video crunching

[Grant]

I have a quick question. What us the best way and format for exporting video from Premiere to add to a website for download purposes?
I export as a MJPEG through my Matrox card but the file sizes (even with view image scaled down) are huge. I am also considering Quicktime.

Please help!

[Edited on 17-12-2002 by Grant]

[Matt]

It depends on what version of Adobe Premiere you use. If you have got 6.5 then one of the best ways is to use the built in Windows Media Encoder to produce a WMV file. I use the predefined 256k setting. See my clips in the Hollow Point section.

I create the MTL video clips using Adobe Premiere 5.1. They are normal MPEG1 files that I exported using an MPEG plugin (LSX) for Adobe Premiere. I used a reduced size (160x120 I think) and reduced the audio and video bit rates. Do a few test exports using different settings.

[padawanNick]

There are two very good codecs that you can get for free that should work with Premiere natively.

www.DIVX.com
The DIVx codec writes to AVI files.
The cool thing is that it as an excellent, two pass VBR option that really smashes the file size down while preserving excellent image quality.

www.VP3.com
This is an older codec from On2 primarily for Quicktime MOV files.
I think they're up to VP5 or something now, but this older version is free and works very well.

I use both of these with Media Studio Pro so they should work fine with Premiere too. Just remember to not compress until you're ready to output your final version. It's generally best to edit uncompressed files to preserve quality.

Have fun!

[Grant]

Thanks Nick and Matt. I am doing some experimenting and have found so far the DivX option very good. I will keep experimenting.

[Ornsack]

DivX is a but dodgy though, 'cus not many people have the codec, and nor would they be willing to download it in most cases. WMV is quite a good file format but Mac users will just get a page full of garbled text when clicking on WMV links. MOV's are pretty good and when using the latest versions you can get high quality videos at a low size. Although you have to download a 7mb file to upgrade Quicktime.

Personally I find that using trusty MPEG1's created in avi2mpg1 (freeware, take a lil' searchypooze for it!) work on all PC's no prob. Keep the resolution small and maybe the framerate (although encoding at half the framerate doesn't do a great deal to the size of the finish file, experiment) and you can get about a minute per mb.

Remember, as much as you want your video to be high quality with amazing sound, your average internet user couldn't care less! If you really want to upload your work in high quality, try giving the user the option to go low or high. Remember, some people are still using 28kb modems!

Did you read all that? Nah I didn't bother either

[Matt]

I read it ...

I agree that MPEG1 is fairly universal although it is now 'old technology' in the codec world.

I used MPEG1 for the MTL clips because I knew it would have the biggest audience possible then.

[Grant]

After some experimentation I am still leaning towards the DivX codec. It is fast and the quality I find to be acceptable. Also is relates well to Premiere, my capture software and other apps (Sonar etc)