Thank you Tim. I hadn't thought of that and you're right. Anyway, where in QT would I set the bit rate. And as long as I have you, you have nio idea how much I appreciate all the help people like you, Paolo, Stephen, Jonathan and the other really smart people here give me and others.

Tim-
From me as well. As I meet different people here, they become like family and I talk to them like they are but you're right, there are millions who aren't. Good call and thanks. Will we see you at the party here on Monday?

It seems like I've tried everything. I'll go into Premiere, select Video Settings, reduce the quality to 50%, set fps to 15 and codec to H.264 and I'm coming up with 100MB+ files for 3 minute .mov. Something has to be amis!

Joyce something is not right. Here is a 15-minute video sized at 640x360, 24fps and it's about 80MB: http://www.cruisercast.com

When you say 50% quality, do you mean half resolution? Quality and size are different settings. When you prepare for an export you should see a QT dialog box similar to this: http://www.paolociccone.com/images/QT_H264.jpg

I use 24 fps with 1 keyframe every 96 frames. Quality, see the slider below the frame information, at just above Medium. If you press Cmd, on a PC I believe it's Alt, and you have the mouse over the Quality Slider, you should see also the setting for "Temporal" quality. I set that to medium as well. You mght want to try playing with that.
I set "Encoding" to "Best Quality" but if you are in a hurry try "Faster encode".
With these settings you should get something around 15-18MB for 3 minutes of video.

I don't see anything like that. I'm in Premiere Pro 2.0 with the timeline up. I click on File, Export, Movie and Settings. I select Quicktime from the dropdown File Type menu then click on Video in the menu to get video-specific settings at which point I select Sorensen 3 from Compressors, enter 640 X 360 for frame size and reduce the Quality to 50%. I then limit the Data Rate tio 1000 kB/sec and hit OK which takes me back to the Export Movie dialogue box where I Name it and Save it. Again, I'm new to all of this end of the business and the guys around here who usually help me understand things are TV veterans and not Internet gurus so you're my only hope so I really appreciate your help.

I don't see anything like that. I'm in Premiere Pro 2.0 with the timeline up. I click on File, Export, Movie and Settings. I select Quicktime from the dropdown File Type menu then click on Video in the menu to get video-specific settings at which point I select Sorensen 3 from Compressors, enter 640 X 360 for frame size and reduce the Quality to 50%. I then limit the Data Rate tio 1000 kB/sec and hit OK which takes me back to the Export Movie dialogue box where I Name it and Save it. Again, I'm new to all of this end of the business and the guys around here who usually help me understand things are TV veterans and not Internet gurus so you're my only hope so I really appreciate your help.

You're very welcome :)

Sorenson is not H.264. That's a completely different codec. A good one, but different. I have no experience with Premiere but AfterEffects and other apps allow you to set the options for each codec. Maybe somebody familiar with Premiere can help with this issue. Do you see H.264 at all in the list of QT codecs available?

Yes but when I select H.264, it doesn't allow me to controll bit rate, only quality, frame rate and frame size. I can reduce the Quality to 50% but it still results in humongus file sizes like over 100Mb

I'm not aware of ANY application that will encode H.264 properly except QTPro7 (on the PC side). That is the problem with the codec is that it is completely proprietary to QTPro.

For the Sorenson scenario you listed try limiting the bitrate to 200 instead of 1000. It will exponentially reduce your filesize. Also alot of web video's are 424X240 (for 16x9 scenarios). Had you considered using 424x240 to save file size as well?

good luck..

Well, I reduced to 424 X 240, limited to 200 bit rate and sorensen 3 at 50% quality and 15 fps which resulted in a final file size of 88Mb. I just don't get it but thanks guys for trying.

I'm not aware of ANY application that will encode H.264 properly except QTPro7 (on the PC side). That is the problem with the codec is that it is completely proprietary to QTPro.


Don't mean to contradict you here but proprietary defines a technology that is defined by a company and is exclusively controlled by that company. The Sorenson codec is an example. MS-Word is another. MPEG and H.264 are not proprietary as they are defined by standardization groups that then publish the specs.
Apple has provided a easily accessible, widespread implementation, that's all.
Both HD-DVD and Blue Ray require support for H.264.

Sorenson Squeeze, available for both Mac and Windows, includes an H.264 encoder. Lead Multimedia has a H.264 DirectVideo filter. There are other companies that offer all kind of H.264 products.

Cheers.

Don't mean to contradict you here but proprietary defines a technology that is defined by a company and is exclusively controlled by that company. The Sorenson codec is an example. MS-Word is another. MPEG and H.264 are not proprietary as they are defined by standardization groups that then publish the specs.
Apple has provided a easily accessible, widespread implementation, that's all.
Both HD-DVD and Blue Ray require support for H.264.

