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Encoding Videos for Online Viewing

3.583.583.583.583.5876votes
Author: Shiv Kumar
Views: 30226Favorited: 0 Favorite It Comments: 116
May 22, 2008 05:54 AM
Filed Under: FAQ
Tags: Help, Video Encoding

Encoding Videos for Online Viewing

Encoding videos for online viewing purposes can be a daunting subject for a lot of us. To make things more confusing you have a multitude of “containers” (Quick time, Flash Video, Windows Media etc.) and a multitude of codecs (Encoders/Decoders) and most containers typically support many if not all codecs. So the choices available in just the combination of containers and codecs alone are huge.

Quality Of Video

The quality of video is primarily governed by the Video Bit rate used during encoding. The eventual file size is also directly proportional to the Video Bit rate used during encoding. The larger the dimensions of the encoded video, the higher the video bit rate needs to be in order to maintain the quality of video.

Encoding Settings for HD Video

If your video is HD we recommend the following:

  1. Dimensions 1280x720
  2. VBR 2 Pass
  3. Video Bit Rate of 4500-5000Kbps
  4. Audio Bit Rate of 128-320Kbps
For audio, make sure the source audio’s bit rate is higher than the audio bit rate setting you use. Most MP3 files available online are encoded at a bit rate of 128Kbps and lower. So if your source audio is 128Kbps then use this setting for your audio. In other words the audio bit rate you use during encoding should never be higher than the original. The same goes for video too but the settings mentioned above are well below the original HD source video’s bit rate.

FCP Users: The “best” quality is no good for HD video. So please override the settings and use those mentioned above.
 
Another article that will give you a deeper insight into Bit Rates and the relationship between video and audio quality and file size is

 Exporting Recommendations for Final Cut Pro

For those members who use Final Cut Pro below, are some screen shots with recommended settings.
 

 

 
 
 

Do your Quicktime movies seem a little washed out?

If you are working on a Mac, you might find the video looking “washed out” once it is uploaded to ExposureRoom.  The same QuickTime file that was produced on a Mac will appear less saturated when played on a Windows PC.  The link below is to an article written by one of our members, Marco Menestrina on how to solve this problem.

 

Comments



Marlon Diaz    July 03, 2008 06:51 PM

HD is the best. if you guys use apple compressor for encoding i have a preset i can email u to convert your videos to HD. preset is: quicktime h.264, dimensions 1280x720, video bit rate at 3000kbps. the quality is great.you can peep some HD videos i got uploaded around the internet, you can search "mad vision productions" on Vimeo.com , Dailymotion.com , and see my HQ music videos shot with Canon XH-A1.

Shiv Kumar    July 03, 2008 07:21 PM

Marlon,

So what's stopping you from uploading your videos here. Our quality is far superior than any other website :).

Christian Carmona    July 25, 2008 02:40 AM

Muchas gracias

Gracias Marlon, la verdad a mi me sirvió mucho tu ayuda.

Stef Chalang    August 24, 2008 10:56 AM

Best Online Video!

I have tried them all..... Vimeo, Dailymotion, Youtube, Google etc... XR has the best definition, best audio... smooth delivery, easy upload...
Love it... so far. I hope not all viewers will have tu upgrade their Flash Player like I did have to... but, hey, everybody should have the latest one... so they can watch my fantastic content ;-)

Suggestion: would be nice to be able to choose the frame used for the thumbnail...

Good show! Splendid app... good luck.

Stef

Shiv Kumar    August 24, 2008 11:10 AM

Stef,

Welcome to ExposureRoom! Thanks for the wonderful compliments! Your suggestion is already a feature.

I'm going to point you to our news page. This page has all the features and things that have been added over time. In there you'll find the all sorts of goodies!
http://exposureroom.com/news/
Or you could click on the Thumbnail link next to one of your assets.

Pablo Sommer    September 18, 2008 04:07 PM

Compression at FCP

Hi Shiv. I tryning to post a video in EX but I can´t get the best compression. May be you can help me.
My video is 720 native. HD.
When I try to export I can´t find VBR 2 Pass. In FCP I go to
export/using quicktime conversion/ and the optiones a use are:
compression H264
data rate restrict 3500
quality best
size> 1280 x 720

BUT... I can't have nice quality. Some ideas?

thanks

Pablo

Theodore Salido    October 06, 2008 04:24 AM

Vegas mpeg compression

Hi,

Can you help me what settings to use to upload my video. I'm using sony Vegas 8.

Thanks and more power

Ajay Miranda    October 09, 2008 11:22 PM

FCP compression: mp4 vs h.264

I've seen some videos here where the source file is as big or bigger than anything I've uploaded, but the compressed streaming version has a file size that's a fraction of what my videos' compressed versions end up with. I'm wondering how that happens. My FCP export settings are .MOV files with MP4 encoding at 4400 kbps. Is it because I'm using MP4 instead of H.264? Other than that, I don't know why my streaming videos are huge (triple-digit megabytes) when files of equal length are a fraction of that. Any advice is appreciated.

Ian MacLean    October 25, 2008 01:04 PM

Frame rate v video bit rate

I'm still researching this, but I assume that encoding to a limited video bit rate makes the frame rate of the film irrelevant. In other words, whether the short is 24fps or 30fps becomes irrelevant as the variable bit rate encoding will reduce the original quality regardless. Another way to ask would be, what is the video bit rate of uncompressed 720p30?

Daniel Adderley    November 21, 2008 10:05 PM

I've got an 848 x 480 that comes out of huge no matter how I compress it. Trying for a mov with h.264 out of premier, any tips?

Shiv Kumar    November 22, 2008 10:39 AM

Daniel,

What are you trying to do withyour video? How long (minutes) is your video? Have you read the blog post this article points to?

Edward Curley    December 04, 2008 11:39 AM

Adobe CS3 Encoding for the Internet

Hello
We have projects for which we have successfully output to Flash (flv files)using On2VP6 codec and also to standard DVD (mpg-2) using the Adobe-packaged Main Concept encoder. I wanted to experiment with H.264 on one of my projects. I followed your advice ( I think I did) i.e.
1. Dimensions 1280x720
2. VBR 2 Pass
3. Video Bit Rate of 3000-3500Kbps (target 30; max 35)
4. Audio Bit Rate of 192-224Kbps
5. Deinterlaced output

The source assets are Sony HDV 1440 x 1080
We have Matrox RT.X2 and we always select that menu item for encoding rather than the Adobe option since they appear to be identical.

The sequence is about 4 minutes. The resulting file was about 750 mg. As an MPG-4 file, it opened with Quicktime. However, the playback was very jerky and within 30 seconds the A/V went badly out of synch.

What have we done wrong?

Shiv Kumar    December 05, 2008 01:19 PM

Edward,

The A/V out of sync issue is related to a difference in framerates between the original and the encoded version.

Please also note that unless your original audio is actually 192-224Kbps, setting and audio bitrate that high is simply adding to the file size without adding any quality sound. So ensure that your audio is in fact better quality than 224Kbps.

