Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Movie Time - Youtube or vimeo make a big file small for fast upload

It is nice to share your videos but they are so huge and it might take 4ever to upload them on Youtube, vimeo etc.
Nothing more simple than solving this little problem.
Drag you clip into SUPER. I did explain here how it works.  Chose Flash, chose size 368:208 for small, 560:304 for medium or 720:480 for DVD size. SUPER converts a 20 MB full DH file with 14 seconds footage into a small 1.4 MB, medium 2.1 Mb or DVD size with only 3.3 Mb.  This includes the fade in and fade out from 1 second each and the info text (watermark)


Hah, you like that how easy it is and now you want the fancy stuff too.
OK Activate Direct Show Decode and click the little box right of it.
The setting window pops up and you can start playing around.


For standard clips in Youtube and vimeo the medium setting is fine and for HD clips choose the DVD resolution.
Remember WE (that means you too) have a HX1 group on vimeo, so show me what you got and lets solve the mysteries of the Exmor chip and the Bionz processor together.
Here is a little test clip I just did trying my carry on the bike around tripod as a steady cam.

And this is when it all goes sour.
Youtube had no problem with the Flash file but vimeo did not allow flash to be uploaded. And Youtube made out of my 16:9 a 4:3
The help function in Youtube stated :

If you'd like to add formatting tags to a video you've already uploaded to your account:
Sign into your YouTube account, and click account (in the upper right hand corner of the page).
Click Uploaded Videos, and select the video that you'd like to edit.
Click the "edit" button below the video.
Depending on how you'd like to format your video, type on of the following tags into the "Tags" section:

Tag: yt:crop=16:9
(zooms in on the 16:9 area, removes windowboxing)

Tag: yt:stretch=16:9
(fixes anamorphic content by scaling to 16:9)

Tag: yt:stretch=4:3
(fixes 720x480 content that is the wrong aspect ratio by scaling to 4:3)

Tag: yt:quality=high
(default to a high quality stream, depending on availability)

so I did that and now the video looks right. I wonder why I have to do that manually?This clip you can watch in HD, I uploaded in 1280x720. For the best experience watch it on youtube direct and press HD.  I added the yt:quality=high and yt:stretch=16:9
The funny thing is, when I download it back from youtube, the clip is 4:3 format with 960x720
Well at least I know now that I can uplad HD and it can be watched in a decent quality.




So forget about it what I just told you, at least regarding vimeo.
Oh and the resolutions I found fitting in SUPER were not all 16:9 either.
Bugger that for a lark. So let´s start all over again. This time I try first to upload and then tell you later.

OK it is later and since I choose our trusted old AVI friend we know it will work just fine.
Now for big size we choose 853:480 (a vimeo recomendation). The setting you see in the picture. The file size we get is only 2.3 Mb.For medium resoultion we choose 512:288, reduce the bit rate to 528 and audio to 22050 and a bitrate of 64. That shrinks our file to 1.15 Mb. With these sizes I think we don´t need to shrink more.Now remember this is just for sharing the information from the video and not about the quality of the video. If you want that you need to upload at least in 1280:720 with a bitrate of 3000 and audio at 44100 and 128k. That reduces our 20 Mb video to 6 MB.


If you want a cheap steadycam look at Johnny Chung Lee steadycam.org and he tells you how to do it yourself for $14 or look at the professional steadycam Stephen McDonald has for his HX1 here.
Wehe I asked him what the function of the "nightstick thingy" was in front he was kind enough to reply to my newbie question:
"The nightstick-like part, is the front grab-handle, usually held with the left hand. It is also handy for carrying the rig in a low position. It's a key feature in being able to hold steady on full-zoom shots with slow shutter speeds."
Stephen, I would like to see a picture of you holding it in action and mayve a tiny clip with and without to see the benefits of it.

I have 3 tripods and will experiment with them how the could work as an emergency steadycam, but to be honest I don´t think I will have much luck with my tiny table tripod. Will keep you posted how it works out.


Update 09.08.08
As you can see the videos are fixed and I still have no idea why youtube reacts so erratic and often puts clips in a wrong ratio. These 2 I had manually reduced in size from height =525 to height=405 so they show up right here.

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