What is the best way to stream your demos?

[Scott Jaco]

Hi, I want to put some demos on my website. I want to use a 3rd party server for bandwidth reasons. I've tried uploading some clips but the server downsamples them so badly that the clips look terrible. YouTube isn't demo quality!

Are there any Free video servers that preserve the .mov quicktime files?
What is the max resolution I should use for easy streaming?

Thanks!

[Mark Williams]

Scott,

You can try putfile.com Youtube and google video stink with the down sampling. Putfile will let you load up to a 25mb file without recompressing it. Then you can do multiple files after that. Some don't like it but I have not had a problem. Take a look at

http://media.putfile.com/Gulf-Shore-...-Cape-San-Blas


Regards,

[Christopher Lefchik]

Another option is Ourmedia, which doesn't appear to have any restriction on file size. As for resolution, there is no one "right" resolution. It depends on your audience. A middle of the road approach would be 320x240 at 250 Kbps.

[Scott Jaco]

Here is an update to my findings.

Just wanted to say thanks for the tips.

Putfile.com is by far the best free website for this sort of thing. I've uploaded 10 clips into my library. I like how it keeps the HTML info for each clip so you can use it later on your website. I haven't run into any bandwidth restrictions yet! Knock on wood! It also maintains the orginal QT file. I saved a clip that I had previously uploaded just to test it and the file sizes are identical.

It was soo painful to choose the compression settings. I decided to use a smaller resolution while using less compression. (428x240) for 16:9 HD clips and (320x240) for Standard 4:3 clips. While these file resolutions are small, I upped the data stream to about 1Mbps which really eliminates the compression artifacts quite well. It still downloads quite fast, almost realtime.

I used a free program called MPEG Streamclip to rip Quicktime files directly off my finished DVD projects. This is also where I did the downsampling. This program is free on the internet but don't use the PC version, stick with the MAC version if you want your Quicktime Exports to look good.

Once you export your QT files with this program, you are still left with a really big file. I used Compressor and created H.264 streamclips and raised the date stream to about 1 Mbps so all the clips are now under 10MB.

I still feel that these files are kinda big for what they are but let me know if there are any better tricks to doing this. The key point is that I don't mind lower resolution files, but I can't stand compression artifacts.

Anyway check out some of my clips at

http://www.videoonsight.com/demos.htm

I realize they are no longer DVD quality but do they look decent for webstreaming?

Thanks!

Scott

[Christopher Lefchik]

Originally Posted by Scott Jaco

It was soo painful to choose the compression settings. I decided to use a smaller resolution while using less compression. (428x240) for 16:9 HD clips and (320x240) for Standard 4:3 clips. While these file resolutions are small, I upped the data stream to about 1Mbps which really eliminates the compression artifacts quite well. It still downloads quite fast, almost realtime.

Whoa! 1 Mbps? At those resolutions you can easily get by with much lower data rates, especially using H.264. Just to give you an idea of the capabilities of H.264, with the right encoder H.264 can approach DVD quality at 1.3-1.5 Mbps at 640x480 resolution.

I know your files stream fast for you, but please realize that many people on the Internet don't have superfast connections, even if they do have broadband. I know; I was one of them for a short time recently.

Do your audience a favor. At the resolutions you are using you could easily compress to about 350-400 Kbps and still have excellent quality. MPEG Streamclip does an excellent job encoding to H.264. It is my standard tool for this job, and I'm on the PC.

Originally Posted by Scott Jaco

This program is free on the internet but don't use the PC version, stick with the MAC version if you want your Quicktime Exports to look good.

As long as the same QuickTime versions/codecs are installed on each platform and the same export settings are used, there is no reason the quality of the QuickTime exports from MPEG Streamclip should be different. I have the free QuickTime 7 player installed on my PC and I use MPEG Streamclip to export to QuickTime H.264 files, and the resulting quality is excellent.

[Scott Jaco]

Originally Posted by Christopher Lefchik

As long as the same QuickTime versions/codecs are installed on each platform and the same export settings are used, there is no reason the quality of the QuickTime exports from MPEG Streamclip should be different. I have the free QuickTime 7 player installed on my PC and I use MPEG Streamclip to export to QuickTime H.264 files, and the resulting quality is excellent.

I use a PC & Mac, I tried the MPEG Streamclip on the PC first and when I exported to Quicktime, it looked really bad. I had to install a Quicktime Alternative just to get the program to work on my PC, this might explain why I had trouble.

I just tried going to H.264 straight off MPEG streamclip. I used 30% quality to get a smaller file but the quality suffered.
I still prefer the 2 stage process of downresing, then compressing to H.264. I'm just really picky about my clips!

[Christopher Lefchik]

Originally Posted by Scott Jaco

I use a PC & Mac, I tried the MPEG Streamclip on the PC first and when I exported to Quicktime, it looked really bad.

Something sounds amiss, as that is not my experience at all. Take a look at the QuickTime Medium Broadband and Large Broadband versions of the videos linked below. Both contain detailed scenes with motion, a good test of the capabilities of any encoder/codec:

Video 1
Video 2

These were encoded with Streamclip MPEG on my PC. Now, I’m critical concerning quality, too. But these look pretty good to me. What do you think?

Originally Posted by Scott Jaco

I had to install a Quicktime Alternative just to get the program to work on my PC, this might explain why I had trouble.

I don’t know why MPEG Streamclip didn’t work well for you on your PC. But as demonstrated with the clips I linked above, it does an excellent job for me. If you don’t have the free QuckTime 7 Player installed on your PC, I would suggest trying that. It might work better than QuickTime Alternative.

Originally Posted by Scott Jaco

I just tried going to H.264 straight off MPEG streamclip. I used 30% quality to get a smaller file but the quality suffered.

The following are the settings I used in MPEG Streamclip to encode my broadband QuickTime H.264 clips.

QuickTime Medium Broadband

Compression: H.264 Encoder at 50% Quality, 2-Pass on
Sound: MPEG-4 AAC, Stereo, 44.1kHz 48 kbps
Frame size: 320x240
Framerate: (none entered, same as source)
Better Downscaling: On
Deinterlace Video: On (my source is interlaced, if source is progressive don’t check this)
Field Dominance: Lower Field First
Limit Data Rate: On, set at 348 kbps
Use B-Frames: On (improves quality on H.264 and HDV)

QuickTime Large Broadband

Compression: H.264 Encoder at 50% Quality, 2-Pass on
Sound: MPEG-4 AAC, Stereo, 44.1kHz 96 kbps
Frame size: 488x364
Framerate: (none entered, same as source)
Better Downscaling: On
Deinterlace Video: On (my source is interlaced, if source is progressive don’t check this)
Field Dominance: Lower Field First
Limit Data Rate: On, set at 672 kbps
Use B-Frames: On (improves quality on H.264 and HDV)

Originally Posted by Scott Jaco

I still prefer the 2 stage process of downresing, then compressing to H.264. I'm just really picky about my clips!

Nothing wrong with being picky about quality. But you are losing detail by downrezzing your video before importing it into your compression program. If possible, to maximize quality you should let your compression program do the downscaling when encoding to Internet video.

I don’t know what method Compressor uses for downscaling, but according to the MPEG Streamclip Guide, “Scaling is performed in the YUV color space, using a powerful 2D-FIR scaler. This scaler outperforms the built-in bicubic scaler of most video editing applications, bringing quite sharper pictures in less time. So, if scaling is required, It is recommended that you use MPEG Streamclip to make a scaled movie, rather than import the unscaled movie into the video editing application and scale it there.”