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Desperately trying to use Compressor to get a small HQ file

S

sunandsurf

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 23, 2008
130
3
In a nutshell, I used Final Cut Pro X to create a master file that is 105 GB (2 hours long). It looks great but now I need to create a file that is small enough to fit on a DVD so my maximum size is 4.7 GB.

When I used Compressor to create a video file for DVD (MPEG 2), the size is small enough (3.72 GB) but the quality is awful.

Every other option (for example, Apple Devices HD or Apple ProRes 422) creates a file that is much too big for a DVD and now I'm panicking.

I sincerely hope someone will have an idea for creating a video file that is small enough to fit on a standard DVD but with a much better quality than what I see in MPEG 2.

Thank you for any suggestions you may have.
 
What resolution are you exporting to? You'll never get 2 hour of HQ footage down to DVD size without a good amount of quality loss.
 
I know it's not your intention but your words are like a dagger to my heart! It makes sense but I hope there is some way I can do it. I would like to have at least 720p and honestly, it appears that my best bet is to buy a burner that can burn a dual layer DVD because I was able to create a 6.27 GB m4v file using Compressor (Apple Devices Most Compatible) and the image quality is just acceptable.

Preferably, I would like to find a solution that doesn't involve buying a new burner and dual layer disks but I wonder if there's a real alternative....
 
A USB thumb drive? Then again, dual-layer DVD writers can be had for not much more.
 
MC6800 said:
A USB thumb drive? Then again, dual-layer DVD writers can be had for not much more.
Click to expand...
I don't think I'll go that route but a very sincere thank you for that great idea! I never would have thought of that! I'll look into the cost of the dual layer burner and disks and if that's too expensive, I might actually distribute the video on thumb drives! Thanks!
 
elemenohme said:
DVD quality is awful. There's no getting around that! You're better off finding another way of delivering your content if you want to present it at a higher resolution (streaming, USB drive, etc.).
Click to expand...
You can say that again! I was shocked when I watched the video file! Even though it'd be a bit strange, distributing the video on flash drives would be MUCH better (though unconventional) than giving people a crappy DVD!
 
sunandsurf said:
In a nutshell, I used Final Cut Pro X to create a master file that is 105 GB (2 hours long). It looks great but now I need to create a file that is small enough to fit on a DVD so my maximum size is 4.7 GB.

When I used Compressor to create a video file for DVD (MPEG 2), the size is small enough (3.72 GB) but the quality is awful.

Every other option (for example, Apple Devices HD or Apple ProRes 422) creates a file that is much too big for a DVD and now I'm panicking.

I sincerely hope someone will have an idea for creating a video file that is small enough to fit on a standard DVD but with a much better quality than what I see in MPEG 2.

Thank you for any suggestions you may have.
Click to expand...

You could try burning a Blueray disk image and distributing as BlueRay. Otherwise the best bets are distributing on thumb/flash drive, or loading it onto Youtube or something like it as a private movie. Not for you, but I rent storage on a host server for these kinds of things.

Oh another option, one I've used often years ago, is to divide movie up into parts that fit on a DVD with acceptable quality.
 
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ColdCase said:
You could try burning a Blueray disk image and distributing as BlueRay. Otherwise the best bets are distributing on thumb/flash drive, or loading it onto Youtube or something like it as a private movie. Not for you, but I rent storage on a host server for these kinds of things.

Oh another option, one I've used often years ago, is to divide movie up into parts that fit on a DVD with acceptable quality.
Click to expand...
Hmmmmm. I'm ignorant of that option and I'll certainly look into it. I don't know about a burner that can burn BluRay disks and I don't know about blank disks. I'll do a search on the web and see if it's a viable option. Thank you!
 
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ColdCase, I might have to go the way of the server. If so, can you recommend a company that would let me upload the video (about 10 gigs) and have it available for download from around 60 people for about a month?

Thanks.
 
I would investigate Vimeo Pro. $219 per year, 20 GB upload per month (but you will need a helluva connection to upload that), and lots of other bells and whistles.
 