Sorenson Squeeze, available for both Mac and Windows, includes an H.264 encoder. Lead Multimedia has a H.264 DirectVideo filter. There are other companies that offer all kind of H.264 products.

Cheers.
Very true Paolo.


I can attest to the fact that H.264 is a bear to get out of a PC. I've tried for months to get a good routine for it on Liquid, Media Composer Adrenalin, Premiere Pro and Boris Red. No luck with any of them. The only way I've found to do it is with QTPro7 and it takes a looooong time to encode.

It wouldn't have bothered me so much but T.Dashwood frequently asked me to post video's using the H.264 format and I tried like hell to accomodate but it is a pain on a PC. Mac folk can't seem to open an HD-WMV that was encoded using the WME Pro. Instead DivX seems to work for everybody using the HD profile and the economy in file size per quality is excellent.

Well, I reduced to 424 X 240, limited to 200 bit rate and sorensen 3 at 50% quality and 15 fps which resulted in a final file size of 88Mb. I just don't get it but thanks guys for trying.
If it makes you feel any better, I opened up Premiere with just a DV clip on the timeline and tried to encode H.264 and the file size it huge.

Try this instead.

Go to:

File > Export > Adobe Media Encoder (opens the encoder window)

Now Select Widows media but don't bother to drop down and select any of their preset's. Instead, to the right of the "Preset" drop down there is an open preset button. Click it and it will ask you to browse for the preset. Instead of the vpr it suggest drop the file type box down and select prx instead. Now, you'll need a prx to use so Click here to download a medium quality prx (http://www.salatar.com/users/stephenlnoe/browsable/MediumQualityNTSC.prx) to use. Try encoding and see if it works. I have all kinds of custom preset. The one I've provided will work for PC or MAC users.

Let me know how it works out...

I'm not aware of ANY application that will encode H.264 properly except QTPro7 (on the PC side).

Vegas 6.0d comes with the MainConcept H.264 encoder, a great performer. If not, Nero has an encoder that is not bad. And there are free ones if you search around.

It wouldn't have bothered me so much but T.Dashwood frequently asked me to post video's using the H.264 format and I tried like hell to accomodate but it is a pain on a PC.

This is interesting. Makes you wonder what's the big deal in creating an encoder that works acceptably on Windows. If I were the conspiracy theory kinda guy I would smell smoke from Redmond, but of course I'm not that kind of person ;) I bet this is going to be solved soon.
Tell you the truth I was quite surprised about the speed of Compressor. It used to take a lot longer, they probably improved it in the last revision. It could be that the video that I submitted was mostly virtual sets from Chromakey, maybe the consistent background makes the encoder go a lot faster.

Take care.

Vegas 6.0d comes with the MainConcept H.264 encoder, a great performer. If not, Nero has an encoder that is not bad. And there are free ones if you search around.
I have not explored that app. Thanks for pointing it out. Let's just say it's not in my bag of tricks.

I'm not aware of ANY application that will encode H.264 properly except QTPro7 (on the PC side). That is the problem with the codec is that it is completely proprietary to QTPro.

another way to look at it is that h.264 won't play back on any of the commonly available software players, except for quicktime.

beyond that, apple did not fully implement h.264 with their player, so you can't get the best h.264 quality when you encode or play back with quicktime... if you want to see real h.264, get the nero encoder, and use the nero player with it.

nero also includes a quicktime-compatible setting, so it will create really nice two-pass mpeg4 files... i would do that before i'd pay for qt pro, because for one thing, nero is a whole lot faster to encode.

the holy grail of web video files is to create something that can be played back natively, without having to download the player software first... the only codec that does that is wmv, because winxp makes up the vast majority of computers on the 'net.

flash used to be part of the native winxp install, but microsoft stopped doing that with the flash 8 codec and player... but the flash 8 player download is pretty small, so it's the only realistic alternative to wmv these days.

i would not put divx or any qt format on the web, go flash 8 if you don't like wmv.

Dan,

Native playing is what it's all about for web TV (wmv). For web movies I choose WMV or DivX. Lately I've been making iPod & PSP content. That is a very little MP4.

Thanks for the Nero gold...

another way to look at it is that h.264 won't play back on any of the commonly available software players, except for quicktime.


... and iTunes. Given the popularity of iTunes, it is a very "commonly available player".


the holy grail of web video files is to create something that can be played back natively, without having to download the player software first... the only codec that does that is wmv, because winxp makes up the vast majority of computers on the 'net.


