Output Format Options « Videomaker Community Forums

dMo
Member

So, I made a nice video and it plays back on my machine in different formats. I don't have a DVD burner, but may get one soon. What are my best options for transferring my movie to another machine via CD. Not sure what that other machine will have (decoders or viewers), so this information would be helpful as well.

I posted the movie to the Web, but it hurt the quality and the viewing screen size seems limited.

In a related issue, I downsized some of the stock photos I used in the production, but it really reduced the output quality. The photos I took using my own camera were great, but these stock/purchased photos end up terrible, especially as viewing screen size enlarges. I tried to make them all a specific size so that I could use them without crashing the program. I thought they'd be the same quality as my photos because I batched them through Photoshop to the same specs. Any ideas?

Thanks,

dMo

Posted 4 years ago #
mwickham_1
Member

With the size of video files you need a DVD burner. A Burner is as low as $35 at:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=4&name=CD-DVD-Burners
they charge about $6 for shipping.

You could also link the 2 computers together through a network.

happy shooting
Michael

Posted 4 years ago #
dMo
Member

I really should be putting these things on the Web, but I just don't have enough know-how to get the quality to improve. I published one through Acid Planet, but I wasn't happy with screen/viewing size or the way it handled picture quality and transitions. Any suggestions there?

Posted 4 years ago #
hidef1080
Member

dMo Wrote:
I really should be putting these things on the Web, but I just don't have enough know-how to get the quality to improve. I published one through Acid Planet, but I wasn't happy with screen/viewing size or the way it handled picture quality and transitions. Any suggestions there?

It really depends on what you want to do or I should say what you're looking for.

You can place almost any type of video file on the Internet not just Flash video.

A lot depends on your web hosting company or if you have your own website or if you are buying bandwidth from a web hosting company.

Sites like You Tube place limits on file size and type so it becomes a trade off of quality versus the limits set by the web master.

As far as getting good quality goes always remember that your source files have the best quality but once you start the encoding process to convert from one format to another and or add effects you will drop some quality. To what degree depends on what you have done and what your setting are.

A good Flash encoder will/should give you settings options where you tell the encoder how many passes to make and what bitrate you want. This is where you can get good quality videos.
You Tube is a great place to have fun but due to their size restriction [and rightfully so] you will never get great quality from them. Many other video hosting website have those same restrictions.

Give us more details on what you want to do and stuff and someone here will know what should work best for you.

Ã¢Â€ÂœThere is much people with much skills on this site.Ã¢Â€Â

Good luck to you.
8)

Posted 4 years ago #
dMo
Member

Thanks again. Something about what you were saying about Flash converters and having my own site perked my ears up. At the risk of seeming awfully dimwitted about how all these applications may work together, I'll admit that my office has both facilities. We have servers, our own site and all that, so why not just convert what I have, the source files, through the flash converter and publish it as a flash file? Makes sense, but then, what exactly are my source files? Is it just the raw application file with the .VF extension? I'll look into Flash 8, and see how I can make this happen.

If these questions and solutions seem painfully elementary and obvious, that's because our person who normally handles our Web stuff is gone, leaving the rest of us with a minimal amount of Web tech ability. Onward.

Posted 4 years ago #
hidef1080
Member

dMo Wrote:

If these questions and solutions seem painfully elementary and obvious, that's because our person who normally handles our Web stuff is gone, leaving the rest of us with a minimal amount of Web tech ability. Onward.

We all have to start learning somewhere....

Pull up a seat.

Your source materials are your video files in their Ã¢Â€ÂœnaturalÃ¢Â€Â state. Say for example you shoot a 10 minute video and the video camera converts [encodes] the images from analog light waves [the real world] to mpeg 2 files [the digital world]. If you keep/store those files as Ã¢Â€Âœun-edited mastersÃ¢Â€Â [the mpeg 2 files] you will have the best source files to edit and re-master. If you want to reedit or add different effects or whatever, use your source files for the best quality.

This is the great thing about NLE's [nonlinear editors] you never really edit the source file. What you see and work with is a rendering of the video and a data file that tracks things like the cuts and effects you do to the rendering. Once you are happy with your video, you choose your output file type [mpeg 4, mpeg 2, avi, DV avi etc] and quality setting and the NLE [Avid, Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, Apple's Finale Cut etc] will render a copy of our video with all of your effects and cuts and stuff in the format you selected.

Still with me?

Now a Flash encoder will take the video you've made and apply compression algorithms to that video to make it smaller to better deal with the realities of limited bandwidth and varying system resources on different computers around the world. Flash is a good choice for two reasons: 1.) It does a good job of encoding video into smaller files with good video quality and sound. 2.) It's free and almost everyone has a Flash player in their web browser.

Now I want you to understand that even with your own servers you'll still need to take bandwidth into consideration because the majority of people still use dial-up which means they will only be able to handle the smallest [read - low quality] file sizes.
You can always encode two videos Ã¢Â€Â“ one for broadband users and one for dial-up stone age types...
Just joking. Some of my best friends still live in the 90's!!

If you only plan on delivering your video over a LAN or intranet then bandwidth issues should be of little concern and you can get great quality.

I hope that helps you.

Good luck! 8)

Posted 4 years ago #
dMo
Member

Thanks. Your advice and instruction is clear as a bell. I think one of my issues was that I used stock footage rather than any I loaded/shot myself. That stuff may have been pre-edited, I can't remember. I did it when I had a Mac and only iMovie. Now I can feed it right in from my Sony digital camcorder. I will change this approach in the future.

One of the strange things about the still photos was that I thought I batch converted all to the same file size--photoshop allows you to do this. Only the ones I took myself, and the ones we purchased we much different final quality. The purchased ones were mucked up but my own hardly lost a thing.

Best,

dMo

Posted 4 years ago #