Tales of wonders and woe - UWOL #21

[Marj Atkins]

Simon - you certainly seem to be very organized!

Geir - really looking forward to seeing how you construct this one - two very different types of locations in one film - sounds fascinating.

[Bob Safay]

So, I drive about 60 miles to this place outside Macon, GA to do some videoing. Get all the way there, go to turn onto the road...Hello, road closed for construction. Anyway, it was a nice drive. Back to plan B. Oh wait, that was plan B.

[Trond Saetre]

Still one week to come up with a plan C, Bob. :)

Maybe I should say that to myself as well. Filmed a little, but I'm afraid most of my birds will get the audience a bit "sea sick", and can't be used.
Staying away from the sharks will be the goal. But the good part... I've learn something new about the local birds and their behavior.

[Markus Nord]

I spend this morning in the sea to shoot the last bits and pieces I needed. I now think I got all my shot. Need to fix some graphic and then editing.

Thanks Lorinda for you help with the VO (should have sad that some time ago, but to much work...), I think it will fit the pilot...

… Just got a call from Swedish national TV and the wild life show... two days filming this upcoming week.

[Kevin McRoberts]

Actually shot some footage for a UWOL video! First time in four tries!

Of course, it's all in my backyard, and I had a window of about an hour to do it... so there's substantial chance the edit may be slightly less majestic than crashing waves of the Baltic Sea, but oh well. I'm a happy fellow.


EDIT:

Wonder quickly becomes woe... for some reason, my mind inserted "insects" somewhere in the theme announcement... DOH!

Well, aside from a few incidental shots of a fence lizard, I've currently got nothing... later, maybe something... just maybe...

[Geir Inge]

Puh!
Then I have to rewrite the manuscript after having rejected several scenes that I found useless.
The reason is that I have to adapt the story to fill three minutes or less - shorten, shorten, shorten ...
Thank you for giving us a few days more (31.August), because I think I have to shoot some more scenes,
thanks to the turnaround of the manuscript. And then back to the editing prosess.

[Mike Sims]

Wow, I think many of us have run into difficulties this round. At the first place I went to, I found my animals, but the water levels were so reduced that they were too far from the areas I was allowed to be in to record even with the 600mm lens. The second place I went was completely dry. I finally found a place to get some shots (at longer telephoto than I wanted) but the subjects were completely inactive. Boring. The story is weak. (To make matters worse, I know that some of you literally have these guys crawling around your back yards!) I ended up using less than the full three minutes and finishing a little after the original deadline. I should be using the extra time, but I think I lack the objectivity to improve anything. I’m basically waiting for “the word” about compressing and uploading, and already looking forward to next time…
Good-luck everyone!

[Markus Nord]

I finished editing this night and is waiting for rendering right now. I think it turn out ok... The animation is a bit ruff, but ok I hope :)

[Simon Wood]

Originally Posted by Mike Beckett

Simon,

I was in exactly the same boat as you with CS3, and CS4 too. CS5 is a bit better at scaling, but still not brilliant. (I now use TMPGEnc for my HD work).

See this thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/uwol-cha...on-issues.html

Basically, you export at 428x240, uncompressed AVI, then create a new project, import the AVI and simply export it as a compressed file. CS3 doesn't seem to want to rescale and compress at the same time without making s dog's dinner of it.

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the above info. I have done what you suggested, and created an uncompressed version of the movie. What is confusing me is what type of project to create to work with it (the footage is very small and centered when played on SD projects)?

*Sorry Mike, just saw you had provided detailed info in your link! Going to try and do this tomorrow - just had a big power cut which took out my desktop editing computer (laptop running on batteries). Pulling my hair out!

[Simon Wood]

Originally Posted by Trond Saetre

Simon,

I'm surprised you have trouble exporting avi-files. Which file type do you choose under the export settings?
I have always used Microsoft DV AVI when exporting to AVI. (SD source footage)
For HD video I always use Cineform.

Regarding the bitrate, I'd say use as high as you can.

I exported a short clip using your settings, and the low bitrate caused a very washed out picture.
Then I used the same settings, but increased the bitrate to about 1500 and got a big difference.

Hi Trond,

Thanks for the tips above. I tried doing the same settings at a bitrate of 1500, but the video came out rough (like some sections were slow motion, and jumps) - strange. That video came out at about 32mbs.

The video at bitrate of 21.6 came out at about 92mbs - does lowering the bitrate increase the size of the video?!

I can see this thing slipping away from me now, because of my compression issues (as I predicted in the beginning!).

[Robert Martens]

I haven't heard any updates on the new guidelines just yet, but to save some hassle with the current setup, I have some advice.