I'm sorry but this is a overly generalizing statement, and one that encourages proprietary solutions. Nobody argues that the majority of PCs are Windows-based but the number, non the percentage, of non-Windows users is around several millions. Now, while that probably represent 10% of the installed based, it's still a few millions. Using wmv is gonna piss off a lot of people. Using something like Flash, which is even available for Linux, is a much fairer solution.
[/QUOTE]

I released my first Vodcast, made with the HD100, this weekend, produced a H.264 file, made it clear that it requires iTunes, which is probably already installed on the majority of machines but just in case, here is a link.
The video has been downloaded solidly for the past 3 days and I didn't hear a word about any problems.
I watched the server's log files continuosly and the majority of downloads where indeed from Windows machines and a lot of them downloaded the video using iTunes for Windows. Not one email about "I can't play the video".
And the target audience, motorcycle riders, is not famous for being computer savvy ;)

IMHO, iTunes is the great equalizer of video distribution on the Net. Love it or hate it, it's free, it's available, it's probably already there, it's gonna be around for a while. Take advantage of it.

Just my 2,000 Lire ;)

nero rocks, no doubt about it! i have an ipod demo clip up on my website that was created with nero, so you can download it and check the compatibility for yourself... i posted a link to it somewhere here on dvinfo.net, but i can't remember where?

paolo, there are over 1 billion people using the internet today, so millions is pretty insignificant... specifically, here are the exact statistics: less than 3% of the computers on the 'net are macs, so both qt and itunes are basically not native installs with any operating system.

i personally refuse to install itunes, in part because the qt player has become unmanageable bloatware... in particular, it always re-installs itself as a startup no matter how you tweak the settings, and lately i've been unable to get it to open up clips in the same window, it always defaults to a new window every time that you click on a video clip... so you end up with multiple windows all over your desktop.

i am not alone in this, there is a big anti-qt backlash going on right now, and that will encompass itunes as well, because it's also a proprietary apple product... there are very few pc software alternatives to itunes, for downloading and viewing ipod files.

we need to concern ourselves with professional solutions that allow for the widest possible distribution of our content, so it behooves us to watch how big business is handling the video ipod format... putting your content on the 'net only in the video ipod format is way too limiting, as you can see here:

“But NBC and station owners were quick to to draw distinctions between NBBC and other broadcasters’ efforts to put their shows on the Internet and sell episodes on iTunes....We are prioritizing NBBC compared to the revenue sharing on portable devices,” says Terry Mackin, executive VP, Hearst-Argyle Television and past Chairman of the NBC affiliates board. “As the market exists right now, the revenue would be a small opportunity compared to this business. Very small.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6326565.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP

paolo, there are over 1 billion people using the internet today


Which is built on non PC machines and it has proliferated and expanded thanks to the platform-independent standards designed in the past 30 years.
Amazon, Google etc don't run on Windows. 60%+ of web servers run Apache and the vast majority of emails are handled by Sendmail etc. etc.
Platform independence and adherence to standards is important. Especially because Microsoft has a track record of poor quality in their software.
Once you give up your freedom of choice, it's gone and it doesn't come back.


so millions is pretty insignificant... specifically, here are the exact statistics: less than 3% of the computers on the 'net are macs.


Well, from the point of view of a business man, myself, millions are really relevant. If I have a solution that satisfies the majority of potential users, I'll take that instead of one that excludes millions of them. Also, were did you see the numbers that you quoted? Do you have a reference to the sources?


i personally refuse to install itunes, in part because the qt player has become unmanageable bloatware...

...

i am not alone in this, there is a big anti-qt backlash going on right now, and that will encompass itunes as well, because it's also a proprietary apple product...


Speculations and personal bias. BTW, I would not have a problem with proprietary players, mind you, that is a completely different story than propriatary formats, as long as the player is available on all platforms and it's supported and developed at the same level on all platforms.
That makes plain sense because you, the author of the video, know that the same experience will be delivered regardless the personal choice of the viewer. Again, Macromedia/Adobe Flash and iTunes are good examples.
Simple MPEG files are also good. Probably DivX, I'm not yet familiar with it, as long as a format is an open standard and there is a player for it on all majors OSs.


we need to concern ourselves with professional solutions that allow for the widest possible distribution of our content, so it behooves us to watch how big business is handling the video ipod format... putting your content on the 'net only in the video ipod format is way too limiting


I never mentioned nor suggested to use "only the video ipod format" whatever that means. iPods don't have a proprietary format. They support MPEG4 and H.264, another MPEG spec. Don't see the limitation there.
No, when I suggested H.264 and the fact that everybody and his brother has iTunes installed, I meant just that. My Vodcast is formatted at 640x360 24fps, a format incompatible for the iPod. But the fact that I publish it in H264 means that I can give you a one-click link to get it inside iTunes and to subscribe you to next ones. One click. Doesn't get any easier than that.
Now, you want to make your life harder and not install iTunes, that's OK, you still retain your freedom of choice, see, I like that.