Jerky playback is an indication (most times) of a bitrate that is too high (for the machine you're playing back on). So unless you're hardware is really good and you know for a fact that it can handle the bitrate I wouldn't be too concerned.

Sorry I can't give specifics, but I hope I've given you enough direction.

Edward Curley    December 06, 2008 12:53 PM

Hardware is fast

Shiv
I have a twin dual core machine designed by One Beyond and is dedicated to editing. It should be fast enough. But let's say the bit rate is too high. What is your recommended level for a VBR 2 pass in terms of both target and maximum bit rate?

Shiv Kumar    December 20, 2008 10:54 AM

Edward,

I'm not sure I understand your question. Would you mind explaining clearly what you're trying to figure out?

Marcel Garbi    December 20, 2008 12:23 PM

Sorry, I deleted the previous post.

Anyway, my question was about why transcoding a 720 X 576 widescreen PAL SD (16:9) video into 720 X 404 in its HD version.
I expected to find a wider version online instead of a less high one, as a result of squaring the mpeg rectangular pixels ;)

That's all.

Thanks for this lovely site and your support.

Dave Allen    December 23, 2008 12:41 AM

Contradictory bit rate setting info

I did notice that the written bitrate suggestion was 3000-3500kbps, but the screencap from FCP for outputting an HD video shows the frame rate set at 5000kbps. The two suggested settings, one text, one an image contradict each other, so if you can correct that so we know if it should be 3000-3500 per the text or 5000 kbps per the image.

I did find elsewhere that although XR can handle HD video files of any size, the max recommended is 1 gig. So that we don't have to read through al the various posts, it would be nice if that info in a post was incorporated into the FAQ's.

Another poster mentioned he doesnt' see a VBR2 output setting when exporting/compressing in FCP in the H.264 setting, and I see that question was not addressed, so if you all can respond to that...

Thanks!

Shiv Kumar    December 23, 2008 10:41 AM

Hi Dave,

You observations and suggestions are bang on. The screen captures were provided by an XR member since we don't have FCP ourselves. As a result no one at XR has been able to answer the outstanding question (VBR 2 pass) either.

If you use FCP (or other members listneing in), we'd be thrilled to receive FCP screen captures as well has address the VBR 2 pass question.

Please post your images as well as any FCP related tips/techniques to one of the newgroups so we can roll them up into the FAQs.

Thanks.

steven siegel    January 01, 2009 10:30 PM

Your suggestions regarding frame size, bit rate, etc are fine, but more basic is what Codec to use. As you mentioned, there are just so many, but it must be possible to narrow down the field. I have been playing with those in Premiere Pro 2, and find that those intended for Internet use give tiny files (1-3 MB for a 30 second clip at 640 x 360 pixels) and poor quality, while exporting as a "movie" using Quick Time, or Window Media gives huge files that stutter. Flash produces files in kilobytes! Can you suggest a happy medium for HD video?

Dave Allen    January 01, 2009 10:56 PM

I will have to look at the vbr thing..I have never seen it, but I am not expert.

I use DVKitchen to take a full size QT HDV video and output it.....what an awesome program that is, as if I can figure it out, anyone can! lol

Shiv Kumar    January 02, 2009 12:44 PM

Codecs

Steven,

This article is about encoding HD video for online purposes. As for codecs, you can use any one of the following:
1. h.264 (Quicktime, Flash video and Windows Media support this codec)
2. On2VP6 (Flash video supports this codec)
3. VC1 (Windows Media supports this codec)

The thing to remember is that the codec is separate from the video format and not all tools support all combinations.

If you're uploading to XR, Windows media, Quicktime and Flash video formats are preferred.

All 3 of the codecs listed above do well for online viewing purposes. They are optimized to produce a good quality at low bit rates.

Stuttering simply means your hardware is not able to support the bit rate the video is encoded at. Playing back a video entails decompressing every frame before playing it and that taxes the hardware.

Hope that helps?

steven siegel    January 02, 2009 06:07 PM

Shiv,
Thanks for your always prompt and helpful answers. Can you take another question?
It says somewhere on the ER site that three formats of a video will be offered: Low quality, medium and high definition. My material is always uploaded as HD (I think), but I can't find an option to play it that way, only low and medium quality. Where do you look for the HD button?

Shiv Kumar    January 02, 2009 06:16 PM

Steven,

If you upload a video that has dimensions of 1280x720 (also known as 720p), the system will generate an HD version along with the low and medium. So you'll see 3 buttons (Low, Md, HD) instead of 2.

Check out any of the Editor's choice video on the XR home page to see what to expect. Looking at your videos, I see that you've uploaded videos with a width of 640, as a result you see only the Low and Md buttons.

Zimema Mhone    January 12, 2009 11:11 PM

Spot On

Thanks for this article, I have been messing around with various approaches and you give me a few simple screenshots and I am sorted. However, I can see that filming MUST be done with the encoding process in mind. E.G. my colour corrected bits washed out and needed to be pushed back a bit.

All in all, one happy customer - thx again!

Uprise Films    January 25, 2009 01:57 PM

Audio Compression, better with a higher bit rate?

Hi Shiv

I can't follow you on your recommendations for audio settings. Have you ever used mp3 files to burn an audio CD and then tried to convert the audio CD back to mp3? The result sounds horrible! That is becuase you will have converted the same audio file into mp3 TWICE.

When my original audio file is AIFF (or WAV, CD quality) I have no problem to convert it to 128kb (mp3 or AAC) it will always sound very close to CD quality, most people won't notice any difference.

BUT when the original file is already a 128kb mp3, I will need to convert it to AIFF (WAV) in order to edit it and use it in my video project. Then when I'm going to compress the final version of the video project, if I choose 128kb for audio, it will sound as crappy as a mp3 file that has been compressed twice (as in the first example with burning audio CDs from mp3 and converting back). So when the audio is being compressed for the second time, I will choose a fairly high bit rate, in order to not totally massacre the sound.

NOW as I understand it, there will even be a third compression: I don't know which codec XR is using, but any video portal will usually convert the uploaded video file into their own specific format (flash for example). So after uploading my video file to XR, you guys will most likely convert it into your own format and will probably compress the audio AGAIN. Or have I gone wrong in some part?

If I'm not totally wrong, if it wasn't for band width limitations, one should upload the original uncompressed video file to XR and let all the compression be done exclusively by XR. I know it's impossible to upload several GB for a one minute video, but in theory that would result in the best possible quality, right?

Eddi

Shiv Kumar    January 27, 2009 07:47 AM

Eddi,

XR transcodes the videos uploaded by members, meaning the uploaded video is first decompressed and then re-encoded. So it's not compression over compression as you might think. Nonetheless, the video will decompress to the quality you set it to when you encoded.

The reason behind this article was to inform members on what encoding settings to use for the purposes on online video, given that there will be a transcode eventually. This (the transcoding process) pertains to the video and audio, both.


