Exporting the best quality for web DL

[gwyn]

Hey everyone -- I've made a vid for Escapade using HD source for the first time. I finally got my files to work for the size needed for the show, but now I'm trying to get a decent quality file that's not too huge for posting to the web -- both for download at my site, and for uploading to streaming. Nothing I make seems to come out well.

I exported using the H.264 codec (or whatever the number is, I don't have it open right now), and got a fairly shiny file at the Avengers aspect ratio of 965x542. But if I try to make it into any kind of .avi, it becomes massively pixelated and other files types seem really blurry -- not what I want after using all that HD source.

What are people using these days for DL and streaming? I think my methods are woefully out of date. And how did you get there?

For what it's worth, I'm on a Mac using an older version of FCP (6), and use MPEG Streamclip to make a lot of my web files.

Comments

[gwyn]

No, I've traditionally made either a full quality AVI and then an MOV through MPEG Streamclip, because that's always deinterlaced things one final time and smoothed out the credits text. But this time I went straight from FCP to .mov, and then tried to use MPEG Streamclip to create a web file. Nothing comes out well. What do you choose as your final output in VisualHub? I don't know anything about the program but I'm always willing to try something new.

[rhivolution]

Hmm, that's weird that it did that from an MOV to MPEG Streamclip--maybe check your MOV settings before export? I usually set mine to be higher resolution than the native and haven't had much trouble with credits text.

VisualHub...I usually just ramp up the AVI quality a little bit and roll from there. It doesn't have a preview function, which is kind of suck; not sure what codec it uses but I have rarely had pain with it. I've also used it to convert AVI to DV for easy FCP use, which has been handy in the past...though DV is so massive a file that my old MacBook balks a little.

[gwyn]

I'll poke around and see if I can change anything...I confess, I probably should have noted that I am STUPID when it comes to this stuff. I find something that someone tells me to do, and then I do that forever more because I can't figure out what people are talking about. ;-) I have to literally have people hold my hand and walk me through it.

[rhivolution]

If you need guidance just holler! I'm not that great at tutorials, but I will give it a stab.