You want to play the video with your favorite player? Go ahead, it's still a glorified MPEG file. If that was a WM file that freedom of choice would be taken away from millions of viewers.

i personally refuse to install itunes, in part because the qt player has become unmanageable bloatware... in particular, it always re-installs itself as a startup no matter how you tweak the settings, and lately i've been unable to get it to open up clips in the same window, it always defaults to a new window every time that you click on a video clip... so you end up with multiple windows all over your desktop.

i am not alone in this, there is a big anti-qt backlash going on right now, and that will encompass itunes as well, because it's also a proprietary apple product... there are very few pc software alternatives to itunes, for downloading and viewing ipod files.
OMG Dan, You hit the nail on the head. QT is becoming the new RealMedia. You would think they'd have learned from Real. Real would have absolutely owned online media but they sold out to the advertisers and now so is QTPlayer.

I only have QTPro for one reason and that's to encode H.264 but now that I know about Nero, QTPro's days are numbered on my system.

I personally have a problem with iTunes in that interferes with some of my other software (Avid).

So that rules it out for me.

This is why we should be looking for platform independent solutions. I am still delivering in MPEG1 because it plays on everything (even those with OS9).

Amazon, Google etc don't run on Windows.

how many people sit at a web server to watch video over the internet? none.

If I have a solution that satisfies the majority of potential users, I'll take that instead of one that excludes millions of them.

the ipod video format excludes millions of web surfers, because most of 'em do not have the required software necessary to 1)download the video file(itunes), and 2)play it back(quicktime).

why would you put up a video file that requires proprietary software just download it? and then it can only be played back by a player that none of the major video sites use?

since it went online, over 15 million video ipod files have been downloaded from apple's site... that's a good number, but it pales in comparison to the biggest video sites on the 'net:
video streams per month-
MSN Video 9,279,000
YouTube 9,045,000
Google Video 6,246,000
iFILM 4,336,000
no quicktime, no h.264, no mpeg, and no video ipod format on those sites.

I never mentioned nor suggested to use "only the video ipod format" whatever that means.

do you put your vodcasts online in any video formats other than h.264? can your footage be accessed and downloaded by anything other than itunes?

you asked to see operating system stats:
"Windows XP is the most popular operating system. The windows family counts for nearly 90%" http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

"The Mac only had 2.35 percent of the world’s personal computer market in 2005, according to IDC, up slightly from its 2.02 percent share in 2004." http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=16561&hed=Apple+Profits+Jump+41%25

the point here is that the internet is a windows-only world, and if you want your footage to get the widest possible distribution, you'd better be putting it out there in a native windows format like wmv... the only exception to that is flash 8.

i used to encode a lot of mpeg1 for the 'net many years ago, and while it is still very compatible, everyone has a wmv player these days... look at the winxp o.s. penetration of 73%, wmv is the native video format for winxp, because it's a mandatory part of every winxp install.

how many people sit at a web server to watch video over the internet? none.


That wasn't the point, the point is that open standards are what made the Internet possible. If, for example, TCP/IP was made to run only on IBM mainframes, the vast majority of computers at that time, then we would not have the wonderful world of Internet that we have today. HTTP and HTML were invented on a NExt workstation and designed to be open and platform independent. Taking all that and saying that other platforms are not important is a bit like biting the hand that fed you.


the ipod video format excludes millions of web surfers, because most of 'em do not have the required software necessary to 1)download the video file(itunes), and 2)play it back(quicktime).


Dan, there is no iPod format. It's either MPEG4 or H264, I said that before. Those are general formats, can be played with all kind of players.


why would you put up a video file that requires proprietary software just download it? and then it can only be played back by a player that none of the major video sites use?


We're going in circles here. See above.


since it went online, over 15 million video ipod files have been downloaded from apple's site... that's a good number, but it pales in comparison to the biggest video sites on the 'net:
video streams per month-
MSN Video 9,279,000
YouTube 9,045,000
Google Video 6,246,000
iFILM 4,336,000


BTW, iFILM gives you multiple choices. Google uses MPEG4. Both Google and YouTube don't give you the level of control on the quality that I need.


do you put your vodcasts online in any video formats other than h.264?


No.


can your footage be accessed and downloaded by anything other than itunes?


Of course. It happens every day. The site provides both a direct link to the video file and a one-click link to subscribe. Nobody, I repeat, nobody made a single criticism about the format.


you asked to see operating system stats:
"Windows XP is the most popular operating system. The windows family counts for nearly 90%" http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp


Nobody argues about the fact that Windows is the OS of the majority. Your source though is not representative of the common user. That is a specilized web site collecting statistics about people hitting on their website. I never visited that site and the company/organization is not a credited survey specialist. Those numbers have little or no value for the purpose of drawing a map of OS users in the world.


the point here is that the internet is a windows-only world


No it's not, the Internet is largely run by Unix and Mainframes machines.
When Microsoft tried to switch Hotmail from BSD Unix to Windows the whole system came to a screaching halt and they had to go back. BTW, the Mac
business unit in Redmond is about 300 people, if I remember well and MS has recently started a Linux Lab. Even MS recognizes that there is diversity out there and that it deserves attention.
There is a lot of clients that run Windows, I don't contest that.

