Vimeo is not the newest kid on the block offering free video sharing, but that doesn’t stop them from having some of the coolest features in the neighborhood. I can sum it all up in two letters “HD”, and I mean for real — 1280×720p high-quality Flash Video. Not too many other sites can top that. Even YouTube’s new high(er)-quality videos don’t even come close to what Vimeo is offering. Plus, add a clean website, cool embeddable player, great community and developer API and you have a recipe for web video nirvana. Currently, Vimeo is offering users up to 500mb upload per week with the only requirements that you upload original works that are not a commercial, infomercial, or other ad and are not adult oriented. They accept HD or SD aspect ratios in the following formats: asf, asx, avi, divx, dv, dvx, m4v, mov, mp4, mpeg, mpg, qt, wmv, 3g2, 3gp, 3ivx and 3vx. They are able acheive such great results by using the On2 VP6 codec which is the current leader in FLV encoding due to the quality vs filesize and widespread Flash player support. Newer versions of Flash also support H.264 MP4 encoding which is even better than the On2 VP6 codec, but at this time it is not widely supported and is license restricted for commercial use.
New to video encoding? They also have comprehensive tutorials on how to acheive great results.
Sign up for a free account today and be sure to post your experience and video links in the comments.
http://www.vimeo.com
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
February 24, 2008 – 7:47 pm
To accompany his latest book on Flash Video, Robert Reinhardt has developed a awesome bitrate calcuator you can use to figure out target bitrates for your web video.
http://www.flashsupport.com/books/fvst/files/tools/flv_bitrate.html
Also, if you haven’t read his latest book, be sure to check it out. 5 Stars at Amazon! Here is a brief description:
From pre-production to post, author Rob Reinhardt shares the techniques that make Adobe Flash a powerful tool for sharing video over the Web. With sections on capturing and encoding video, creating and using cue points, working with transparency, and deploying and delivering optimal quality, he covers the information that users need to get started, and then goes in-depth to bring his readers to expert status quickly.
February 5, 2008 – 7:31 pm
Squared 5 has released one of the few free solutions for encoding H.264 QuickTime MOV files that includes a graphical user interface. Since it uses the QuickTime 7 Player’s rendering engine, you must have the free player installed. A side benefit to this is that it will allow you export to the same codecs as the $30 QuickTime Pro, as well as AVI, DV and MPEG4.
With MPEG Streamclip you get what you pay for… The interface leaves much to be desired and a degree in video engineering is required to navigate the advanced output options presented.
If you are on a really tight budget and don’t mind learning some new tricks, MPEG Streamclip will work in a pinch for transcoding to and from a variety of formats.
Read More »
January 24, 2008 – 7:51 pm
Whether you are encoding to QuickTime or Flash Video, it is a best practice to ensure that the width and height of your video is evenly divisible by 16. Although some modern codecs do not require this, it is best to keep it in mind for all your projects to guarantee the best results.
In many codecs if a side is not divisible by 16 evenly, it will then have to keep splitting the macro blocks into smaller and smaller chunks until it finds a common denominator. This can result in lots of tiny little blocks in your video, and horrible encodes, especially for high action and/or animation sequences.
Robert Reinhardt has posted a table listing the optimal frame dimensions for flash video for both 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios. This information is a great resource for every compressionist.
http://www.flashsupport.com/books/fvst/files/tools/video_sizes.html
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