MP3 files should be used as is. It's important to know the bitrate of the MP3 files so as to set the audio bitrate accordingly. That is to say that the audio bitrate should never be set higher than the "original" (the MP3 file you're using as the source), but can be set to lower upto 128kbps.

XR transcodes audio at 128kbps.

A.J. Carter    January 28, 2009 11:01 PM

Thanks Shiv for explaining!

steven siegel    February 10, 2009 02:50 PM

Uploading HD video

Hi Shiv,
I have been trying to upload a 5 minute HD video. As per your instructions, it is 1280x720, with all other parameters (bit rate, etc) in your recommended range. The length of time to upload was 17 hours, and before finishing, an error caused it to fail. There has to be a better way. I use DSL 512 kbps, all that's available here.

Hi Focused Productions    February 21, 2009 11:34 AM

SD encoding?

what's the best settings for 4:3 SD encoding out of FCP?

James Birney    March 07, 2009 09:18 AM

Flash Video

I learned how to create flash video with adobe flash CS3. As a webdesigner these flash files work great. My question is can these flash video files be used for uploading to host sites such as ER / youtube type sites and if so which of the three files created in flash do you upload. I am glad I found ER, quality videos have been the biggest challenge uploaded to host sites. I hope to help generate traffic to your site with my videos bringing you to the forefront of video hosting sites.

Lance Becker    March 07, 2009 11:40 AM

For 1440x1080 HDV users

Many of you may have a problem exporting for web with 1440x1080 HDV footage with FCP. Wether your using compressor or quicktime to maintain your aspect ratio when moving to square pixels the export resolution needs to be adjusted. 1440x1080 does not have square pixels so the equivalent in square pixels is 1440x810.

So for you users that have trouble maintaining your aspect ratio with your HDV footage when exporting for the web. The solution is:

Original 1440x1080 non-square pixels

Web Export 1440x810 square pixels

This can be achieved in both Quicktime and Compressor

Hanno di Rosa    April 10, 2009 11:37 AM

New here

Hello, just subscribed and am compressing an 18 minute HD file down from 8 gb to 400 something mb to upload here and see what its going to look like after many unsatisfactory tries elsewhere.
Since I am thinking of using XR to give preview to my collaborators, I appreciate the password protection feature!!

edit*
Now the video is online, its password protected and I can invite people without forcing them to register!
Shiv Kumar, you did it !! this site wins!! The quality is superb, streaming is buffered well and excellent, I am very happy!

Chris Stokes    April 29, 2009 10:42 AM

pertaining to videos headed to XR, would XR keep the following without recoding?

640x360
29.97 fps
x.264 crf(constant quality) 18, level 3, (averaged 421.24 kb/s)
48khz 16bit stereo 160kbps aac-lc
mp4

was running into youtube recoding my stuff and dropping the stereo sound, forcing me to encode in flv, then they dropped that too.
went on youtube strike afterwards; donno if they fixed that or not.

Steve Mullen    May 01, 2009 08:17 PM

STILL WAITING FOR ANSWER >>> 720p60 Frame Rates supported????

Many are now working with 720p60. When you (XR) transcode 1280x720 and it has a frame rate of 59.94, what does the transcoding do? Pass through the 60p? Drop every other frame to yield 30p?

Thank you.

Chris Stokes    May 05, 2009 08:39 AM

Transcoding basically means converting one format to another.
(from wiki: Transcoding is the direct digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding to another.)

Most of my material is actually 30fps drop frame (29.97), or 24fps drop frame (23.976). Rarely do I have 60fps material.

x264 is a windows freeware h.264 encoder, and yes there is a need ^_^
While from dvd sources I do try to take it right from mpeg2 to h.264 in the same pass(dvd to mp4 in itself is transcoding), more often than not i work with xvid.

When I do video editing however, I either use huffyuv (lossless, but VERY big files, say almost 1 to 2 gigs a minute), 3ivx (not lossless, but very clean mpeg4..way better than xvid), or lead mjpeg (both lossless and lossy).
Either way, my local work material is usually mpeg4/mp3/avi, my webform is h264/aac/mp4.

My mp4's work with flash fine,in fact im using that system on a personal site. All I'm trying to find out is if XR's system will force a recode of my videos, or pass them through.

Thanks

Nick Johnson    May 07, 2009 06:17 PM

I'm getting a "connection with the server was reset" message after my video is uploaded

I'm trying to upload video files in WMV format, standard definition 720x480 pixels. After one file loaded successfully, I've tried another one 4 times. It finishes loading, and gives message that says something about wait for processing, then says the upload failed due to a server reset.

What's happening?

samuel bradford    June 08, 2009 06:20 AM

uploading hd problems using fcp...please help!

hi everyone,

i have read everything here and it seems that a few people are having exactly the same problems.

i am trying to upload a 5 minute trailor that was shot on sony a1 and z1 in hd 1080 50 i.

when exported from fcp full quality its 1 gig and looks fantastic on my mac book pro.

ive done 100's of tests exporting/compressing using qt conversion with not one perfect result yet.

ive uploaded on vimeo, dailymotion, youtube, and even facebook...just recently joined xr and am having the same problems as i have with all of them.

ive followed exactly the recommendations posted here re fcp export and its still no where near as smooth as most other peoples uploads...
more specifically i am finding that cross fades come up blotchy.
would increasing the flicker filter options within fcp before export solve this?
should i give up with trying to export with fcp and try dv kitchen or some other software to get a smooth result.

any advice appreciated.

cheers samuel

Shiv Kumar    June 08, 2009 07:48 AM

Samulel,

I'm not sure what part of the recommendations you've followed. A 5 minute video that is 1GB is size equates to aproximately 27.962Mbps. That's like a full quality HD video since HD is 25Mbps.

Take a look at some of the great looking videos on XR and examine their size to duration ratio.

I haven't used FCP myself but some of the same great videos have been produced using FCP. But don't use the presets (Full Quality etc.) use the settings described here and elsewhere.

samuel bradford    June 08, 2009 07:58 AM

thanks shiv

i followed the specific fcp export using quicktime conversion recommendations... ie frame rate current, key frame 24, 5000 kbps, h.264, mpeg 4, 1280x720 16:9

ive done tests at 1000, 2000, 3000, 3500, 4000-7000 etc and they are all no where near as good as what other people have successfully uploaded onto xr which seems to be the best quality that i have seen anywhere and i have been trying to solve this problem for months.

i am now doing some tests with dv kitchen so maybe that will help but do you know if i should be encoding to flash flv or windows media?

thanks for responding so quickly

cheers samuel


   June 09, 2009 06:01 AM

Samuel,

I doubt your issues have anything to do with the tool used or the container (qt, flv, wmv etc.).

Have you uploaded your video here? If not, may you should (using 3,500 kbps)

samuel bradford    June 09, 2009 07:43 AM

hi there and thanks

This is what i got when i exported from fcp using the exact settings recommended by the xr forum, it stutters and the cross fades are horrible.

http://exposureroom.com/members/gobfilms.aspx/assets/42ff3dd19891486592415b6c7c5b17b4/

ive uploaded dozens of others at 3500, 3000, 4000, 5000, etc ... none of which are satisfactory.

