How to compress your video without sacrificing quality

[hblair]

I've been watching the forum here since the new version came out to see if you guys knew of some good codecs to compress a quality 3-5 minute video down to less than 15 meg. As far as I can tell, the codecs most of you are using are the same old same old. The reason I say that is I've been thru the same thing you guys are going thru. If you want a good quality stereo music AH video, I'd recommend (very highly) you guys download realproducer to compress your AVI's with. I learned this from my squaddie milenko, who's been doing this for over 2 years. Using his advice, I made 4 or 5 videos a little over a year ago. After messing with every known codec on the planet, I settled on milenkos advice of using realproducer. It takes a 5 minute stereo music AVI and makes it a less than 15 meg 320X240 video with as good a quality (or better) than anything else I've seen.

Here's an example. I made this one over a year ago, it's a 12.6 meg 5 minute music video. The compression realproducer does beats anything I've seen. Of course, it will be a realmedia file, which most people using the net are capable of viewing.

Give it a try.

Just some food for thought. If anyone knows of anything better, I'm all ears.

[AKDejaVu]

Do you have a url for realproducer?

AKDejaVu

[hblair]

Here's a direct link. Should work. Will save you from filling out the questionaire.

http://207.188.7.150/223e634461b45e639322/encoder/RealSystem_Producer_Basic_8.51_Setup.exe


They're calling it realsystem producer now. I haven't D/Led it in over a year. If you have any probs I can post my older version on the web or something.

[hblair]

Also, the way I do it is when you're "producing" the movie, you you have the option of it being a "streaming" file, select that even if you don't plan for it to be streaming, and be sure to select the highest bandwidth option. In realproducer, higher bandwidth=higher quality. This gives you the highest quailty but still keeps the file small compared to other compression software.

[Wotan]

i use real producer but do you just convert the ah film to avi uncompressed?

I thought converting to wmv would give better quality. But when ever i try to convert to wmv it gives an error.

I use virtual dub to add music and I dl'd a bunch of filters to go with it. Z am just experiementing and can make a pretty decent looking film but its frekkin huge.

I seem to lose quality more when converting to rm then anything.

The 29 sec lanc film i did looks decent but it nearly 4mb when converting it to rm it looses quality.

[Duedel]

Originally posted by hblair
Here's an example. I made this one over a year ago, it's a 12.6 meg 5 minute music video. The compression realproducer does beats anything I've seen. Of course, it will be a realmedia file, which most people using the net are capable of viewing.

Have seen it for the first time hblair it's...


GREAT

GREAT GREAT GREAT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[weazel]

Originally posted by Wotan
i use real producer but do you just convert the ah film to avi uncompressed?

I thought converting to wmv would give better quality. But when ever i try to convert to wmv it gives an error.

I use virtual dub to add music and I dl'd a bunch of filters to go with it. Z am just experiementing and can make a pretty decent looking film but its frekkin huge.

I seem to lose quality more when converting to rm then anything.

The 29 sec lanc film i did looks decent but it nearly 4mb when converting it to rm it looses quality.

With VirtualDub and DivX 4.02 codec I made a 320x240 3.30 minute film with 16 bit stereo soundtrack at only 11.2 mb size.

Try encoding at 768kb rate and use filters to keep the video quality high.

[Mave]

First off hblair awesome.....

Thing is with realproducer you lose quality as you use a higher view rate. (kinda buzzed now so bear with me) Anyways, I can pull some great quality vids with about 15 different codecs I have with a cost of the size. (MB) Its a matter of using the best codec and compressing it with quality and size. So where do you draw the line? Will it be the size of your vid? Sound? Or the Quality? Anyways what we all want is all 3 for the cost of no space. Right now there is nothing out there that will do that as far as I know.
Bink is about the best compression utility I have seen. But its not widly known to alot of people.

Mave

[hblair]

One of you guys post me a 5 minute music video thats 12.6 meg with your favorite codec.

[pimpjoe]

i cant seem to get a 4 minuet movie down to less than 34mb. oh and hey weazel....where did you get that divx 4 codec at? i cant seem to find it anywhere.

[hblair]

Thats another prob with using just any codec. People have to download the codec just to watch your movie. That's another reason I used realmedia.

[AKDejaVu]

Originally posted by pimpjoe
i cant seem to get a 4 minuet movie down to less than 34mb. oh and hey weazel....where did you get that divx 4 codec at? i cant seem to find it anywhere.

http://www.divx.com/

AKDejaVu

[AKIron]

hblair,  I only find real player at the link you posted. Can you create films with real player? I did find real producer here but the cost is $199:
Real Producer

I bought quicktime ($39) a while back and will post an example in another thread I started for comparison purposes.

BTW, I remember your video from when you first posted it, awesome, do us another.

[Doberman]

Originally posted by hblair
Thats another prob with using just any codec. People have to download the codec just to watch your movie. That's another reason I used realmedia.

People have to DL realplayer also.  It's not that big a deal to DL a new codec, as long as you let people know what it is.

D

[Beegerite]

I know that a lot of you guys don't eat bananas cause you don't want to throw the peels away  However, I'm again going to make a $99.00 suggestion to you.  Pinnacle Studio Ver 7.0  You will get the capability of laying out your video exactly the way that the Adobe Premiere +$600.00 product does it in a timeline format and you'll have all the capabilities of fading, dissolving, adding music either .wav or mp3.  Editing .wav or Mp3 clips and even using some kind of automusic program which will actually create a soundtrack  for you based on various music format.  I don't work for Pinnacle but I've been doing DV editing for one hell of a long time and the nicest thing about this $99.00 investment is a full inch thick manual which will take you through the whole process beginning to end.  When you're done with your grand production you can save it to any of the following formats; .avi, mpg1, mpg2, Real Video, Windows Media File.  Their newest product for $299 will even create a DVD for you if you've got the burner.

http://www.pynaclesys.com

Check it out and save yourself a lot of hassle.  I brought mine at Circuit City

Beeg