Quicktime Optimization

[EclipseGc]

ok, for those of you who've visited my web site, you know that my movies are huge. For those of you who haven't it's http://kris.e-webindustries.com You can go see the hugeness of my pages and get back to me if you like.

Anyway, point being, I'd like to continue using quicktime but I'm not sure of the most effecient ways to optimize it. If someone could give me some pointers that'd be great. I'm using Sorenson 3 best/default currently.

Eclipse

[hrgiger]

I'd like to know that too because occasionally I like to post QT's so that I know that Mac users can see them also with little problem.

Generally though, I use DIVX for everything.

[EclipseGc]

nevermind, I figured it out on my own.

If your movie is just a little too big then you can get rid of a little size by setting the keyframes to be less often (QT default seems to be about 50) or if you want to get a specific file size then you can just use the "limit data rate" area and that does exactly as it says it does. Which just means that it will make the quality match your file size wishes. For example I took my TIE Fighter move (40 + mg) and told it I wanted it to be 2 mg. (data rate limited to 125k a sec for 16 seconds) and it turned out just great. Not as pretty as I'd like, but still it's hasn't lost anything really, so... I can't complain. And now the common man will be able to see my videos too (and dad won't get pissed about me eating his bandwidth)

Eclipse

[Zarathustra]

On my site I use Sorrenson 3, 15fps, maybe 64-95k/sec for half-sized clips.
For full size, I use divx.

I don't know why, but Sorrenson looks and compresses better for smaller sizes, and divx looks and compresses better for full size clips.

My full size, divx clips are between 2-4x the file size of my half sized clips.

I never use audio. Audio will kill your file size.

[drclare]

Audio is often needed though, and it doesn't kill your file size if you use pretty low quality. I never go below 22 Khz, and usually 8 bit mono or stereo if needed. I just compressed my demo reel, roughly 4.5 min, with sorenson 3, 150 K data rate, and the above audio settings, and got it down to 29 MB. Not bad.

Sorenson 3 is in my opinion the best compressor. I don't like the quality of divx, and quicktime MPEG-4 isn't that great either. The thing i hate about sorenson though is that it makes dark scene much darker, for some odd reasons. So i have to increase the brightness of dark scenes in an editing program to compensate for sorenson. Weird.

[Jimzip]

MPEG-4 is fantastic. An ingenious part of QT technology.
Of course lossy is not always going to give you sparkling Pixar quality movies, but there goes all you hopes of compressing your movie down if you don't use it.

With the right settings, I've compressed a 72MB movie into a 764kb one. You can notice the artefacts, but they don't stand out. (I'd say that's pretty darn good..)
Better still, anyone with Quicktime 6 can see them. There's no complaining about converting DivX's (Cripes that format should be hung and burned....:mad: ).

And if you have QT Pro, why not use it to put tests onto the web. Finals can be put up at less than a quarter of their original size, and quality loss is minimal, it looks a hell of a lot better than Sorenson, and the file sizes are smaller. >Whew<

Anyhoo, enough about the preachin, you do the research.

EclipseGC , if you really are set on using Sorenson, then try spacing the key frames, 8 or maybe even up to 25 depending on the file size you're aiming for. Spacing the keyframes means that the compression gives artefacts, as quality is lost. The movie will retain set steps at the keyframe points, but data in between them is damaged and lost, therefore resulting in yucky images. (That's why MPEG-4 is nicer. MPEG has a smarter encoding method that generally gives clearer and cleaner images, keyframes are still important tho.)


Anyway, I haven't ranted like that in a while, and I'm sorry if I bored anyone. Hope it helps in some way.

Jimzip :D

[EclipseGc]

Thanks, I'll explore that possibility then.

Eclipse

[hurts70]

why don't use the Realvideo9 format?
perfect for anime encoding...
i hate the Sorenson3 codec's behavior in low bitrate (200k or less)....

another choice is On2's vp3 codec (QT version), also does very well in low datatrate.

Sorenson is only for those "real" broadband users (let's say more than 700kbps)...but in that case,you can try XVID or WMV9...

[EclipseGc]

Ok, I'll give that a try sometime this week. If I could clean up the artifacts that I'm getting (they're very small) I'd be SUPER happy. So I'll try that soon.

Eclipse

[dbolto]

I've seen a few sites begin to use flash to encode movies, so I figured that I would try it and I liked the results. On my site I encoded the movies with sorenson and flash. Feel free to check em' out they'll give you a few laughs: www.dbolto.com

I need to create seperate webpages for each file so that the quicktimes show the progression bar loading as opposed to the white frame. I will be updating soon.

dbolto