Video Compression for You Tube

I've decided that if you can master video compression for You Tube, then you've earned Star of the Day! After some research, I am going to try these settings:

General Purpose Settings - Video up to 6 minutes in length

* H.264 video codec set to 2000Kbits/sec (2Mbits/sec or 250KBytes/sec)
* 320×240 video size (deinterlaced or simply use one field)
* Mono audio with AAC codec at 64 Kbit/sec (or 128 Kbit/sec for stereo)
* Recommended Sample Rate
* Best Encoding Quality

In the “Video Options” select Main Profile and Best Quality (Multi-pass).

These settings will be fine up to 800 Mbits aka 100 MBytes.
At the proposed settings, any file shorter than 6 minutes and 15 seconds will be within YouTube’s 100MB per upload limit.

To calculate the ideal setting for videos longer than this, visit the LA FCP group Web site.

http://www.robbmontgomery.com/2007/10/best-video-compression-settings-for-you-tube/


Calculating Data Rate 6 to 10 minutes

This method requires you to know the duration of your video in seconds. If it's less than 375 seconds (6 minutes 15 seconds), use the General Purpose settings above, if it's more than 375 some calculation is required.

* We have 800 Mbits to work with (100 MBytes x 8 bits-per-Byte).
* If we divide that by the number of seconds to be encoded we get our maximum bit rate per second.
* After deducting the 64Kbits/sec for mono audio or 128Kbits/sec for stereo audio, the remainder is the maximum data rate is the data rate for the video. Two pass will be important for this.

Let's consider an example. The video is 8 minutes long that's 480 seconds.

* 800,000KBits divided by 480 seconds gives us 1,666,667Kbits/sec to keep within the 100 MB upload limit.
* Less 128Kbits/sec for stereo audio (or use mono and subtract only 64Kbits/sec) leaves 1538Kbits/sec for video.

So in the Data Rate set 1500 kbits/sec instead of 2000.

If you want to see an example uploaded using this method, click on the link below. This is a particularly difficult source to encode - fast flashs, leaves, lots of motion and yet, the quality is very high compared to the quality with other YouTube videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnTe-CI-hU8

Video Compression for the Web

Exporting Flash Video from Premiere

Export as Adobe Media Encoder
Export Settings:
Format: Adobe Flash Video
Video Codec: On2 VP6
Width: 480
Height: 360
Frame Rate: 29.97
Bitrate: 700 kpbs

Creating Rollover (Image) Buttons for IE & Other Browsers

Recently I've been battling a battle that I've taken on in the past, but its taken me a little while to remember what the solution was. I must have lost that post-it note that explained how I solved the problem. Here's an explanation of the battle:

Problem
Button (image) rollover would work beautifully in Firefox, but not in IE (of course).

CSS Solution
Use absolute positioning. By looking at the web page, you would think that there are two different images - one for the normal state and one for the rollover state. But actually, both states of the button are in one image. The appearance of the image is controlled with absolute positioning. So although the user only sees one image at a time, two images are actually appearing.

a#live {
color: #a81933;
white-space:nowrap;
background-image:url(..);
background-position: 25% -10%;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
font: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 13px;
font-weight: bold;
position: absolute;
left: 195px;
width: 200px;
top: 148px;
height: 75px;
text-decoration: none;
padding-top: 125px;
padding-left: 27px;
}

a#live:link {
}

a#live:visited {
}

a#live:hover {
color: #000000;
white-space:nowrap;
background-image:url(..);
background-position: 25% 129%;
}

a#live:active {
}

HTML Code
href="..." id="live"

The End Result
See for yourself: http://arweb.sdsu.edu/es/prospectivestudents/video_menu.html

Welcome

Over the years, as I've discovered how to do things better when producing multimedia, I have found myself writing things down on post-it notes or random pieces of paper. I have never put them all in one place for easy reference later on. So I have made today the day to get organized and create a reference site for myself. Today my post-it notes are becoming my tidbits.

And please... as you see me post tidbits, if you read something and know of a better way to do it, please share. I would love to hear.