Compressor lists:

Apple Devices (Best Quality) 4.5 GB/hour up to 1080p
Facebook HD 720p 4.56 GB/hour
H.264 for Blu-Ray 13.5 GB/hour

So it looks as if with 2 hours and a dual layer DVD you may just have enough room. But then you get into the question above about whether you can get by with just a data DVD.

I have two buffalo Media Stations. I've actually never burned a Blu-Ray as the cost of the blanks was so high when I bought them (about $10 each). Now I see that the blanks are down to about $2. The buffalo drives

http://www.buffalotech.com/products/optical-drives

will also do DVD-DL.

What about dropbox? You could take out the $10 a month plan on a monthly basis and get 1 TB of space. Then cancel when you're done. Their support site says that files uploaded via the desktop have no file size limits. They have a 20 GB per day download limit for Dropbox Basic. Dropbox Pro has a 200 GB a day limit. I think Dropbox Pro is the $10 a month plan, So assuming your file is 10 GB long up to 20 users could download in a day without trouble. But that means your users have to have fast internet connections.

Here's the download time chart from download-time.com:

Screen Shot 2016-07-04 at 19.12.23.png
 
sunandsurf said:
ColdCase, I might have to go the way of the server. If so, can you recommend a company that would let me upload the video (about 10 gigs) and have it available for download from around 60 people for about a month?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

There are several hosting sites that will give you 100 GB of storage for $6-10 a month, but a 10GB file is a big one. Their business model is based on shared use of a lot of smaller files, not a few big ones. A lot of them will throttle you after 1 GB or so. Off hand I don't know of one that performs well, for that size. Even without throttling, a consumer site may take you 2-3 hours to upload that size file. Internet being the internet, a lot of things can go wrong in two hours.

Higher cost enterprise or dedicated server hosting sites (instead of shared servers) are much more robust but those are bigger bucks, like $100 a month for 1TB. All the big name hosting sites offer these plans.

As martinx mentions, sites that specialize in video may be a better option for you. It will still take awhile to upload, however.

The last time I looked there weren't many viable options for 10GB video besides buying a small business type internet service (there seems to a lot more of these offered by ISPs these days) and hosting/sharing the files on your home server.... or a dedicated host or a pro type video hosting service.
 
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I just tried a 1 GB video upload to dropbox. Upload rate ran to be about 3 MB/s. Once it was uploaded turns out that the video can be shared and viewed there from the web. Shared the link. Clicked on the link in email and the video played in the web. Viewer has a comments box so it's a bit ugly though.
 
Heading for the airport now; will write in a day or two.

Thank you for your suggestion!
 
sunandsurf said:
Heading for the airport now; will write in a day or two.

Thank you for your suggestion!
Click to expand...
If you end going the online route, try running the file through a program called Handbrake. Gives great results without having to know the intricacies of encoding. Start at the default RF setting, and work your way towards 23 or so and see what looks acceptable. Picture Settings section is where you'd set the 720p size you mentioned.
 
sunandsurf said:
I sincerely hope someone will have an idea for creating a video file that is small enough to fit on a standard DVD but with a much better quality than what I see in MPEG 2.
Click to expand...

no wonder it's looking bad, you used a setting for creating standard-def mpeg2 movies. you could up the bitrate of the mpeg2 to something about 35-50mbps, but it's still an outdated codec and probably won't fit on the dvd. if you're using compressor, you could start for the "for video uploading" presets and alter them a bit. personally, i think, a bitrate of 10.000 kbps in h.264 codec (the preset for 1080p uses 20.000kbps if i remember correctly) looks good enough for most purposes. you could play around with the h.264 profile, but the higher the profile, the more powerful your playback device has to be. just try a target bitrate of 10.000kbps in h.264, 160-256kbps for the audio (aac) and always use 2-pass rendering. if you're using handbrake, just give it a try with the preset, but don't forget to check multi-pass (or 2nd pass or whatever it's called). you can also use an online bitrate-calculator to get the ideal bitrate for your length of movie and a single layer dvd. i think, it should fit nicely on a single layer if compressed right. when buying a drive, i've had good experiences with the samsung bluray burners (about $100) - naturally, they also burn dvds.
 
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