What would be a reasonable file size limit for downloading via the web?

riredale wrote on 1/30/2004, 7:25 PM
I've decided to encode some of my stuff and put it up on the web for people to download. Question is, what file size would push people's limits? For example, I have a 3 minute slice of my latest project ready to go, but it's been generously encoded (Windows Media) at about 600Kb/sec, making the file about 15MB in size. Is that too big for most people?

It does look nice, though...

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 1/30/2004, 8:33 PM
I've set a 20MB limit for files at VegasUsers.com and this seems to be just about right. Most dialup users can fetch a 20MB file in about an hour and up to that point the size of the file doesn't seem to affect how many downloads the video gets. Once that 20MB barrier is passed though, the number of downloads seems to drop off quickly. Off course, shorter downloads are often appreciated. You could probably get that 3 minute file down to 6MB if you encoded at 256Kbps and it might look pretty good. The two things that seem to require high bitrates the most are fast motion and high contrast detail. If you have a video that doesn't contain a lot of this then you can compress it more without loss of viewability.
BillyBoy wrote on 1/30/2004, 9:48 PM
An effect approach is offers a smaller size for dial-up users and larger size file for those that have broadband. You can also reduce the frame size. Personally I rather see a video at a higher bitrate at a smaller frame size as opposed to a lower quality bitrate at a larger frame size.

Of course I don't care how big the files are anymore... I got one of the top five percent ISP's (Wide Open West) that averages around 11 Megabytes a minute and for a few bucks more you can go crazy and get about 20 megs a minute. That's flying. ;-)
4thorder wrote on 1/30/2004, 9:55 PM
I think a video codec is your answer, divx or mp4. If you maintain careful control over your encoding, you can get remarkable results that will rival the original at about 10% of the size.
stormstereo wrote on 1/31/2004, 3:43 AM
As small as possible!! I used to have megabits of bandwith but now I'm on a 56 K modem which actually probably works at 40 K or so. Even some websites are a pain to download. I try not to download stuff bigger than 5 MB. It takes forever. I remember one file at 40+ MB. With some additional problems, it took three days. And this is how fast most of the worlds connections are. Remember that if you are going international. Heck, it's only a fraction of the worlds population that has Internet. And I think only 50% of us have access to a telphone, not to mention electricity. I know a company in Sweden that offers 26 Mbit connections for $40/month. I can see you drooooling now.
Best/Tommy
riredale wrote on 1/31/2004, 9:59 AM
Well, just fooling around yesterday, I hit upon the following specs:

--WM9 video and audio codecs (very close to state-of-the-art, even if they are from Microsoft). I hear that the next leap in compression performance will be with the brand-new H.264 standard, but it's not mature yet.

--30 frames per second and about 550Kb/sec for the video

--320x240 seemed too tiny, yet 640x480 required 4 times the bandwidth. I settled on a midway point, 480x360, and it looks pretty good.

--48Kb/sec WMA VBR audio (probably nearly as good as 64K CBR, which sounds surprisingly good)

All of this encoding using the official Microsoft encoder, not the Vegas one. I recall reading somewhere that the Vegas option was good, but not as good.

Anyway, the results are about 600Kb/sec (it works out to about 5MB/min, or about half the data rate for CDs, and the image size and quality are pretty nice.

jetdv wrote on 1/31/2004, 10:06 PM
I try to limit videos for modem use to 2Meg/Min. Even on DSL, 5 Meg/Min seems a little steep.