Never done web video...

CVM wrote on 10/7/2006, 1:37 PM
I've read some of the existing threads on web video and am thoroughly confused. Not because I'm an idiot, but am unsure why certain things happen when I try to do it. I'll explain.

I am trying to convert DV video to web video using Vegas 6. I am unsure of the length at this time. I want to make it a decent size (no larger than 320x240), no audio (yeah!), with the highest quality video (it's a sales web site), with the best compression (smallest file size), that will play on PCs and Macs.

I've played around with rendering the file to certian formats: WMV, MOV, MPG, etc. and get varied results... mostly large files... especially with MOV! What's up with that? Here's something wierd... I clicked on MainConcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4) and was told there were no templates for this format and it wouldn't let me render to it. THEN, I tried again and the MainConcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4) selections were GONE from the drop down list!!! That's another problem.

OK... the $64,000 question. Can anyone recommend exact specifications for web video? Give me format, frames, video quality, etc. Everything I need to select to get my results.

I'm quite certain many of us with issues like this will bookmark your answer threads.

Thanks!


Comments

riredale wrote on 10/7/2006, 9:01 PM
Spend some time with the Search feature of this board--there are a lot of smart people here, and similar questions have been discussed before.

My opinion:

Encode to wmv or Flash8. 320x240x29.97 in wmv at about 400Kb/sec gives a very nice, clean video image. Your users will have to use Windows Media Player, which can be a pain in the rear. As a result, about 6 months ago I switched all the videos on the website I maintain over to Flash8.

Flash8 is a very good encoder, but not quite as efficient as wmv, in my view, so you'll need to run a bit fatter to get equivalent quality. But the beauty of Flash8 is that EVERYONE already has Flash installed on their PC or Mac, and even if they don't have version 8 or higher, it's a trivial install. You can put an embedded player on your web page and it's also an easy install. In my view, Flash is about the most user-friendly format out there.

Do a search. There's lots of good advice on this board.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 10/7/2006, 9:05 PM
You can cut your file size in half by rendering at 15fps instead of 30fps. You’ll hardly notice the difference on the web.

~jr