Imovie vs FCE for export to mobile me galleries

[senseless]

I'm using FCE to compress H264 quicktime vids for my Iweb galleries and they are usually 10megs per minute. I've reduced the audio and video quality to an acceptable level, but they take a long time to buffer. A friend sent me a similar quality and size HD vid that he exported from Imovie to his mobile me site and it loaded very quickly.

Is Imovie doing something different than I am to compress these videos so much more efficiently? He's using a Canon Avchd camera and I'm on a Canon HV20 tape camera (hi-def also)

 

[huntercr]

I'm using FCE to compress H264 quicktime vids for my Iweb galleries and they are usually 10megs per minute. I've reduced the audio and video quality to an acceptable level, but they take a long time to buffer. A friend sent me a similar quality and size HD vid that he exported from Imovie to his mobile me site and it loaded very quickly.

Is Imovie doing something different than I am to compress these videos so much more efficiently? He's using a Canon Avchd camera and I'm on a Canon HV20 tape camera (hi-def also)

What are your compression settings?

 

[senseless]

Hi. I'm using the following settings for Non-HD. HD is similar but wider format
Compression: H.264
Quality: High
Frame rate: 24
Key frames: Automatic
Frame reordering: no
Encoding mode:Best quality multi-pass
Data Rate: Automatic
Dimensions: 800x 600

Sound...
Format Integer: (Little Endian)
Sample Rate: 12k, Mono
Render quality: normal

 

[huntercr]

Hi. I'm using the following settings for Non-HD. HD is similar but wider format
Compression: H.264
Quality: High
Frame rate: 24
Key frames: Automatic
Frame reordering: no
Encoding mode:Best quality multi-pass
Data Rate: Automatic
Dimensions: 800x 600

Sound...
Format Integer: (Little Endian)
Sample Rate: 12k, Mono
Render quality: normal

Wow, you're killing your audio quality for very little gain. Don't worry about that as much as video.

Also since viewing from your website is your goal, you want to do things that accentuate streaming. It will end up with a large file, but it will be playable faster to the viewer so it will "look" like it downloads faster.

Try this and see if it doesn't give you better results for HD
Do this thought Quicktime Pro...

Video:
Compression: H.264
Frame rate: 24
Key frames: every 120 frames
Frame reordering: yes

Encoding: Best Quality ( multi pass )
Data Rate: Restrict to: 5000 kbits/sec
Dimensions: 800x450
Optimize for: Streaming

Sound:

Format : AAC
Channels: Mono
Rate: 44Khz
Show Advanced settings ( checked )

Render settings: Best
MPEG4 AAC LC Encoder Settings:
Encoding strategy: Variable Bit rate Constrained
Bit rate range: 32-36 kbps

( and back on the quicktime menu.... )
Prepare for Internet streaming: ( checked )
Fast Start Compressed Header


I set your resolution lower that you probably are used to here and the data rate is likely too high... do a test encode of a 30 second-1 minute clip and see how it looks at 5000kbit and then step it down to 4000... if it looks to bad, bring it back up to 4500, and continue until you find the sweet spot for your footage.

Hope this helps! ( and gives you good results! )

 

[senseless]

I tried that and the filesize doubled to about 80megs from 35. I then tried the 12kbs audio rate and that only reduced it by 5 mbs. This is a 2 minute file, regular DV, not HD that I did this with.

I do see that optimizing for streaming will help with throughput, if I can find a way to shrink the entire file.

 

[huntercr]

I tried that and the filesize doubled to about 80megs from 35. I then tried the 12kbs audio rate and that only reduced it by 5 mbs. This is a 2 minute file, regular DV, not HD that I did this with.

I do see that optimizing for streaming will help with throughput, if I can find a way to shrink the entire file.

You said you wanted to avoid them taking a long time to buffer. You didn't say you wanted the file size small too.

Anyway... if you have SD footage then set it to this:

640x480 ( or 640x360 for 16:9 ), 24fps, 1200kbits, and keep all other settings the same.

If you do want to sacrifice your audio, you can, of course, but at least make it variable bitrate, even if it's low end.

Other ways to squeeze this.... deinterlace first ( I would do this for anything bound for the web anyway ), lower your fps to 20, set your resolution to 512x384, 900kbits and keep all the other settings the same.

Like I said, though, play around with the settings. You are a much better judge at what quality level you can tolerate.

 

[senseless]

Yes, all good suggestions. The buffering was too slow with the last version, but I will experiment with what you said. Thanks!

 

[huntercr]

Yes, all good suggestions. The buffering was too slow with the last version, but I will experiment with what you said. Thanks!

You keep saying buffering, but I don't think I understand what you're saying.

What is "too slow" ?

 

[KeithPratt]

I'm assuming you mean you click the link or play button and then have to wait a while before the video starts to play. Right?

Is the whole video loading up before it will start? Do you have 'Prepare for Internet Streaming' checked and 'Fast Start' selected in the Export dialogue box?

Just to clarify, you're not streaming your video. What you're doing is a progressive download. Despite what I've said above using the term 'streaming', the Fast Start option actually optimises for progressive downloads.

Take a look here for some more general tips.

 

[senseless]

I'm assuming you mean you click the link or play button and then have to wait a while before the video starts to play. Right?

Is the whole video loading up before it will start? Do you have 'Prepare for Internet Streaming' checked and 'Fast Start' selected in the Export dialogue box?

Just to clarify, you're not streaming your video. What you're doing is a progressive download. Despite what I've said above using the term 'streaming', the Fast Start option actually optimises for progressive downloads.

Take a look here for some more general tips.

The video will load slowly and if the user clicks PLAY too soon, the data will not keep up and stop. I suppose the file is downloaded to the user and not really streaming. I do have streaming and fast start checked and you can play before it loads up completely.

I guess my question really is, What is Imovie doing to the movies it posts to mobile me? They load up and play much faster than my methods.

 

[huntercr]

The video will load slowly and if the user clicks PLAY too soon, the data will not keep up and stop. I suppose the file is downloaded to the user and not really streaming. I do have streaming and fast start checked and you can play before it loads up completely.

I guess my question really is, What is Imovie doing to the movies it posts to mobile me? They load up and play much faster than my methods.

It's possible mobileme uses a quicktime streaming server. If that's true, you can always create a hinted movie:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/hinttracks.html

Also, when you are playing the mobileme movies that you are comparing against... make sure to do the command I and command J options on the video to see the exact video bitrate and specifications. You can try to match yours to it.

But this should make no difference really unless you are really streaming, which you're not.

Have you had any luck finding your sweet spot for your videos? If download time is your main priority, lower that bitrate! If you go:

H.264 deinterlaced 640x480, 20fps, 720kbits, 80 frames per key, multipass, AAC mono 22KHz vbr audio

you might be pretty happy. This is all highly dependent on the subject matter in the video and how good is "good" in your own eye. ( this is why I picked such a high bitrate in the beginning )