Just to be totally clear about the intention of this post, I don't pretend to tell you what to use for encoding. You're happy with WM, more power to ya.
This thread was started by somebody who needed advice on what format to use. Several people gave their contribution and we tried to stay away from "religious wars" because we all know how it ends.
I'm not against WM, my rebuttal was against some rather totalitarian and outrageous statements made.
The validity of a software or a format goes way beyond the market penetration validation. Just because everybody is doing it it doesn't mean that other solutions are not valid. In fact many time we found better solutions than the status quo.
Keeping our options open and supporting platform-independent standards is not only easy but necessary for the survival of the computing platform that we enjoy today. Think of it as "digital enviromental protection". Or we might end, like in "Demolition Man", having only Taco Bell as a choice for dinner out.

I said all I had to say, I believe that people heard enough about this and I will not post more messages in this thread.

Taike care.

I should probably let this thread die, but I have a situation that I think pertains and I wonder if anyone has seen anything similar?

Has anyone noticed significant real-world performance differences amongst the various codecs? Perhaps a loaded question.

To make a long story longer, I started out with Quicktime and Windows Media 9 endcoding which I put up on my web host. From my home (DSL/cable) I can see many, if not all, of my various encoding attempts, from both a web host (progressive downloads) and streaming host.

However, my wife at her work, (T1) indicated that she could never see any of these clips, perhaps a corporate firewall issue. Nonetheless, I switched to Flash and viola! she can see all of it. (at my local public library, I can't even see my website!)

Many details could account for the differences here, e.g. bit rates, file sizes, streaming vs. progressive, so on and so forth, but for me, bottom line, with media of comparable encoding inputs, the Flash video, for some reason, succeeded where the others could not. Any rational explaination here?

For what's it worth, I don't care what I codec I use as long as it's broadcast quality, large aspect ratio, small file sizes, quick renders, and immediate playback, all over a heavily congested internet :^) (tongue-in-cheek)

Thanks in advance, Paul Carlberg

what's your web address Paul?

Stephen, it's highplainsdv.com, I'm in the midst of swapping web hosts, but my clips (all short) spawn from a streamer.

Stephen, it's highplainsdv.com, I'm in the midst of swapping web hosts, but my clips (all short) spawn from a streamer.
It opened right up for me. I'm on comcast cable.

That wasn't the point, the point is that open standards are what made the Internet possible.

again, that is not the slightest bit relevant to this thread.

Dan, there is no iPod format. It's either MPEG4 or H264, I said that before. Those are general formats, can be played with all kind of players.

as i have already pointed out, the ipod video format specifically requires itunes to access the files, and it uses a crippled subset of h.264, it is not even full-on h.264, all of which makes it specific to the ipod... claiming that ipod video "can be played back with all kinds of players" is false information.

you proved that yourself, because you haven't posted any itunes software alternatives, or even any software players that are capable of playing back the ipod video format.

as content creators, we should never let platform fanaticism interfere with content distribution.

if i thought that the ipod video format had any kind of market penetration, i'd be glad to use it myself... but the stats indicate otherwise, take a look at how messed up something as simple as audio podcasting is:

"For all its buzz, podcasting is a cowboy industry -- and much of its future lies in the hands of a handful of companies vying to play sheriff and bring order. PodTrac, Podbridge and PodShow are all trying to help advertisers get a better grasp on how many people are listening and what the audience looks like.

Consider the contradictions surrounding the subject..."

http://www.adageglobal.com/article.php?article_id=108741

However, my wife at her work, (T1) indicated that she could never see any of these clips, perhaps a corporate firewall issue. Nonetheless, I switched to Flash and viola! she can see all of it.

You have a point there. Many corporate firewalls (ISA servers) are very picky with streaming or won't even allow it at all.

As for QT, I installed it without Itunes, but it is NOT the best player out there for H.264 under Windows, certainly not for High Def videos. VLC and Nero player are much better (VLC is Mac compatible I think).

Every format is a compromise. I agree with those recommending the less compromising formats. Having two or three formats available could be a solution.

As for QT, I installed it without Itunes, but it is NOT the best player out there for H.264 under Windows, certainly not for High Def videos. VLC and Nero player are much better (VLC is Mac compatible I think)..

VLC is the best app I have found so far for HD playback on my Windows laptop

-gb-.