If you're willing and able to export an uncompressed (or losslessly compressed) version of your footage, you're in great shape; first, download the version of Handbrake that applies to your OS (Windows, OS X, and Linux all supported). Then grab a copy of the preset I've put together: http://www.mediafire.com/?s6o2xicyh2iguui

Install and run Handbrake, then click Source->Video File and choose your uncompressed clip. Wait a moment for it to load, then go to the Presets menu and choose Import. Open the "UWOL 60MB 428x240.plist" file you downloaded. Once it loads, be sure to choose the preset by clicking its name in the presets pane over on the right.

Now, it seems that Handbrake's ability to properly export and import presets is incomplete (I had to hand edit the PLIST file just to get the proper width and height values, as they didn't export correctly), so you'll need to make some adjustments yourselves.

The only things you'll need to change are on the Picture tab, which is open by default. Make sure that Width is set to 428, Height is set to 240, and Anamorphic is set to None. Next to Modulus (one value I couldn't successfully export), choose 4. I'm not sure if this setting affects anything but the auto-calculation of image size when using Keep Aspect Ratio, but 428 is not a multiple of 16 or 8, and I don't want any unexpected resizing to take place, so I prefer to be safe. This may not be an issue, but I'm not a Handbrake expert.

Cropping should be set to Custom, with all sides set to 0 (these are the other values that wouldn't stick). Strictly speaking this means your video will be distorted, since 428x240 (1.78333...) is not 16:9 (1.777...). Nonetheless, it's imperceptible, and better not to crop off parts of your frame unnecessarily.

Everything else should be properly imported from the preset. On the Video tab, you can see that Target Size is set to 60MB, and two pass (with turbo first pass) is enabled, since we're targeting a specific bitrate. The audio tab shows AAC audio set to 160kbps, which is quite nice, and over on the Advanced tab you'll see that this preset is based on Handbrake's builtin "Universal" Apple preset, which means this file should play on damn near anything. If you can't play back a file using as few features as are available in Baseline H.264 at Level 3.0, you're working with some seriously Stone Age equipment.

With everything set up, just choose a destination file and click Start. Once the encode is finished, you're all set!

More generalized advice, not specific to Handbrake, is to stick with H.264 video and AAC audio in an MP4 container; in 2011 there's no excuse to be wasting time with MPEG-1 or Sorenson 3, unless you know your audience is using equipment that absolutely cannot handle anything better. Frankly, if I had my way the UWOL compression guidelines would bump the resolution up to 640x360, as all examples I've seen from prior competitions convince me that the quality is already maxed out at 428x240; the soft, mushy look is due only to the low resolution (at least, when that low resolution is stretched up to fullscreen on playback), and throwing more bits at the video won't help. Increasing the image size, while keeping the filesize limit intact, should make things look better, strange as it may initially sound.

Use the highest bitrate you can within the filesize restraint. Figuring out that bitrate by hand, if necessary, is very easy. Target Size in Handbrake, like any other application, is only a convenient way of calculating a constant bitrate. The formula is simply:

desired filesize in kilobits / length in seconds = kilobits per second

You can use Google to do the conversions, just type "60 megabytes in kilobits" into the search bar and it'll compute the answer for you. Or just work out the answer the old fashioned way if you prefer. In any event, the filesize limit here is 60 megabytes, or 491,520 kilobits, and the time limit is three minutes, or 180 seconds. 491,520 / 180 = 2730 (rounded down to avoid an oversized file). Assuming an audio bitrate of 160kbps, that leaves 2570kbps for video, which for H.264 at 428x240 and 24, 25 or 30 fps is an embarrassment of riches. If your video is below the maximum length, you'll of course be able to up the bitrate, but as I said, unless your video content is exceptionally complex, 2570kbps is already quite generous given the UWOL restrictions, even with Baseline@L3.0.

[Simon Wood]

Robert, thanks for your detailed response; I appreciate you taking the time to explain it. I'm traveling at the moment so I am unable to give this a try, but I will do so when I get back to my editing computer next week.

[Lorinda Norton]

Sorry I didn't get around sooner. This guide is much appreciated, Robert. I've got a different project that may benefit from all of this, although, it's a bit complicated for my brain. As always, thank you so much for your willingness to help.

[Geir Inge]

Hi you all.

Need a little help from my friends (ref. Beatles).

It's how to render from Vegas Pro.
I try to render a wmv file, but when I try to play it back, I get some noisy lines (like shaking or stripes)?
How to render best possible from Vegas (Dale?)?

Geir Inge

[Lorinda Norton]

Geir, I use Vegas...got these render settings from my DVC pal Robert Martens (see post 71 above) that have always worked for me:

Use Main Concept AAC/AVC
Leave Template as is
click on Custom > Video > Frame size > Custom
make the width 1280, the height 720
click on Constant Bit Rate choose to your liking (Robert had me use 3,000,000)

Maybe Dale or someone else has another solution, as well.