wrong,but there's no point in setting the quality at 100% if you're going to limit the bitrate,the bitrate you choose is going to determine the quality,you could put the quality slider at 100% or 1% and it wouldn't make a difference.

That sounds logical. So it will do no harm if I let it stay that way anyway.

I will try it with 1% the next time to see if there is a difference.