Need some advice on a purchase/upgrade. I have PremierPro 1.5 and offer RealPlayer/ Wmv playback on my website. Would like to offer flash and use the On2 Vp6 codec. Looked at Flix and Sorenson, but feel Flix may better suit my needs given 1.5. -- Adobe's site isn't clear on their PremierPro 2.0 codec:
"Macromedia Flash Video export Streamline the process of encoding video and audio for your Macromedia® Flash® projects with built-in support for Flash Video export."

If it is the On2 VP6 codec, is my thinking correct in upgrading to 2.0 rather than purchasing Flix?

Also, I recall on the forum one contributor had been looking for a more professional looking powerplayer feature (hadn't been pleased with Sorenson's). If the above holds true, and any of you have Pro 2.0, are you happy with the the PowerPlayer (if it has one)? Thanks for th input.

Chris,

You would do fine with the PPro2 upgrade and native Flash export via both FLV and SWF formats directly. And yes, you can use On2 compression or the Quicktime version, it's a drop down option when exporting to Flash from PPro2.

I'm not going to say the program is flawless, I prefer not to be stoned to death... ;) but for us the upgrade was well worth the money, more so when you consider the new interface and the additional toolset.

Thanks Daniel. Sounds like the best way to go.

for anyone like me that are learning a ton about video compression but in the meantime needs some quick easy settings, this program kicks butt. Jiri posted about it on the first page of this thread and it's good stuff. thanks man.

-jon

I noticed that a number of posters mentioned the problem of huge file sizes when exporting QuickTime video from Premiere Pro 2.0. Yet no one seemed to be able to find a solution. I might be able to help. I discovered when exporting to the QuickTime format from Premiere Pro 1.5 that the bit rate slider is wildly inaccurate. I didn't realize this at first because the QuickTime player was reporting the bit rate in kilobytes (KB) per second, not kilobits (Kb) per second. Big difference.

I think I had to set the slider to something like 23 Kbps to get a 300 kbps file. Once that was done I found out just how horrible the quality of the QT codecs were compared to Windows Media and RealMedia. Even the Sorenson 3 codec included with Premiere Pro was horrible. I wasn't going to shell out $100 for the Sorenson Pro codec, so I pretty much gave up on QuickTime at the time. I'm now using Nero Recode 2 to generate a QuickTime compatible H.263 files, and using MakeRefMovie (http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/quicktimeintro/tools/#web) to hint and save the resulting .mp4 files in the .mov container. I will probably move to MPEG Streamclip (http://www.squared5.com/), at least for QuickTime H.264 encoding (MakeRefMovie won't open large H.264 .mp4 files, for whatever reason).

I'm surprised and disappointed that apparently the QuickTime bit rate slider problem hasn't been fixed in Premiere Pro 2.0.

Vegas 6.0d comes with the MainConcept H.264 encoder, a great performer. If not, Nero has an encoder that is not bad. And there are free ones if you search around.
MPEG Streamclip (http://www.squared5.com/) is a free application that can encode very good quality H.264 video. It did a better job on moving text than did Nero Recode 2 on the file I tested it with (otherwise the two encoders had similar quality).

beyond that, apple did not fully implement h.264 with their player, so you can't get the best h.264 quality when you encode or play back with quicktime... if you want to see real h.264, get the nero encoder, and use the nero player with it.

nero also includes a quicktime-compatible setting, so it will create really nice two-pass mpeg4 files... i would do that before i'd pay for qt pro, because for one thing, nero is a whole lot faster to encode.
The QuickTime compatible setting in Nero Recode 2 is only for H.263 MPEG-4 encoding; it is not available when encoding H.264 MPEG-4 video. Yet the QuickTime player has no problem playing Nero encoded H.264 video. So it is inaccurate to claim that Apple "did not fully implement h.264 with their player."

i personally refuse to install itunes, in part because the qt player has become unmanageable bloatware... in particular, it always re-installs itself as a startup no matter how you tweak the settings, and lately i've been unable to get it to open up clips in the same window, it always defaults to a new window every time that you click on a video clip... so you end up with multiple windows all over your desktop.
I, too, refuse to install iTunes. However, it is entirely possible to install the QuickTime player apart from iTunes. All you have to do is download the standalone QuickTime only installer (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone.html).

And it's also possible to disable the QuickTime startup task. Just open msconfig (Start>Run..., type in msconfig and click OK) and go to the Startup tab. Uncheck the "qttask" item. The qttask item does appear to be stubborn; you may have to do this procedure a few times over several reboots before the change sticks.

If that doesn't work you can always disable it using the free Windows Defender (http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx) anti-spyware program.

Or, if you want to get rid of it permanently, you could just delete the qttask.exe file from the QuickTime program folder (usually at C:\Program Files\QuickTime).

