Compression options

[Mal]

Alright, so I have a 5-minute video from a conference that I'm supposed to be preparing for online streaming/downloading. I'd like to get the file size down to 10MB or less, with less being better, but not at the loss of significant quality. Using HandBrake (I was merely given a DVD someone had made with this movie on it), I was able to get an .mp4 video that was 77MB, and an .avi that was only 11MB in size. However, compressing that file to anything smaller has turned out to be a real pain in the neck. I'm curious though, is .avi widely compatible, or should I attempt to keep it in either .mp4 or some other codec/compression scheme? Also, what methods do you suggest for compressing the video to a reasonable file size, using either Quicktime Pro or Final Cut Pro (I have both at my disposal, though Compressor doesn't seem to run on the machine I'm using at the moment, so it's not an option). That, or is there a combination of settings in HandBrake that will get me the desired results without the extra step of compression. The video results from HandBrake are near perfect quality, though I reduced the frame size to 320x240 and the frame rate to 15. I think I set the bitrate to 300 as well, though I experimented a few times and got not too different results, which surprised me.

Basically, any suggestions?

jW

 

[Mal]

Yeah, that's kinda along the lines of what I was thinking. Now, the avi file was near perfect quality, even though it was only 11MB, but I was wondering about the portability of that type. HandBrake's target file size didn't work though, I set it to 5MB with MPEG-4 compression, and it gave me that 77MB file I mentioned before. No clue why, but it's not exactly what I wanted.

I tried using Final Cut to export it smaller, using the options I've usually used for exports, and it was telling me it'd take like 5 hours. Quicktime Pro only took 10 minutes or so, but the video quality is very drastically reduced, below where I'd like it optimally. Should I just let Final Cut do it's thing, or was I doing something wrong probably?

jW

 

[ppc_michael]

Final Cut Pro will resample your video at a higher quality than Quicktime Pro will.

AVI compatibility depends on what codecs you're using (both audio and video). It's generally not the best choice for file format.

MPEG-1 (.mpg) is still the "standard" video format used on the web, although I don't think you would be happy with the quality under 10MB for your five-minute video.

I like to use Quicktime H.264 compression. I think you would be able to get that down to >10MB with acceptable quality.

Make sure, when you compress anything, that you're compressing both video and audio using the lowest settings you can tolerate for each of those entities separately. I think a lot of people forget about audio.

 

[banjomamo]

dont forget the audio bitrate. unless youve got music or sound effects you can crank that down to as low as 64kbs. that will give you some legroom.