I was trying to use dv kitchen to encode/compress the 1.3 gig Quicktime file that looks bloody marvelous on the mac book.

I am using a really old version of fcp could that effect anything?
My head is spinning with all the varriables please help!

cheers samuel

   June 09, 2009 11:08 PM

Samuel,

Took a look at your video. Yes, it doesn't look too good. You should know, that most videos that look good are not straight out of the camera. That is, levels, colors, gamma etc. have been tweaked before encoding. Have you done any of these things?

On our end, we can try playing with some transcoding settings to see if that helps.

   June 10, 2009 12:54 AM

What camera did you use? From the picture it looks like the aperture is stopped down all the way. This makes the edges look not so sharp and that's what I see in the picture here.

Did tweak the transcoding settings. There is quite an improvement in the picture quality but the edges (of objects/people etc.) are not sharp/clear and gives me a distinct "stopped down aperture" look.

sam    June 10, 2009 10:34 AM

i encoded using dv kitchen and the result is much better

take a look at the dv kitchen test i uploaded please.
its almost good. just a couple of ticks but decent picture quality.
apparently fcp couldnt do the job properly on its own.
anyway i will check the settings and post what i did exactly when i can figure it out.
dv kitchen definitly sorted out something that fcp and quicktime conversion couldnt, although i am working on an old version of fcp.

it was shot on a sony z1 and the pictures when so perfect that we didnt need to adjust any colour levels or anything.

anyway please let me know what you think of the quality of the last test.

cheers

   June 10, 2009 08:31 PM

Much better!

samuel bradford    June 12, 2009 05:29 AM

its getting there

ok what conclusions can we draw.

i exported from fcp using the recommendations from xr. 1280x720, de interlaced, 24 frames, current, 5000kbps

i then flushed that through dv kitchen at 3600 kbps, de interlaced, 1280x720

if its de interlaced twice surely that will reduce the quality unnecessarily?

also, i dont really understand why changing the kbps thing twice would achieve a better result than once.

apparently dv kitchen is doing something that fcp couldnt.

anyway its the best result i've had so far. some of the dark blacks are a bit weird and there are a couple of ticks but on the whole its acceptable.

if anyone has any better ideas please continue this thread.


cheers samuel

Steve Mullen    June 12, 2009 06:15 AM

720p60 Frame Rates supported????

STILL WAITING FOR ANSWER >>> 720p60 Frame Rates supported????
Many are now working with 720p60. When you (XR) transcode 1280x720 and it has a frame rate of 59.94, what does the transcoding do? Pass through the 60p? Drop every other frame to yield 30p?

Thank you.

Shiv Kumar    June 13, 2009 01:03 AM

We don't touch the frame rate at the time of transcoding.

Steve Mullen    June 13, 2009 02:47 AM

Wonderful news!

Christopher Oliver    July 03, 2009 05:19 PM

640 by 480 ?

im pretty new to video editing and im trying to get a 3d demoreel up its an .avi rendered out at 640 by 480. This site has fantastic speed but when i looked at the video that i uploaded on the site it is very distorted at random times, im not sure why this happens after i upload it but id love to fix the issue.

any recommendations?

   July 03, 2009 05:27 PM

random

the blind leading the blind but the ratio of 640 x 480 i dont think makes a lot of difference. we are doing a lot of tests and the ratio is about the only thing that doesnt make any difference. seems to be about the bit rate. dv kitchen solved a lot of problems so try their trial. you can down load that and its easy to use. fcp works sometimes. its a total fucking nightmare to be honest. how long is the piece and how big is the file? what are you using to compress and encode? to be honest i am beginning to think that it depends on what underwear i am wearing

Christopher Oliver    July 03, 2009 05:43 PM

re-random

the piece as of now is 1 min 14 sec long and the file is 255 mb this is after i used the basic windows movie maker compression because the original file size would have been roughly 2-3 gb. I have CS4 master collection and i generated the original uncompressed .avi video file in After Affects from a targa seq rendered out in Mental Ray. i have Premier Pro but haven't learned it yet.

640 480 - frame size
28965 kbps- total bitrate
29 fps
no audio

   July 03, 2009 06:08 PM

try running it through dv kitchen

dv kitchen is pretty good at dealing with smaller files and you can do a 2 week trial. flush it through there as an flv at 3600 bit rate. it worked for our much larger file but then didnt work for another slighlty smaller one

Christopher Oliver    July 03, 2009 06:11 PM

ill give it a shot

thanks for the advise

Shiv Kumar    July 03, 2009 08:12 PM

Christopher,

Since you have CS$ master collection, ou could use Premiere Pro and follow the instruction in the blog post linked to in this article.

Please give that a try and let me know.

Shiv.

Christopher Oliver    July 04, 2009 12:58 AM

re- Shiv Kumar

are you referring to the settings

If your video is HD we recommend the following:

1. Dimensions 1280x720
2. VBR 2 Pass
3. Video Bit Rate of 3000-3500Kbps
4. Audio Bit Rate of 192-224Kbps

If so i have to tell you my video isn't HD so should i just convert the 640-480 to the 1280-720 then upload it?

Shiv Kumar    July 04, 2009 02:22 AM

Christohper,

You can follow the same settings (without changing the dimensions)

Chris Stokes    July 14, 2009 08:42 AM

i guess ill start tinker with videos then, as most of mine are 640x480x30 drop-frame (29.97), so that proably falls within alot of these sd requests.
more on that later.

gob films    July 23, 2009 08:47 AM

using compressor please help!

shiv has been beyond helpful but if you know the settings on compressor could you please post them here.

when exporting a h.264 using compressor following the xr recommendations we end up with a file that is 1.4gigs and this usually crashes before it uploads.

there is only an option of a 2 pass when compressing to mpeg 2 which cant be uploaded onto xr.

h,264 has the option of multi pass vbr...is this the same as 2 pass?

what quality setting should be used? i naturally go for best.

is there anything i am doing wrong?

what are the exact settings, setting by setting that someone who isnt a vegetable like me uses?

h.264 100kbps, 200....etc
or h.264 100kbps streaming?

PLEASE HELP!

   July 23, 2009 12:09 PM

I'll be brief... but I hope this helps
if you encode a video at 3,500kbps then a 1 minute video will end up being 3,500x60/8 =26,250KB in size this 26MB (we've not included the audio here). So you can see how a longer video will be much larger in size. Size is proportiioal to bitrate.

Multi-pass and VBR is obviously better than single pass and CBR. So use multi-pass VBR.
You are not streaming. You are downloading. So don't use "streaming" settings.

I strongly suggest encoding just a small portion of the video the portion that has the most trouble. Also include a portion that looks good. Make an edit of these combinations amounting to a 30/40 second video. Do yout encoding and upload to XR.

   July 23, 2009 12:38 PM

i think the penny just dropped many thanks

meaning i think i now understand if you are not familiar with that expression,
Cheers

   July 24, 2009 05:12 AM

What is the ideal sized file for upload?

