Compression

I need guidance on compression. Most of the quicktime files I download from TFN are well compressed with sorenson 3. For example the Broken Allegiance sfx behind the scenes featurette is 49 MB and is 14 minutes (its good quality and the frame size is large).

When I try and use sorenson I get 40 MB for a minute or 2. How come??

 

Adjust the quality slider to around 85%. Chances are its at 100

--JrrDude

 

Maybe you need to compress the audio or lower the compression quality.

 

If you go to the Sorenson website, they have a utility for 2-pass VBR (variable bit rate)called Sorenson Squeeze. Quicktime uses a sorenson encoder, but it's a gross calculation for compression. Broken Allegience was probably professionally compressed with some sort of VBR that gave it the best quality with the most compression.

 

I have changed the quality. I even put it to 1% and it was still at a staggering size...

I did compress the audio as well (with IMA and Qdesign2).

 

I am suprised with the quality slider at 1% the filesize is still large. Hmmmm,

So how about forgetting the quality slider, and just typing in a manual data rate. Try typing in 80 and render that out. If the quality is too bad, type in 90 etc. If the quality is fine, try typing in 70 etc. That should at least get the file size down. So what size (in MB) was the file with the quality slider set to 1%?

And what is the actual pixel dimensions of the movie you are trying to compress?

Have you tried compressing the film with no sound, just so you can figure out how much MB the sound is vs how much the video is?

 

Here's a forgotten link that I pulled up from here that I still use for getting filesizes down while maintaining good quality!
Sorenson tips

Personally, I like to use 30 FPS but in a pinch I'll knock it down to 24.
I also prefer to keep the resolution at 8 or 16 bit multiples. 320*240 works out real nice...looks good on TV too.
I find a data rate of 150-200 good but somewhat dark...normally 250-300 is decent but using this option is cool IF I'm not too concerned about the overall size (like converting it over to MOV from another format to use in a specific editing program).
IMA 4:1 is your best bet if you can't use MP3.
Welp that's it for me.
All the best