YouTube is a great service and I use it alot. But there are some advantage of using another service called Vimeo. The main one is that you can upload videos and control the people who have access to it. So that rough cuts and work and progress can be shared or collaboratively worked on , privately. As far as quality goes I thinks its about even. YouTube has improved recently with the addition of HD and more importantly support for 16:9 playback. I, personally, find YouTube to stream more consistently. But then I think my home ISP (Tiscali) is to blame for this!
The basic account at Vimeo is free with limits on the number of HD files you can upload a week and the max weekly data upload. Thats 1 HD video and 500 mb respectively. Plenty for normal use. The video that you upload is converted by Vimeo and then the orginal is deleted after a week, leaving the compressed version to view and download. So its NOT a storage service for your videos!
You need to compress the video, initially. This is to maximise your data useage, mimimise the upload time and create the best looking online video. There are a number of ways of doing this. Here are the vimeo guidelines:
Codec - Choose H.264 for the video codec. Choose AAC for the audio codec.
Frame rate – 25 per sec. If there is an option that says "current" just go with that.
Keyframes - Every 25 frames. This is basically how often the compressor references your uncompressed video.
Data rate - 1800 kbits/sec for standard definition 4:3 video , 2500 kbits/sec for widescreen DV, or 5000 kbits/sec for high definition. Making these numbers higher will increase both quality and size.
Size - 720 x576 for standard definition 4:3 video, 1024 x 576 for widescreen DV, or 1280x720 for high definition. It is also best to export 1920x1080 or 1440x1080 video as 1280x720 too.
Deinterlace - Yes. If you do not deinterlace, you will often get weird-looking horizontal lines in your video.
Sound sample rate - 44.100 kHz
Audio quality - 128 kbps.
To convert SD DV use the free handbrake application. Instructions here. If you have FCP here are instructions. If you want to use Compressor (from the FCP studio bundle) instructions are here with a downloadable 'droplet' for you desktop to make it even easier.
I have also been trying QuickTime Pro and MPEG streamclip as ways of compressing the footage. I'll post about these soon.
Good luck.
Mike J
Monday 20 July 2009
Friday 3 July 2009
Bit torrent - all piracy?
We are all aware that people are using the Internet for the illegal distribution of music, films. software and documents. The Bit torrent technique has added greatly to this activity. What is it and is there a legitimate use for it?
Bit torrent is a way of overcoming the problem of asymmetrical connections to the Internet. It is a communication protocol invented by Bram Cohen in 2001. We all talk about 'broadband' as being a download speed of 1 megabits per sec or more. ( I'm with Tiscali and the service stinks. Speeds vary, often stopping for short periods.)
In order to cut costs the ISPs have reduced the upload speeds, prioritising the download speeds. So uploading a film takes ages. What bit torrent does, is share the upload of a file by co ordiating its upload and download from a number of people who have the same file. This is called 'seeding'. Once you have downloaded a file, its etiquette to let it seed to others. By using your limited upload bandwidth and that of other peers, the downloads can be (for a very popular file) extremely quick.
In order to use a bit torrent you need to download a small bit torrent file and open in an application (Bit torrent client) that will handle the upload/download. There are a number of freely available ones. I have used Transmission (Mac only) in the past. It works well and is simple to operate.
There have been 2 occasions when I have used it.
Last summer Director Bruce McDonald released all the rushes for his latest film - Tracey Fragments . He made 36 gigs of data (Quicktime) files available for an edit-yourself- competition. It took me 4 days to download the lot! More recently I wanted to download the film, Good copy- bad copy, a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture. Its a quicktime file of about 700mb. I found this is a film from the Open Source Cinema movement's website.
Bit torrent is a way of overcoming the problem of asymmetrical connections to the Internet. It is a communication protocol invented by Bram Cohen in 2001. We all talk about 'broadband' as being a download speed of 1 megabits per sec or more. ( I'm with Tiscali and the service stinks. Speeds vary, often stopping for short periods.)
In order to cut costs the ISPs have reduced the upload speeds, prioritising the download speeds. So uploading a film takes ages. What bit torrent does, is share the upload of a file by co ordiating its upload and download from a number of people who have the same file. This is called 'seeding'. Once you have downloaded a file, its etiquette to let it seed to others. By using your limited upload bandwidth and that of other peers, the downloads can be (for a very popular file) extremely quick.
In order to use a bit torrent you need to download a small bit torrent file and open in an application (Bit torrent client) that will handle the upload/download. There are a number of freely available ones. I have used Transmission (Mac only) in the past. It works well and is simple to operate.
There have been 2 occasions when I have used it.
Last summer Director Bruce McDonald released all the rushes for his latest film - Tracey Fragments . He made 36 gigs of data (Quicktime) files available for an edit-yourself- competition. It took me 4 days to download the lot! More recently I wanted to download the film, Good copy- bad copy, a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture. Its a quicktime file of about 700mb. I found this is a film from the Open Source Cinema movement's website.
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