Need urgent help please on project exporting

[Luis Ortega]

I have a simple 7-minute project on FCP 7 that consists of still images from the internet and hand drawn images with a few animated elements.
It has only one audio track and two video tracks. I am using PAL DV size format. I am in the UK.
I exported it using quicktime conversion with H264 compression and good quality and the final file size was 125MB.

My urgent problem is that I need to upload this file to a university website for an online course in two days, and their file size limit is 50 MB.
I need to make sure that the teacher can play the file, and I need to get it down to a smaller file size for uploading.

I have tried all sorts of exporting from FCP. I tried avi, m4v (the setting said ipod and it produced the m4v file), and quicktime mov at different sizes like 1/4vga size. The best file size was 29 mb for the m4v ipod export, and 98mb for the qt mov file exported at medium quality. The avi file grew to 1.2gb!

I don't know if the m4v file is playable on the system that the teacher uses (she is on a windows computer).

Can anyone please give me some specific advice on how to create a smaller video file that is more universally compatible?

I have access to all of the FCP 7 suite and the Adobe CS6 suite which includes Premiere Pro, Prelude and Adobe Media encoder, if that helps.
Thanks a lot for any advice.

 

[MrPlayer66]

Have you tried using compressor? I'd try compressing it to a file format that YouTube or Vimeo can read.

 

[Luis Ortega]

Have you tried using compressor? I'd try compressing it to a file format that YouTube or Vimeo can read.

Not yet.
I exported directly from the FCP timeline sequence, which is PAL DV, using h264.
I also exported a copy using the PAL DV settings of the timeline and the file was 1.6gb!

Could I send the exported h264 file to Compressor, or should I use the huge PAL DV export in Compressor?

Do you think that Compressor will make a smaller file from the PAL DV file than what FCP was able to do when I exported the file as h264?

I was thinking of uploading it to youtube but I have never used youtube before.
What type of file format is best for youtube?
Quicktime mov? Something else?

Thanks for your quick reply.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Export from FCPX as ProRes then run the exported file through handbrake using the high profile preset. It will yield a very small file size in H.264.

If that doesn't get it down to the size you need, slide the quality setting up a notch or two (to 21 or 22, which is reducing the output quality slightly; yes, higher numbers yields lower quality) and render it again. If that doesn't work, slide it up another notch or two and render again.

 

[Luis Ortega]

Export from FCPX as ProRes then run the exported file through handbrake using the high profile preset. It will yield a very small file size in H.264.

If that doesn't get it down to the size you need, slide the quality setting up a notch or two (to 21 or 22, which is reducing the output quality slightly; yes, higher numbers yields lower quality) and render it again. If that doesn't work, slide it up another notch or two and render again.

Thanks, I will give that a try.