[fobside]

I'm looking to play a clip about 30 seconds long off of a web page. The dimensions of the video don't have to be huge, but my .wmv file is about 600kb, at 320x240 and 158kbps. I can't seem to get .mp4 near the file size, nor at nearly the same quality. I've tried different things, but if I change it off of default settings, I can no longer play the .mp4 files on QuickTime for Windows.

Does anyone have any ideas or advice they could give to me? Thanks in advance.

[jimi5150]

Part of the problem is that you're working with a "finished" file. That is, one that's already been compressed for some use. Getting the same quality re-compressing it is going to be difficult. Can't you just use the file as is? Otherwise, the best thing to do would be to get a hold of the original file and re-compress it using the settings you prefer. Otherwise, the best you can hope for is either quality or file size . . . pick one.

jimi

[fobside]

No no no...I am working with raw DV. I still can't get the quality from the raw DV to be as good.

[Uncle Skeleton]

if it has to be mp4, the best result you will get is to export to mov with the 3ivx codec, target it to 158 kbps (if your notation is correct you probably have to make that ~40 kBps), then open that mov and export to mp4 with passthrough on. Apple's encoder is pretty low quality, and I think the datarate control is poor as well.

Due to interlacing, make sure your target height is exactly half your source height (if your source is PAL you will want the output to be 288 px tall).