Comments

PeterDuke wrote on 4/4/2015, 3:21 AM
Some variant of MPEG4 AVC (H264). Choose your bit rate according to the quality you can accept. Handbrake makes good low bit rate H264 encodes.
Chienworks wrote on 4/4/2015, 6:55 AM
You don't mention the length of the movie, but even at pretty high bitrates you should be able to fit a couple hours on an 8GB USB key. Do you have any idea of how "small" you are shooting for? Is there any reason it has to be "small", whatever size that may mean?
musicvid10 wrote on 4/4/2015, 8:07 AM
A very general guide is to figure half a GB for each hour at 720p, depending entirely, of course, on the motion complexity of the source.

john_dennis wrote on 4/4/2015, 12:12 PM
"[I]...the movie will be stocked on an USB key plugged on a TV[/I]".

I'd start with the manual for the TV for a list of the wrappers and codecs that the TV will play.

I recently did a video and selected a TV for a lobby display and spent $9.00 for a 16 GB USB flash drive. Using the Mainconcept AVC Blu-ray codec at 25 mbps with AC3 audio, I still "wasted" 14 GB on the flash drive. If the video is not being transmitted over the air, a satellite or the Internet, I don't see why the file size has to be small. This appears to be one application where the bit rate should only be limited by the maximum bit rate the TV will play.
Rosebud wrote on 4/5/2015, 3:48 AM
Thank you all for your reply.
In fact, since I'm using only one still picture and audio, I'm looking to get a video file size near of the add of source material files size.

I tried the WMV format with these setting:
1920*1080
Fps: 1
seconds per keyframe: 180
bps: 640K

And I get a 5.34MO file size (with a good quality), really satisfying !!! :)

BUT unfortunately, my TV dont read WMV format :(
I tried to encode in AVC(H264) with similare settings but I get this error message: "An error occured while.... The reason could not be determined"
Is there any way to encode in AVC with these setting ?
Thx
JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/5/2015, 5:48 AM
> "Is there any way to encode in AVC with these setting ?"

You need to read the manual for the TV and see what it requires. There are no standards in this area. Every TV is different. You may have to contact the manufacturer to figure this out.

I would try Sony AVC with the AVCHD setting. AVCHD is one of the few standards we have for MPEG4 video so that might be supported but you really need to ask the manufacturer.

~jr
Chienworks wrote on 4/5/2015, 7:41 AM
"I'm looking to get a video file size near of the add of source material files size."

I'll posit that this is an unrealistic and unnecessary desire.
Rosebud wrote on 4/6/2015, 2:38 AM
"I'll posit that this is an unrealistic and unnecessary desire. "
Why ???
I get a 5.3MO file in WMV format. Less than the source material files size.
The lenght of movie is about 3mn and the quality is really good.
I'm just trying to get same result with AVC since the TV can read this format.
The still image is a "dance pattern" which must be displayed on a music and I have 100 / 200 files to encode.
Marco. wrote on 4/6/2015, 5:24 AM
I just encoded a full hd still image to 10 minutes of 1080p23 AVC using HandBrake, RF 20 and its still image tune.
This results in a video file sized 40 MB including audio (video stream only is 25 MB). There's no visible loss.

I'd be careful using non-standard fps as this could prevent your TV from correctly decoding the video file.

In this case – if using HandBrake and a still image source – I think the magic of getting extremely low file sizes is in selecting "Still Image" as x264 tune.

.
Chienworks wrote on 4/6/2015, 7:34 AM
"Why ???"

Because you've given no reason why it has to be small. I suspect that it wouldn't matter if the file was huge, as long as it fit on the USB stick and the TV could play it. Why do you think you need a small file?

3 minutes at 25Mbps would be a very nice looking AVCHD file, would play very well on the TV, and would be less than 600MB. I'm not seeing any reason you would need something smaller. Of course, with a still image you could probably get away with 4Mbps and fit it in 100MB.
GeeBax wrote on 4/6/2015, 4:45 PM
I did a test where I put a short clip on a USB stick and took it to a local TV retailer, where I was able to plug it into various TV receivers. Out of the 30 or so on display, only two refused to play the clip.

It was encoded as an MP4 using Handbrake and was approximately 100MB in size. As has been said already, why go for a small file size anyway, as long as the TV can read the file fast enough, a larger file will give better quality and require less decoding horsepower.

BTW, what is the term you use 5.34MO ? What is an 'O' ?