Video for web

[Scot Free]

Any home editors out there?
I edit my own videos using Adobe Premiere 6 and I've gotten pretty good at it! I have a 4 minute video that I am trying to compress to an appropraite size for my website. I have been doing trial and error with different exporting formats and can't seem to get one small enough. I have Easy Cleaner and got some nice size files except the quality sucks, there are vertical lines through the vid.

Trial and error is O.K. and I'm sure I'll stumble across the right settings but the compression process is dreadfully slow (from 3-20 hours).

Any suggestions?

P.S. Please don't tell me to go get a Mac, I spent a fortune building an extremly fast high powered P.C. when I knew all along what I needed was a Mac. Doh! Next time.

[ 02-07-2002: Message edited by: Scot Free ]</p>

[Jim]

Scot,

Get an iMac for $799-$999.

Then use iMovie (free) to edit your tape.

Then spend $399 on the Sorenson Pro 3.1 Compression codec. [This is the KEY step everyone forgets.]

Then compress your movie into a nice, crisp, small Quicktime file.

Upload to the web.

OK, you can probably do this with a PC, but the key step is the compression software. Sorenson 3.1 PRO is the standard in the industry for compressing into Quicktime. I learned this after going all the way to Macworld and asking about a dozen video pros. The one guy to actually explain it to me was a Sorenson rep.

Spending hours editing a movie with the fastest computer and the best software will mean nothing if you compress it with Cleaner Lite. That's like spending hours preparing a gourmet meal with the finest ingredients and then serving it on paper plates.

The last step (compression) is critical and shouldn't be skimped on.

http://www.sorenson.com

[ 02-08-2002: Message edited by: Jim ]</p>

[Scot Free]

Sorensen eh? Yup checked out their site and it looks good-thanks!
I think I'll ask around to see if any of my friends have this app. as I don't wanna drop $700 CDN if I'm only really going to use it a couple of times.
For the record I am currently drooling over the G4 powerbook. Someday perhaps.
Thanks for the tip.

[Steven Ragatz]

Sorenson is currently a good way to go for delivering video when extreme data compression is needed. You should also consider streaming versions that don't requiring the user to download the entire file at once. Quicktime and RealMovie are formats that are currently very popular, and support streaming. Keep in mind that if you go with Quicktime, Sorenson compression, that PC users may or may not have Quicktime installed on their machines. It is standard for the Macintosh, but Macs represent a significantly smaller proportion of the world desktops. Not to say that you can’t or shouldn’t use it, but you may want to offer the user the option of choosing a format.

Rather than choking on the expense of setting up an inline digital video studio just so you can drop a handful of postage stamp sized movie clips on your web site, why don’t you take your Premiere files to a digital video house and have them process it for you? These days, it should be much cheaper, and faster, than buying a custom setup and doing them yourself.

Steve

PS. We use Media Cleaner Pro for our video processing. It provides some easy to use batch processing capabilities, and we have it on a dedicated machine, so you can run compression batches that last several hours, or days, without needing to interrupt the batch. It seems to work well, and although it is on a Macintosh, I am sure that there are comparable products for the PC.

[ 03-26-2002: Message edited by: Steven Ragatz ]</p>

[jonnyflash]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!!!
My pal Adam has the software and hardware to turn your HUGE mpeg or avi movie file into a very quick loading Quicktime movie file.
And he's a swell guy.Contact him via the email below.He'll get your file over the net, and send it back to you or upload it on your website.Easy as Poo!

ajh@amphibiousdesigns.com

[Stretch]

any updates?

Anything new on compressing videos since the last post?

Thanks