What is the largest sized file xr can deal with?
What is the optimum size to upload smoothly? ... I know this depends on my broadband connection but what should i be aiming for generally?
When using the compression setting for a h.264 through compressor should i lower the vbr setting to produce a file size that is more manageable as the 1.4 gig one inevitably fails before successfully uploading.

cheers me dears

   July 24, 2009 01:53 PM

I think there is an inherent limit of 1.5 gb.

However, I think you need to see things from the viewer's point of view. People don't watch more to 3-5 minutes of video online. We've been tracking views on XR and generally after about 3 minutes people tend to browse away from the video they're watching.

Tom Lowe    August 24, 2009 10:39 AM

FCP “best” quality

Hi Shiv,

What is the reason behind saying the "best" quality setting in the Quicktime export dialog is no good for HD?

Shiv Kumar    August 24, 2009 11:00 AM

Hi Tom,

That's because the bit rate is to low for HD and because I've tried it.

tania    August 25, 2009 07:50 AM

hi guys
this may be a silly question should i be uploading the video from the hdv video camera to the editing software in 720p or 1080 and than encode to 720 I'm uploading in 720 and encoding in 720 using the recommendations above
thanks

Shiv Kumar    August 25, 2009 08:12 AM

What camera? What resolution did you shoot the video at? Basically, when going from camera to editing software, stick to the resolution of the original footage.

Once you're done editing and are ready to export (in order to upload to some website) then at that time make the choice of smaller dimensions.

Does that make sense?

tania    August 25, 2009 05:42 PM

i shoot with a sony HDR fx7 and rec format at 1080i
yes that does make sense thankyou..the other thing is do i set the software(adobe prem cs3) to take from the camera 1080i30 or 1080p30..
I've got the encoding down pat i'm just stuffing up the transport from camera to software..
i have to say this is the best informed forum on the net..thankyou

   August 25, 2009 06:33 PM

If your camera records at 1080i, I'd use a 1080i Project in PPro CS3. Just be sure to deinterlace at the time of exporting, if your intent is to upload the exported file to a website.

   August 25, 2009 08:08 PM

thankyou..

Montreal 9/11 Truth    October 27, 2009 08:13 PM

HD in Divx

I have an HD video I'd like to upload, compressed in Divx format, but XR is telling me it doesn't accept Divx files. What format do you recommend for compressing HD video?

ALAN LECLERC    October 28, 2009 07:13 AM

PROCESS IN DV

TRYING TO FIND THE PROCESS BEFORE UPLOADING WHEN DOING DV- HELP...
SOME GUIDE LINES

Shiv Kumar    October 28, 2009 10:07 AM

Alan,

What aspects to you need help in exactly?

Shiv Kumar    October 28, 2009 11:33 AM

Alan, Montreal 9/11 Truth,
You might want to take a look at this thread
http://exposureroom.com/newsgroups/view.aspx?t=338&pg=2
Where I've explained some things and given various combinations of containers and codec that I find are ideal.

Montreal 9/11 Truth    October 28, 2009 12:07 PM

DivX

I simply changed the filename from .divx to .mpg and the upload worked perfectly.

Shiv Kumar    October 28, 2009 12:30 PM

DivX is no longer considered a "good" codec. And if you read that thread completely, you'll realize that all this hum-bug about what codec to use is really lost when it comes to uploading your videos to video websites.

If you were to host your videos on your own, then some of the aruments about codecs have value.

What you see in that post is the result of thousands of tests done using hundreds of videos and doing intensive comparisions. Also, keep in mind that for the same source video and exact bit rate settings, the different codec don't differ much in file size (which is the only consideration that is valid in this context).

Plus, given that no one here is uploading a 200k file where a difference of a few kiliobytes would make a huge difference to the person uploading a video (or downloading that exact same video for that matter); the difference of a few kb is the difference the different codec produce if that - all of this talk about codecs (for those uploading videos to other websites) is moot.

Clay Miller    November 09, 2009 05:18 PM

not HD

What if your video is not HD. What if it is SD, 720x480, 16:9?
Is there a quick preset encode in Adobe Premier CS3 that would work good for Exposure Room? Anybody?

Shiv Kumar    November 09, 2009 05:26 PM

Clay,

The bit rate a video should be encoded at is determined by the following factors:
1. Dimensions of the video
2. Frame rate of the video

HD or SD does not make a difference. Of course an SD video will never have the details that an HD video has (given the same diensions and "quality").

You can make your own preset in PPro given the information in this article.

Shiv Kumar    November 15, 2009 01:11 PM

Geoffrey,

Severity: Very important

Means (as mentioned earlier in the email) your video will be accepted and transcoded.

These are informational messages we hope will educate our members. We are still cleaning up the messaging and will probably increase the "margin of error" so if you are following our guide lines you shouldn't see these messages.

So even though we can increase the margin of error, there is an "error" if you will, that you can eliminate. The links provided in that email should help guide you further and if you're interested will give you a deeper understanding of the encoding process.

On-line video is here to stay and it behooves us all to learn/understand some of its nuances.

Michael B. McGee    November 16, 2009 01:36 AM

Current Encoding Settings?

Hello Shiv,
I'm about to upload some videos and was wondering if the encoding specs in this article are still relevant since you wrote it over a year ago.

thanks in advance,
Mike

Shiv Kumar    November 16, 2009 01:43 AM

Michael,

Yes, the setting are current. In fact I recently updated this article, to point to other related articles that I wrote recently. This is part of our FAQ and so someone from XR will always ensure it's up to date.

thomas ehls    November 23, 2009 09:52 AM

I heard about the ipod feature. Where do i find the possibility to load in a ipod format and where do i receive the embedded code? 480 x 360 ?

Shiv Kumar    November 23, 2009 09:58 AM

Thomas,

You upload a typical 1280x720 @5000kbps video, we generate the iPhon/iPod version for you. Read more about this new feature here
ExposureRoom Supports iPhone and other Mobile Devices

patrick lally    December 14, 2009 04:30 PM

Bitrate recommendations

I got a little message telling me that my uploaded video was too small for the dimensions, frame rate and duration of the video.

Well, I render at 2500bps for 720p using Windows Movie Maker and am a very happy little bunny thank you.

Bare in mind that my target is embedded 480-wide screens, so my 1080-wide masters look just great when broadcast like that.

At the end of the day, it's perhaps the target screen size that should dictate bitrates?

Shiv Kumar    December 14, 2009 05:07 PM

Patrick,
The dimensions and frame rate govern what bit rate you should encode your videos at. Then you have to remember that all video hosting websites transcode your videos. It is like decompressing and then re-compressing your videos so we can convert them to a format that is playable by our player.

If your original is a 720p (1280x720) and you encode at 2.5Mbps that’s ok if that’s the quality you want. You should know that our medium versions (360p) are encoded at 2.2Mbps and our HD versions (720p) are encoded at 3.2Mbps. Because we care about quality and our members care about quality (and a few write in asking why their video is not as good as the next person’s) we expect that the original video you upload is at least 50% higher bit rate than the version it will be transcoded to, to compensate for the transcoding process.

