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smogscythe · Jan 2, 2004, 11:57 PM

I've got this movie I have to post on the web, short like 3 mins. I don't want any big files to bother modem-hokeys.
I tried Mpeg-4, but it's almost 7 MB?! for 3mins, 322x178.
How do Movie trailers get something like that but only 2-3 MB?

In other words, what is the best compression for short shorts?

fat mac moron · Jan 3, 2004, 05:34 AM

Originally posted by smogscythe:
I've got this movie I have to post on the web, short like 3 mins. I don't want any big files to bother modem-hokeys.
I tried Mpeg-4, but it's almost 7 MB?! for 3mins, 322x178.
How do Movie trailers get something like that but only 2-3 MB?

In other words, what is the best compression for short shorts?

Try www.3ivx.com & export the movie from Quicktime. 3ivx 4.5 doesn't need a decoder since it'll work with Apple's mp4 decoder.

3ivx really is SUPER nice, I use it on my web site.

smogscythe · Jan 3, 2004, 05:34 PM

Excellent!
It works great. Thanks, mac-moron

!

Scifience · Jan 3, 2004, 06:16 PM

I just want to point out that 7MB is really not that big of a file these days. Many, many people have broadband, in which case this movie would take under 45 seconds to download.

fat mac moron · Jan 3, 2004, 07:22 PM

Originally posted by Scifience:
I just want to point out that 7MB is really not that big of a file these days. Many, many people have broadband, in which case this movie would take under 45 seconds to download.

That's true, but the smaller the better... 3ivx is really good at preserving quality, while minimizing file size. I think I had a 70mb uncompressed Quicktime movie and used 3ivx to export it to a 640 x 480 mpeg4. I believe the final *.mp4 file was around 400k and still had excellent quality.

Uncle Skeleton · Jan 3, 2004, 07:36 PM

Originally posted by smogscythe:
I've got this movie I have to post on the web, short like 3 mins. I don't want any big files to bother modem-hokeys.
I tried Mpeg-4, but it's almost 7 MB?! for 3mins, 322x178.
How do Movie trailers get something like that but only 2-3 MB?

In other words, what is the best compression for short shorts?

In general you will get better compression, better decompression and fewer strange bugs if you always use multiples of 16 (or if necessary 8 is usually just as good, depending on codec) for the dimensions. Other general use compression tips: don't leave any black or muddy borders around the edges; your viewers generally won't care, but the codec still has to compress them. And garbage in, garbage out; make sure you have as clean a source as possible.

Also don't forget about audio! I've downloaded some movies where the video was quite small but the audio was uncompressed (or near it) and almost as big as the video

smogscythe · Jan 4, 2004, 04:51 PM

Thanks for the advice Skeleton.

I also found on Apple's site some compression tips...

Mpeg4 is still beautiful.
So what's the deal with Pixlet? Only for big studios?

larkost · Jan 4, 2004, 05:20 PM

Pixlet is not for streaming movies. It if for demoing insanely high-quality movies for studio uses. The amount of compression is not that great, and the processor usage is enormous. For that price you get almost 0 artifacts, and can move the files around in reasonable amounts of time (as opposed the original 75MB/sec files). Take a look at Pixar's uses for Pixlet if you want to learn more.