Hi all,

I've done a job for a real estate company and they have asked us to shrink the video file size of a 3 minute ad to less than what it currently is: 9MB.

They want to host it on their own website as well as YouTube.

I have told them that I will attempt to do so but to understand that quality loss is the way video is shrunk.

The footage originated as EX1 1080p25 footage and I am wondering what is the best/smallest output format to select from Premiere?

Most of my jobs involve maintaining the quality - this is the first one where I've had to think the other way and I have no idea.

Thanks for your help,

-- John

Wow. 9MB seems pretty stinking small already. I do a lot of web videos about 2 minutes in length and they generally end up just under 100MB (Flash or h.264, 720p).

If I was posed this challenge I'd ask why the size is an issue. It might expose a problem they are having that is actually unrelated to size but tied to something else.

If you really need to cut to the bone you can do a bunch of things like shrinking the video resolutions (320x240), drop frame rate to 10fps or even 5 fps and lower the audio data rate, even reverting to mono.

If you really have to crunch video the best thing to do is lower the resolution to an NTSC/PAL ratio (or lower); but don't compromise on the bit rate or you will lose quality. H.264 offers the best option here.

Also, compress from the original master or timeline if possible. Hope this helps.