The Last Laugh
3rd Level Green Feather
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2001
- Messages
- 4,582
- Points
- 38
Hello everyone,
I would very much like to be able to improve my clip-making capabilities. That is, to increase the quality without increasing the file size. Or to reduce the file size while keeping the same picture quality. You get the idea.
This would be useful for a number of things, including my preview clips, especially since it seems I have to host some of them myself, at least temporarily. Making them smaller without sacrificing the quality would benefit me by cutting down on bandwidth use (a critical issue). Not to mention that they'd be faster to download and easier to store. I may also want to produce commercial clips some time in the future, though my plans for that are still rather vague at the moment.
I find that my knowledge and software aren't quite up to the job. To create clips I use Premiere 6.5. It's an excellent piece of software, and I assume its encoder capabilities are decent enough (I recently did some updates in that department). I create my clips using AVI files as the source material, those files being created from digital camcorder footage. But I'm still not satisfied with the results. It may be that I'm overlooking a few settings, or maybe I'm lacking a useful codec. I just don't know.
To give you an example of my limitations, the mpeg versions of my preview clips tend to be a little over 5MB per minute. That's ok for a preview (though not for hosting them myself), but it's too big for some uses I have in mind which involve longer durations, and even at that size the quality is lacking. Not a big deal for preview clips, of course, but still. Same for the wmv versions, which are smaller but still not quite small enough for the quality. As for the mpeg files on my CD-ROMs, they're a little over 10MB per minute, and the picture quality, while just fine, could be better for such large files.
I've seen clips from other people, including video producers, that look really good. Even some of the preview clips look great, to the point that the quality would be perfectly adequate for commercial clips. And yet some of those files aren't that big at all. Certainly smaller than mine. How do they do it? It it just a matter of compression software? Do they know something that I don't?
If anyone has any advice about this, possibly software or codec recommendations (ideally mentioning where I can get them), or maybe a few pointers as to how to optimize Premiere's clip encoding/compression capabilities, I'd be most grateful.
By the way, I'm afraid I can't afford expensive compression software. But I'm still interested in hearing about any product that would suit my needs, even if it turns out I can't use it at the moment for lack of funds. You never know, I might invest in something like that in the future if I feel it's justified.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post.
P.S. Dammit, why can't I ever write a short post, even for a simple info request like this one?! I really need to learn to tighten my writing.
I would very much like to be able to improve my clip-making capabilities. That is, to increase the quality without increasing the file size. Or to reduce the file size while keeping the same picture quality. You get the idea.
This would be useful for a number of things, including my preview clips, especially since it seems I have to host some of them myself, at least temporarily. Making them smaller without sacrificing the quality would benefit me by cutting down on bandwidth use (a critical issue). Not to mention that they'd be faster to download and easier to store. I may also want to produce commercial clips some time in the future, though my plans for that are still rather vague at the moment.
I find that my knowledge and software aren't quite up to the job. To create clips I use Premiere 6.5. It's an excellent piece of software, and I assume its encoder capabilities are decent enough (I recently did some updates in that department). I create my clips using AVI files as the source material, those files being created from digital camcorder footage. But I'm still not satisfied with the results. It may be that I'm overlooking a few settings, or maybe I'm lacking a useful codec. I just don't know.
To give you an example of my limitations, the mpeg versions of my preview clips tend to be a little over 5MB per minute. That's ok for a preview (though not for hosting them myself), but it's too big for some uses I have in mind which involve longer durations, and even at that size the quality is lacking. Not a big deal for preview clips, of course, but still. Same for the wmv versions, which are smaller but still not quite small enough for the quality. As for the mpeg files on my CD-ROMs, they're a little over 10MB per minute, and the picture quality, while just fine, could be better for such large files.
I've seen clips from other people, including video producers, that look really good. Even some of the preview clips look great, to the point that the quality would be perfectly adequate for commercial clips. And yet some of those files aren't that big at all. Certainly smaller than mine. How do they do it? It it just a matter of compression software? Do they know something that I don't?
If anyone has any advice about this, possibly software or codec recommendations (ideally mentioning where I can get them), or maybe a few pointers as to how to optimize Premiere's clip encoding/compression capabilities, I'd be most grateful.
By the way, I'm afraid I can't afford expensive compression software. But I'm still interested in hearing about any product that would suit my needs, even if it turns out I can't use it at the moment for lack of funds. You never know, I might invest in something like that in the future if I feel it's justified.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post.
P.S. Dammit, why can't I ever write a short post, even for a simple info request like this one?! I really need to learn to tighten my writing.
