Keep these tips handy for the next time you encode video.
- Deinterlace your source video
- Choose a frame size where the width and height are evenly divisible by 16
- Maintain the aspect ratio of your source video
- Crop any empty space (like letter boxing) and crop/scale to remove edge jaggies around your video
- Select bitrates that are appropriate for your target audience
- Export your source video from your editing software at the highest quality possible prior to encoding
- If your encoding tool offers 2-pass encoding, use it!
- Use VBR (Variable Bit Rate) for Progressive Download and CBR (Constant Bit Rate) for RTSP Delivery
- The square pixel equivalent to 720×480 is 640×480, HD 1920×1080 is already in square pixels
- Export a short segment of your source video and do multiple test encodes to save time until you find the perfect settings
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2 Comments
So, are you saying I shouldnt be ripping my final copy from After Effects? That I should export from AFX using minimal compression in an AVI wrapper THEN encode using MPEGStreamClip or some such encoder? Just wondering, because I am getting tired of experimenting with encoding projects that look like they were shot through cheese cloth. The footage I export from Premiere using AVI is very nice, but once I do my CC work in AFX its either a blurry mess or too big to post to Vimeo (+500mb) and the clips are usually around 2min long at 1080×720.
@Aerovelo, that is exactly right. After Effects is a great compositing tool, but not much of a compression tool. You should export full uncompressed audio and video from AE and then use a tool such as Sorenson Squeeze, SUPER, or Handbrake to encode to H.264 MP4 for the web. For Vimeo, YouTube or other service that will then reencode your video again, you should choose the highest data rate you can without going over the upload filesize limit.