Best QT settings for web video?

[cwright]

I've had plenty of experience with compressor, but always for MPEG-2 on DVD. I'm just curious if anyone has a good preset for web video?

I know I want 320x240, but should it be MPEG-4? H.264? What bitrate?

I want the best possible quality that won't load too slowly.

And if it matters... unfortunately most of my video clips I only have on DVD now, so I'll have to convert the MPEG-2 files to DV and re-encode for the web. So I'm already losing some resolution there.

Thanks!

 

[ezekielrage_99]

I usually use 320x240 Quicktime Movie using the Sorenson 3 codec, the H.264 should be as good if not better.

Still I think you need to experiment with 2 or 3 codec so that you can find the best one that will serve the purpose.

 

[cwright]

.

 

[cwright]

thanks... i've tested several and h.264 is definitely the best option. but Is h.264 common enough on all computers that everyone will be able to play it? I believe it's not supported unless you have the latest version of quicktime, and many don't. I've also been using AAC audio, and I'm not sure how compatible that will be either.

If you don't mind testing this... I made a reference movie that will hopefully work well for anyone:

http://homepage.mac.com/cwright3/pat&steve_ref.mov

It links to one of 3 encodes of the same clip, depending on the user's connection speed:

1. h.264 900kbps, 38.1mb
2. h.264 500kbps, 23.8mb
3. mpeg-4 low quality, 10.5mb (for 56k users)

all use AAC audio. should I use MP3 or something else instead? And I'm curious to know if any 56k users could test that link and let me know if it does automatically switch to the lower quality video (there's a substantial difference between the h.264 and mpeg-4 versions, so it should be easy to tell without saving the clip).

thanks again

 

[OttawaGuy]

Your ref movie gave me the quicktime questionmark.

 

[cwright]

hmm, strange. it worked fine for me.

I guess i'm still not doing it right...I'll keep messing with it.

Anyway I guess the big question is still whether or not I should use h.264? It's by far the best codec but I don't know if most computers will support it or not.