Which size and compression method for web HD?

[CrEsTo]

I'm gonna stream a small interview for web, I recorded it in 1080i with my Canon HV20.

After editing it's 2 1/2 minutes and it's about 350MB.

How should I compress it and what size would you recommend for web?

Of course I want it to load as fast as possible on the website... in the end is an interview so I don't need that much quality.

Thanks

 

[decksnap]

You should probably do some tests... but I've found somewhere between 800 and 1200 kbps, H264, 128kbps AAC does the trick... as far as pixel dimensions, if you really want to leave it as HD the file is going to be large. I would drop it down to maybe 720x480 or smaller.

 

[Bonesone4]

Im having the same issue although video quality is extremely important to me. It seems no matter what I do or how I compress the video I cant get the video to "look HD" like it does on my computer.

 

[bmcgonag]

Im having the same issue although video quality is extremely important to me. It seems no matter what I do or how I compress the video I cant get the video to "look HD" like it does on my computer.

What software are you using as far as editing and compressing?

Brian

 

[huntercr]

I'm gonna stream a small interview for web, I recorded it in 1080i with my Canon HV20.

After editing it's 2 1/2 minutes and it's about 350MB.

How should I compress it and what size would you recommend for web?

Of course I want it to load as fast as possible on the website... in the end is an interview so I don't need that much quality.

Thanks

Does an interview really need to stay 1080i? There's nothing much to look at, is there? Very very few people will be able to enjoy your segment online at that resolution, and it will kill you on bandwidth. You could leave it higher resolution like 720x480 anamorphic, but if you are creating it for the web, I'd knock it down to I'd knock that baby way down down to no more than 640x360 or even 512x288 and leave it interlaced, 2 pass H.264 with decksnap's recommendations on bitrate. Try 20FPS and see if you can tolerate it. You should be able to go pretty darn low on bitrate since I'm guessing you've got very little motion.

 

[dave@toastmedia]

The h264 format is definitely the bomb for the file-size problem.
the older format prior to H26 was the sorenson codec for filesize.

Reduce the audio as well down to 22khz and go for mono to reduce it even more.

You can even double the size of a Quicktime movie using the scale parameter.

'scale','1.5'
'scale','2'
'scale','3'

You save the actual data size with a smaller size and a slightly larger displayed frame when viewing in the webpage.

It can cause a problem when you go too high with regards to pixel jaggies.

Here is an example of this aspect in working progress.
http://www.toastmedia.com.au/vid_home_fictions.php
The original file format is .5 smaller then what your viewing.

If your not a code monkey you can access a free program to set all this up for you.
http://www.qtbridge.com/pageot/pageot.html
Its a frenchy frog program but worth the download.

My web page also has the source code for how I achieved it.

remember also that a quicktime movie has a little more vertical space for the control panel so you need to add a little vertical buffer of pixels or the controls will appear to be cut off.