If you’re only interested in the 480 pixel wide versions then those versions will look great with the original encoded at 2.2Mbps, the Medium and HD versions will not. But then why bother encoding at 720p? Simply encode at 480x270 and at 1000kbps. You’ll save yourself time uploading and you’ll save us time and money since we’ll only transcode a Low version and we’ll be storing a much smaller file and as a bonus we won’t send you an email telling you your video needs to be encoded at a higher bit rate since for a 480x270 video 1Mbps is just fine.

Just so you know, the email you get soon after uploading a video is automated, but completely customized to the actual file we have received. So it’s not a “standard” email everyone gets. To put it another way, if your videos were encoded at 480x270 with a video bit rate of 2.2Mbps, you get a different email saying the video bit rate is too high.

I hope that makes sense?

patrick lally    December 14, 2009 05:18 PM

Bitrate recommendations

Shiv -

Interesting to point out that I am probably over doing it for my target screen size.

The reason I go for 480 wide is

- the present fashion for websites with silly narrow column layouts,
meaning that anything wider gets cropped when embedded.

- the XR player is not quite there for broadcasting at anything higher than Low at the moment. This is down to both local computer processing power and also web connection speed.

By broadcasting I am assuming that the viewer has zero tolerance for delays, and not willing to let the thing buffer on pause for a few seconds.

Great to get such speedy feedback.


Patrick

Shiv Kumar    December 14, 2009 05:39 PM

Patrick,

If 480 wide is what you need/want that's fine just encode at those dimensions and bit rate I mentioned earlier. FYI: There are many websites templates that support 640 wide content. Hundreds of members embed the medium versions on their website.

The not ready for broadcast as you call it has nothing whatsoever to with with the XR player and everything to do with your bandwidth and/computer processing power.

If you think about it, why would we provide 4 version of every video you upload? And why would we have a 640x360 video encoded at 2.2Mbps if people can't watch them or a 1280x720 video encoded at 3.2Mbps for that matter. Obviously someone is watching them :) and we provide the multiple versions so people have a choice, depending on their bandwidth and computer processing capabilties.

And I can tell you that XR members and viewers won't tolerate waiting to buffer. They want instant playback and that's what they get, providing their Internet bandwidth is good enough.

Do this test
ExposureRoom Speed Test and see which of our versions your bandwidth will support. Of course, you'll still need the compute power to watch the medium and HD versions even if your bandwidth supports it.

patrick lally    December 17, 2009 05:46 PM

Bitrate recommendations

Thank you Shiv.

I have just had a play with 1000kbps for a 480wide embedable,
and it looks just great.

Halves the filesize and I guess bandwdith required for the viewer.

http://exposureroom.com/members/1415w.aspx/assets/9455c8c1c9124338a61af6478ec2ed2c/

Shiv Kumar    December 18, 2009 06:52 AM

Patrick,

Yes, a 480 pixel wide video will actually look fantatic at 1000kbps. But the reason I said 1000kbps is because we actually transcode your videos and when we do, the 480 wide (or Low version) is encoded at 500kbps. So what you're seeing and the bandwidth requirement of the viewer is the 500kbps version we transcoded your video to. So the viewer will need at least
500kbps (for video)
+
128kbps (for audio)
=628kbps
+ 15% (to be one the safe side)
= 700kbps

That is the speed of standard DSL. (768kbps)

patrick lally    December 19, 2009 07:42 PM

Issues with low bitrates

Unfortunately, the low bitrate seems to up the saturation level.

Even though I have corrected for that previously in the workflow.

For that reason alone I am minded to stick with the 2000kbps rate for 480-wide video sources.

Am I missing a trick here?

Are colour saturation levels affected by low bitrates?

Shiv Kumar    December 20, 2009 09:38 AM

Are you talking about at your end or our end? As in when you encode a video at 1000kbps versus 2000kbps you see a difference in color saturation at your end or after we have processed your video? If it's your end, movie make must be doing that to compensate.

Movie Maker? Is that a video editing software? The one time I played with it you could just do snipping and transitions on a single track. Window 7 in fact does not have Movie Maker.

At our end, none whatsoever. We don't touch your video in that regard. The bit rate has zero impact of color saturation.

In fact if I were to just speculate (as a lay person) I'd say higher the bit rate more the color saturation since I have more information per second of video and some of that "information" must be for color saturation.

But in reality that is not the case at all. Meaning that bit rate does not impact color saturation.

patrick lally    December 20, 2009 10:04 AM

Low bitrates


I can't see the problem anymore. Must have been down to the video still being processed perhaps.

"Movie Maker? Is that a video editing software? The one time I played with it you could just do snipping and transitions on a single track. Window 7 in fact does not have Movie Maker."

Version 6 is fine, and with extra software you can create custom output formats and bitrates.

Yes, it has a single video track. Kinda forces you to learn editting and sound synchronisation skills :-)

The very latest version released is pants and doesn't even have a timeline.

Lubi Kocheleva    March 02, 2010 10:23 AM

Shiv for President :)

Shiv,

I am a new member and don't yet have any questions. I have just read the whole thread and wanted to say that so many things have become clear and simple. You are a genius, and a very patient one at that. I am very impressed so far with the amount of resources available and your clear and plain language explanations. It is refreshing to see such a personal touch in the world of PDF guides in language I do not understand. Will be reading everything before even touching my Encoder.

Lubi

Shiv Kumar    March 02, 2010 12:43 PM

@Tony,

There are many things that govern the time it takes to encode a video. Sometimes our transcoding farm is over loaded either due to some maintenance work we're doing or simply because we're receiving hundreds of videos at any given moment in time. Consider that it takes as much time to transcode one version of your video as it takes you to encode a video at your end. Then multiply that by 4 since we produce 4 versions for every video you upload.

But other than the above, there are other factors that impact the time it takes for us to transcode your videos and most times it is these reasons that slow down our processing since the capacity of our server farm is more than adequate.

1. The bit rate at which a video is encoded (by you) has an impact on how much time it takes for us to encode. Higher the bit rate you encode your videos at the longer it takes for us to transcode.

2. The bit rate at which we encode your videos impacts the time it takes for us to transcode. Since we encode your videos at a much higher rate (giving you a much better quality) than any other website, it takes us longer to encode your videos.

3. The number of passes we encode your videos with governs the time it takes. Most websites encode your videos with a 1 pass encode. Very few websites encode your videos with a 2 pass encode. We encode your videos using a special 4 pass encode. This produces a much better quality at a slightly lower file size but eliminates a few other issues videos on some websites exhibit. A 4 pass encode really means 4 times the duration of your video (at a minimum) multiplied by 4 for the 4 versions we produce for each of your videos. So that is 16 times the time it took for you to encode your video.