Yet the QuickTime player has no problem playing Nero encoded H.264 video. So it is inaccurate to claim that Apple "did not fully implement h.264 with their player."

i can see where you are headed, but your assumptions are wrong... at this point in time, the qt player does NOT support the Advanced Profile in the H.264 spec (including B-Frames)... that is a fact, the qt player is crippled.

you can confirm it for yourself by downloading the test clips at my website... unless something has changed recently, you will not be able to play back that nero h.264 clip with your qt player.

so the only way that your statement could be true is if nero was capable of encoding some of the h.264 lower profiles, like maybe baseline or extended... my version of nero did not have that capability, so i don't know what you are referring to.

And it's also possible to disable the QuickTime startup task. Just open msconfig (Start>Run..., type in msconfig and click OK) and go to the Startup tab. Uncheck the "qttask" item. The qttask item does appear to be stubborn; you may have to do this procedure a few times over several reboots before the change sticks.

been there, done that, the change never "sticks" for me, it will sooner or later always re-install itself as a startup task... the only sure way around it is to never use the qt player... i'm not sure that deleting the file itself will prevent the startup task from being installed into your registry.

i'm still looking for a solution to the multiple windows opening in the qt player, if you have a fix please post it, thanks.

you can confirm it for yourself by downloading the test clips at my website... unless something has changed recently, you will not be able to play back that nero h.264 clip with your qt player.
I just downloaded the codec test .zip file from your site. I tried the wheelieAVCnero.mp4, and it opened and played perfectly in QuickTime player 7.1. The QuickTime player is certainly not "crippled," at least anymore.

What version of QuickTime did/do you have installed that wouldn't play your Nero AVC encoded clips? I know that QuickTime 6.5 wouldn't play any H.264 encoded clips. Personally, I can't recall having any problems playing Nero AVC clips in any release of QuickTime 7.x.

been there, done that, the change never "sticks" for me, it will sooner or later always re-install itself as a startup task... the only sure way around it is to never use the qt player
That's not the only way. I've disabled the qttask using the Software Explorer tool in the Windows Defender (http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx) antispyware program. qttask is not checked anymore in the Startup tab in msconfig, and it isn’t listed as a running process in Windows Task Manager.

... i'm not sure that deleting the file itself will prevent the startup task from being installed into your registry.
It doesn't matter. If the qttask.exe file is gone (or even renamed, which is the method I've used with the realsched.exe RealPlayer startup program), it can't be launched at startup.

i'm still looking for a solution to the multiple windows opening in the qt player, if you have a fix please post it, thanks.
I've never seen that problem, so I'm afraid I can't offer a solution. Likely some setting or file simply got corrupted, which can happen to any program. Apple has released a critical update, QuickTime 7.1, so if you haven't already updated now would be a good time, anyway. You may well be able to kill two birds with one stone by installing QuickTime 7.1: Fixing your player problem, and installing the critical update.

Personally, I can't recall having any problems playing Nero AVC clips in any release of QuickTime 7.x.

that's because you never tried it before:
"So obviously, all H.264 codecs play in the H.264-compatible QuickTime Player, right?
Well, no. Apple has implemented the Main Profile of H.264 into its encoders and players, as has Sorenson. However, encoded files produced with more advanced techniques, like the Advanced Simple Profile used in the Ateme Encoder featured in Nero’s line of products, won’t play in the QuickTime Player." - http://www.streamingmedia.com/r/printerfriendly.asp?id=9259

i only know about it now because you pointed me towards this latest qt 7.1 update, which was released two weeks ago... since that jan ozer article is dated 3/2006, it means that apple took a year to finally implement decent h.264 support in the qt player.

i do have the qttask disabled on startup with spybot, but every time that you update qt, or even open the player, it re-installs qttask as a startup... and no, i'm not going to delete or re-name the file, because that leaves unlinked trash in the registry file... you probably won't notice it, but it's not good computing practice.

so i uninstalled the old qt 7.0, and re-installed the new 7.1 from scratch... which still didn't fix the issue with opening a new qt window every time that i click on a .dv file... i'd compare that qt player behavior on another computer, but i'm so sick of quicktime right now that i can't stand to work with it anymore :-/

that's because you never tried it before
That's circular reasoning on your part. I encoded H.264 Nero video long before Apple released the recent 7.1 update, and I'm sure I played it in the QuickTime player. Never had any problems. Why it worked for me and not for you is a mystery that probably won't ever be solved.

