I need advice on rendering compression

1. mindy
   Member

   

   I have an mpeg file. I trimmed it, cropped it and keep trying to export it out with horrible results. The original video is so sharp and clear, but I only get that result in an export if I have no compression., The original mpeg is like 80mb, the export to reproduce that sharp look of an avi is like 300mb.  What compression can I use on a file that was an mpeg that will give me the same sharp results? I have done a lot of experimenting and nothing I select seems to work.

   Is there a selection I can make to just save the video file at its original defaults? I can't afford ANY quality loss because I am importing this into flash. The old file imports into a lovely sharp image, whereas these almost but not quite the same quality other video files leave my footage fuzzy.

    

   Thanks so much for the help!

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2. robgrauert
   Member

   

   Well, MPEG isn't an editing codec. Ideally, it should have first been transcoded to an i-frame codec like DV/NTSC, and then edited.

   What do you mean cropped it? Enlarged it? That will make your image less sharp.

   What settings have you tried when trying to compress for a final export? And what do you intend to do with this video that your editing program spits out? 

   Without this kind of information, it's hard to pinpoint where you've gone wrong.

   Robert J. Grauert, Jr
   http://www.robgrauert.com

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3. mindy
   Member

   

   I exported at:

   Format: Microsoft Avi

   Preset: NTSC DV

   Video Codec: none

    

   For cropped:

   When I imported the video in it was WAY bigger than the provided frame (I chose Dv/NTC Widescreen), so I just resized it smaller, but only to the point that I could only have what I wanted showing showing. (the left part had to be cut off, it was destroying the composition of the video) Is there a way to change the settings to make adobe premier just inheirt the width X height of whatever I am importing in? I could do the cropping in flash.

   My intentions:

   The plan for this is to import the video into flash and be able to play it. I am attempting to make a series of video tutorials and want the vide I am importing in as sharp as the original mpeg (it is so sharp!) so that it looks nice in flash. The video will stream at 400 kbps.

   I'm painfully new to this (I was basically ordered to learn about digital video to make this work by my boss, Im a web designer lol), so if you have any advice on where to start or a book I could get, that would be great.

   Thanks so much for the reply!

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4. robgrauert
   Member

   

   "When I imported the video in it was WAY bigger than the provided frame (I chose Dv/NTC Widescreen)"

   Did you originally shoot in an HD format? I don't see any other reason why video would be larger than the frame. It sounds like you brought in HD video and are using it in an SD timeline.  

    

   "is there a way to change the settings to make adobe premier just inheirt the width X height of whatever I am importing in?"

   Yes. Work in an HD project (if that's what you originally shot.) You have to set up your project to match the parameters of the video you shot.

    

   "The video will stream at 400 kbps."

   If you are making video for the web, DV/NTSC is not the codec you should be exporting to. See, a computer screen uses square pixels, but SD video, such as DV/NTSC, uses non-square pixels. Trying to display an image with non-square pixels on a device that uses square pixels results in....crap. The reason why your HD video looks sharp (if you did shoot HD) is because HD video uses square pixels. And DV/NTSC requires too much bandwidth for the web. Try exporting to the H.264 codec. 

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5. robgrauert
   Member

   

   I forgot to mention something, and this is only because you want to crop something for compositional purposes:

   If you did in fact shoot HD, keep working in your SD project with the HD video being way larger than the frame. It is better to scale down your HD image to crop something out rather than scale up an SD image.

   I would assume cropping in flash will result in a weird aspect ratio.

   Then export your H.264 file.

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6. mindy
   Member

   

   Thanks so much for the advice! And for broadening my understanding of why what I was doing wasn't working!

   **edit** Okay, my problem was it wasnt showing up in winamp at work. nice.

   Though I AM finding the export looks lighter. Like the original footage has warm colour and lots of depth, whereas this export, though sharp thank you! looks washed out and lighter, like someone is holding a transparent white screen over it at 20% or something.

    

   I take it this is where I play around until it works? : )

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7. robgrauert
   Member

   

   yea, you're just going to have to play around and try different settings until you get the results you desire. That's just the name of the game when you're exporting for web use.

   If the export seems to be lightened, I'd try to darken the image just a bit in your editing program..ya know, to counteract what's happening when the video compresses. And try viewing the exported file on a few computers

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8. gregd2790
   Member

   

    I've been editing for a few years and as HD became more prevelant, and more web usage, the number of choices for rendering is hard to get a handle on, so info like this is always great stuff.  The square/round pixel info was very useful to me.  Does creating Flash from the H.264 codec work well then?  What do you use to transcode your MPEG to "an i-frame DV/NTSC"?  something like ProCoder?  And can you add some explanation about what i-frame is?

   thanks!

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9. robgrauert
   Member

   

   "The square/round pixel info was very useful to me"

   Just to clarify, there are no round pixels. There are pixels that are perfect squares, and then are pixels slightly rectangular. 

   "Does creating Flash from the H.264 codec work well then?"

   For the web? Yes. But last I heard, Flash video encoded with the H.264 codec is quite new and is only supported by the latest Flash player. So that's something to keep in mind if you are trying to reach a large audience. The good thing is: updating Flash player is very simple. So the end user shouldn't mind updating as long as you provide a link to where they can update. Does that make sense? 

   "What do you use to transcode your MPEG to "an i-frame DV/NTSC"?  something like ProCoder?"

   I use MPEG Streamclip. It's free and can rip DVDs that are given to me by clients, too.

   "And can you add some explanation about what i-frame is?"

   An I-frame, also known as Intraframe, is a frame of video that is encoded with all the data it needs. The alternative to Intraframe compression is Long GOP compression. Long GOP stands for "Long Groups of Pictures." Here, frames often pull data from other frames, which results results in a smaller file size, but it not ideal for editing. 

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