4. The way you encode your videos governs how much time it takes. Over and above the bit rate at which you encode your videos (as mentioned earlier) the complexity level selected at the time you encode your videos determines how much time it takes. So say, you encode your video using the H.264 codec. H.264 is a more complex codec than say MPEG or AVI. H.264 has Baseline, Main and High complexities and then each of these has levels. So a video encoded (by you) using the Baseline (complexity) at level 3 will take us less time to transcode than say a video encoded using H.264 at High (complexity) at level 5. Some encoding software may show you this information as High@L5 or Main@L3.1 (meaning Main complexity at Level 3.1).

More complexity has the likelihood of reducing the eventual file size but increases the time it takes for you to encode and for us to transcode (because we have to decode and then encode) your videos.

It's a very marginal reduction in file size, but most people believe they should encode their videos using High@L5 or even Main@L5. This would be true if you were hosting your own videos and not uploading them to a website such as XR. But if you are uploading your video to a website then not only is encoding at High@L5 a waste of your time (because it takes much longer for you to encode) but it's a waste of time for us as well.

I hope that explains why it (sometimes) takes so long.

@Lubi,
Thank you! And welcome to ExposureRoom

Mark Kempner    April 27, 2010 03:16 AM

premire pro cs3 settings

I only really upload SD video 16.9 widescreen PAL footage. I encode using H264 but usually my video is jerky in anything over your LOW quality setting....I play back on a good Broadband connection on a fast PC...and still the footage looks jerky....also my encoded videos often go out of audio sync by a frame or two. Could you put up a set of settings applicable for Prem CS3 ...for SD footage? I assume if the video had some movement....that needs a higher BITRATE setting? Sorry if you have covered this in the past....ive looked but only see settings for HD footage

Shiv Kumar    April 27, 2010 09:08 AM

Mark, Jerky video has nothing to do with how you have encoded your video. It has to do with your hardware. Essentially your hardware is just not able to cope with the medium and HD versions. The audio out of sync can be caused due to many reasons so I can't provide a "setting" that will fix it. However, audio can also go out of sync if your hardware can't handle the video quality. And are you sure the original video does not have this issue? I ask because typically, audio out of sync will be an increasing out of sync issue, that is it will start of ok and then gradually go out of sync as the video progresses. We've primarily seen this when one tries to change the frame rate of the video or mix source footage from differing frames rates. Say a Canon XH A1 (29.97 fps) and a Canon 5D (30 fps). The dimensions you encode at determine the bit rate. (Read the other articles of Bit rates de-mystified) and not SD or HD. So if you are producing 16:9 SD video with a width of 720 then I'd recommend the same settings as HD at 1280. You could reduce the bit rate to about 3000-3500Kbps and see.

Mark Kempner    April 27, 2010 09:47 AM

Thank you Shiv...I'll give it a whirl! So even if the footage was shot on my canon xha1s at 16.9 SD Pal....youd reccomend encoding at 1280 size? I have been cropping at 720x405. I Have tried lower field order.....and also progressive....none of which seems to make a play back difference from Exp Room. What hardware specs do we need to play back smoothly? MY pal played it on a super fast BRoadband....with a very fast PC 8gig of ram etc etc...really top spec PC...still did not play that well. My own PC has 4gb of ram...decent video card etc. Also I can play back other videos at HQ very smoothly? The out of sync order seemsd to be rectified by NOT using H264 setting in Prem CS3....I am now encoding using Quick time with the H264 codec....and the sound is now in sync? I appreciate the help from you Shiv and or anyone else!!

Shiv Kumar    April 27, 2010 10:01 AM

Mark, No don't alter the dimensions of the video. Or at least don't make it larger than it's native dimensions. I'm not sure what the SD settings on the XH A1 are but whatever the dimensions are (it's obviously not 1280x720 since that would be HD) use those dimensions or lower. I have a 7 year old PC that plays the medium versions on XR but not the HD versions. It's difficult to provide specs for the hardware but essentially if you have a modern graphics card that supports hardware acceleration (my old PC does not) you should be able to view XR videos (Medium and HD). You can eliminate the bandwidth issue by buffering up the video completely. That is click the play button and then pause and wait for the video to buffer. Even downloading the video taxes the hardware (unfortunately, that’s just how Flash player is). If you have a dual core machine and the CPU utilization goes beyond 30% or so then I'd say your hardware is not able to cope primarily because it is not able to offload the processing off to the GPU. On one of my desktops (quad core) I get 7-15% CPU utilization when watching an XR HD version. Keep in mind that the medium is far better in quality than any website's HD version and so requires more bandwidth and hardware capabilities. So comparing videos on other sites is a moot point since there is no “standard” associated to accronyms such as HD, HQ and what has you.

Mark Kempner    April 27, 2010 10:10 AM

Thanks Shiv....my original footage shpot on my CANON XHA1S SD 16.9 setting is 720x576 when captured as AVI's ....PAL 25fps so I presume my cropping to 720x405 and using Square pixels is about right to maintain its widescreen look on here? My Graphics card has 512 of memory CPU is a Duel Core Intel 6600 ...I think! 4mb of ram. You could well be right re the hardware.... Just seems odd that I can play other EXP ROOM VIds nice and smoothly....once they have been allowed to buffer etc. Perhaps you could have a look at the last 2-3 vids of mine and se what you think? As ever I appreciate the ongoing help!

Shiv Kumar    April 27, 2010 10:29 AM

Mark, Looking at the footage you're probably hitting up against another phenomenon and that is to do with fast pans and similar moves. Essentially because the system needs to re-draw a large area of the scene it taxes the hardware even more. In scenes like this the frames give the impression of "sticking" and that's because Flash player has the hardest time trying to keep up with re-drawing the frames (at 25 frames per second) when it has to re-draw almost entire frames. It's a combination of lacking hardware and Flash player. Flash player is just not able to do a good job. Take a look at the Html 5 Support news post here http://exposureroom.com/news/view.aspx/371/

Showreel Media    May 23, 2010 09:05 PM

Synch problems

Have a video up which when output synchs perfectly (some fast changing fraphics to a strong drum beat) but when streamed from exposure room beat and graphics are out of synch. Show in 25p, is this a transcoding issue or a streaming issue. Can send you the link if you want to see for yourself.

   October 11, 2010 09:49 AM

think you heip

John Morton    November 06, 2011 12:14 PM

AVCHD workflow - help

Hi, our first post... Just switched from our tried and tested SD to HD and it's a minefield! We have recently purchased a Sony MC-2000E recording AVCHD at 1080x1920 and we are currently using Edius 6 editing sware - or have been for our previous SD pieces. The more I read on the subject the more confused I become with so many HD formats out there! The final target is web video at a screen size of 660x370 (approx) at the best res. possible. Can anyone please suggest the best workflow to do this: We can capture the footage from the SDHC card with no problem using a Sony card reader. Our current computer is not fast enough to edit the raw footage produced so we need to transcode I think (Dell 5150 Dual Core with 4 GIG RAM running W7 64 bit) Just to add that we are also buying a JVC 750 cam and from what I've read here 1280x720 looks like the best size to work with to achieve our goals. Is there any recommended software available out there (pref free) to allow to to take the rushes we have captured in this format (mts) and go through them and editing to get our first 'rough' cut and then to import these into Edius (or possibly Avid MC5 or Adobe CS5.5) for final editing so that we can export the finished file to Adobe Media Encoder to produce a FLV or f4v file for the web? Any advise would be greatly appreciated Best, John

patrick lally    November 06, 2011 04:36 PM

AVCHD workflow.....