"So obviously, all H.264 codecs play in the H.264-compatible QuickTime Player, right?
Well, no. Apple has implemented the Main Profile of H.264 into its encoders and players, as has Sorenson. However, encoded files produced with more advanced techniques, like the Advanced Simple Profile used in the Ateme Encoder featured in Nero’s line of products, won’t play in the QuickTime Player." - http://www.streamingmedia.com/r/printerfriendly.asp?id=9259
Like I said above, I've never had a problem playing Nero H.264 videos in QuickTime 7.x. Don't ask me why. I never heard there was supposed to be a problem, so I just went my oblivious merry way playing them.

i only know about it now because you pointed me towards this latest qt 7.1 update, which was released two weeks ago... since that jan ozer article is dated 3/2006, it means that apple took a year to finally implement decent h.264 support in the qt player.
It's not clear; did the 7.1 update resolve the problem you had with QuickTime playing Nero H.264 files? Can you now play Nero H.264 encoded .mp4 files in QuickTime?

i do have the qttask disabled on startup with spybot, but every time that you update qt, or even open the player, it re-installs qttask as a startup...
I've disabled the qttask startup program with Windows Defender. I just opened and closed QuickTime and check msconfig, and qttask was not re-installed.

and no, i'm not going to delete or re-name the file, because that leaves unlinked trash in the registry file... you probably won't notice it, but it's not good computing practice.
Maybe not, but if it works with no discernable impact on your computer health, I don't see that it should be a problem. But I have a good alternative in Windows Defender, anyway.

so i uninstalled the old qt 7.0, and re-installed the new 7.1 from scratch... which still didn't fix the issue with opening a new qt window every time that i click on a .dv file... i'd compare that qt player behavior on another computer, but i'm so sick of quicktime right now that i can't stand to work with it anymore :-/
Ever try VLC media player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/)?

Like I said above, I've never had a problem playing Nero H.264 videos in QuickTime 7.x.

umm, no... you couldn't have been playing nero h.264 in qt 7.0, because as i just proved, it wasn't possible with the standard qt 7.0 player configuration.

go read your qt 7.1 update summary, notice the part referencing improved h.264 support?

But I have a good alternative in Windows Defender, anyway.

so now everyone has to install windows defender to correct the unruly behavior of the qt player? i think not... just don't put up web video that requires the qt player, and you'll be doing your viewers a big favor.

i would suggest that you do some research on the qt player, over at the mpeg4 doom9 forum... see how much love you can find for it over there :-) http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=17

umm, no... you couldn't have been playing nero h.264 in qt 7.0, because as i just proved, it wasn't possible with the standard qt 7.0 player configuration.
You haven't proved anything to me, as I'm pretty sure I did it. Almost all the Windows installations I take care of have been updated to QuickTime 7.1, so I can't directly test it at this time. But I'll probably update my video editing install soon, which still has QuickTime 6.5. I've got a QuickTime 7.0 installer still on my hard drive, so I could try it. We should then know what the truth of the matter is.

go read your qt 7.1 update summary, notice the part referencing improved h.264 support?
There's no update summary notice with my QuickTime 7.1 install. The Readme file simply says that "QuickTime 7.1 delivers numerous important bug fixes and addresses critical security issues." However, I found this page (http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime71.html) on the Apple site which says regarding H.264 that the 7.1 update delivers "H.264 performance improvements." Nothing in either document about improved H.264 support, I'm afraid.

so now everyone has to install windows defender to correct the unruly behavior of the qt player? i think not...
It was just a suggestion. You're free to take it or leave it. Windows Defender offers more benefits that just startup managment.

just don't put up web video that requires the qt player, and you'll be doing your viewers a big favor.
Less choice is doing my visitors a big favor, especially since QuickTime is one of the most popular media players, next to Windows Media player? And what if they're on a Mac? I fail to see the logic in your statement.

i would suggest that you do some research on the qt player, over at the mpeg4 doom9 forum... see how much love you can find for it over there :-) http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=17
I don't doubt there are people who hate the QuickTime player with a passion, just as there are people who feel the same way about the RealOne player. I just don't happen to belong to either camp. I’m not going to let their passion influence my choice of delivery formats for my viewers.

-Christopher

as i have already pointed out, the ipod video format specifically requires itunes to access the files, and it uses a crippled subset of h.264, it is not even full-on h.264, all of which makes it specific to the ipod... claiming that ipod video "can be played back with all kinds of players" is false information.

There is no such thing as "ipod video format."

My vodcast uses h.264 files that are ipod-compatible. I can both subscribe to the feed and watch the files with fireant (http://fireant.tv/download) and Winamp. Both are free downloads.

In addition, I can't understand why you keep saying you need itunes to download a h.264-encoded file. Is this particular encoding scheme somehow incompatible with http, ftp, or any other common file transfer protocol?

No. (http://www.archive.org/download/amaranthtitleM4V/title.m4v)

All the iPod stuff I make is mp4...

h264 doesn't even enter the picture.

h264 is mpeg-4.

h264 is mpeg-4.
Not quite, H.264 is not MP4. MP4 is a compression method, in my case it uses DivX.