Try using AVCHD converter to make AVI files, and edit in MS Movie Maker. Export in WMV format for the web. http://www.avchdconverter.org/ Before anyone starts laughing, I was editing an AVI copy of the film "Life in a Day" recently, and it's 1.2Gig in size. Movie Maker handled it no problem. If you want a final FLV file, just upload to Youtube, and then pull it down in FLV format using Freemake. http://www.freemake.com/

Nigel Smith    November 22, 2011 09:48 AM

File size too small?

Hi I'm new on Exposure Room. I have encoded video according to the specs in the advice document, using a Matrox MX02 mini-max and compressor. For my first upload I used the Mini-Max preset in Compressor for "720p high quality". I was advised that the frame rate - 50fps - was too high, and that the file size should have been 680MB not 440 MB. On examination I found the template's bit rate was set to 10,000Kbps. So for my next upload I adjusted the parameters of the preset to 720P at 25fps, H.264 encoding with 2 pass variable bit rate encoding, rate set to 5000Kbps, audio at 44.1Khz, 320kbps using AAC compression. I then get am email alert telling me that the file should be twice the size it is. Any suggestions as to whcih settings to try next are most welcome. Thanks Nigel

Shiv Kumar    November 22, 2011 10:38 AM

Hi Nigel, Are you saying that for a video encoded for 1280x720 at 5,000kbps you got a suggestion email saying it should be larger? If so, can you please send that email to support (link at the bottom of each page) giving some histroy. They'll look into it. FYI: If you've encoded at 5,000kbps I woulnd't change anything. Of course the question is, if the video actually being encoded at 5000kbps, and that's what the support folks will look into.

Nigel Smith    November 22, 2011 11:02 AM

Yes. I also got a similar message for my first upload, which was 50fps and 10,000kbps. I have done as suggested. Thanks for quick response. i will remove password protection so you or anyone else can see them.

Nigel Smith    November 23, 2011 09:20 AM

It was pointed out to me that the bit rate of assets I uploaded were lower than 5000Kbps, depsite the settings I used. I have just realised that that is inevitable with VBR, where the MAXIMUM bit rate allowed is 5000Kbps. The whole point of VBR means that the end result bit rate, which is averaged, will be less than 5000Kbps. So I can either go with a CBR of 5,000Kbps, or try using a VBR of 5,000Kbps, with a defined MINIMUM rate of, say, 4500Kbps. So far, tests show the advantage of a slightly smaller file, with the dis-advantage of longer encoding times, and PQ looks the same. Any suggestions on which is better?

Shiv Kumar    November 23, 2011 09:53 AM

Hi Nigel, Different encoders behave differently. You're correct about VBR and stick to VBR by the way. Adobe's Premier Pro and ffmpeg (Which is an open source cross platform encoder) do a pretty good job of getting really close to the specified rate. At the end of the day, encoding is an art form. That is each video needs to be encoded according to the kinds of scenes it has. Some scenes just required higher bit rates (such as low light, fast action and camera pans and tilts etc.). What we have is "recommendations" (the emails that are sent out as well as articles on the site), and they work for most cases. There will be an odd case here and there that will require higher bit rates at your end (which you can do if needed) as well as higher bit rates on our end (which we won't do :)). I'd stick with VBR most deffinately. As for setting a minimum bit rate, I'd try it and if there isn't a noticible difference then I won't bother. But keep in mind, for some videos (rare cases) you may have to do a lot of trial and error.

Nigel Smith    November 23, 2011 10:19 AM

Thanks Shiv, and I take your point. Only thing I'm not sure about is this: "There will be an odd case here and there that will require higher bit rates at your end (which you can do if needed) as well as higher bit rates on our end (which we won't do :))." Does this mean you always re-encode anyway? So if I upload a file that has some scenes running at peaks of 10Mbps where required, you will limit it? And this is the better than if I limit it myself? Sorry for so many questions but I cover these issues with students regularly [and will be recommending your excellent service] so want to get it absolutely clear in my mind. Thanks Nigel

Shiv Kumar    November 23, 2011 11:00 AM

Hi Nigel, Yes, we always re-encode. We have to since we produce 5 versions for each video you upload. Which is why we recommend the bit rates we do (knowing that your originals need to have a higher bit rate than we will be re-encoding at). However, the algorithm we use is quite complex. I'll try and give you a simplified explanation... There are times when the audio and or video streams (from within the original video) will be copied over as-is to the versions we make available. The audio stream will likely get copied over as is for all versions we produce (if the stream is completely compatible). The video stream will get copied over only for the highest possible version (The HD version). The re-encoding process is similar to your encoding process and takes the same amount of time (times 5). It’s as if you encoded the videos yourself. The video codec we use is H.264 and with it comes the complexities of automatically using higher or lower bit rates depending on the scene. We don’t touch that either. So if you’ve encoded a video using H.264 and for some reason the encoder determined it needs an extremely high bit rate for a scene, our encoder will likely determine the same. The difference is in the limit. I don’t know if we have a hard limit and if it is what the number is. But we have to be careful about it because: 1. A spike in bit rate will invariably mean your video will stutter when playing back. Either because you don’t have the Internet bandwidth to support that bit rate or because your hardware just can’t cope. 2. Flash player taxes the hardware more than the native player on your OS (That is Windows Media Player on PC and QT on MAC), so we have to take that into account as well. 3. High bit rates cost us more to store as well as stream. Though this is not the primary factor, I’d be lying if I said we don’t “worry” about it. You may want to read this article on our online Help section http://exposureroom.com/help/view.aspx/329/

Nigel Smith    November 24, 2011 04:58 AM

Thanks again Shiv. I have read all your excellent articles in the online help. I will keep testing until I find a formula that works for me. I have to say the picture quality in all my tests done so far is the same to my eye, so I guess it's not a critical issue :) But I will try to find a way to match your specs to avoid recoding and concatenation issues. By the way, the advantage of using the MX02 mini-max [which we use for HD monitoring on our Avid Media Composers] is hardware acceleration for H.264 encoding, so I get slightly faster than real-time performance :)

Nicole Knight    May 19, 2012 02:52 PM

Sound and Video are out of sync after uploading to Exposure Room

Okay, in the world of vlogging, some could call me a noob, but the first video I ever uploaded and embedded was phenomenal, but the 2nd. 3rd and 4th have been completely out of wack. There is no thumbnail and they video and audio are always off anywhere from 3-10 seconds. I don't really know why this is happening but it isn't like that in the source video. Any help would be appreciated!



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