Izzy Video 039 – Exporting for the Web

Excellent!!! I’m going to try this out right now.

Thanks.

Thank you for your efforts. You produce a great tutorial. I know several people who have improved their skills from watching your podcast :)

I don’t understand why you export your video to dv format using final cut pro and then open that file and save as (to make the huge file). Instead, why not simply import the dv file directly into isquint? If isquint does not accept dv streams, then why not export from fcp into a format that isquint does support and save multiple re-encodings?

Paul,

Your question makes a lot of sense, and I’ve actually tried several variations on that.

For some unexplainable reason, I couldn’t get anything to work perfectly. In EVERY situation I tried (although I did not exhaust all possible combinations), something went wrong.

For example, when I went from DV to iSquint, artifacts would show below the text in the video.

By accident I discovered one day that the workflow I described in Izzy Video 39 was ideal for me. My guess is that my problems were not ones that everyone would experience.

It’s a lot of extra time exporting, but I’m a little reluctant to change my method at this point, because I’ve been so happy with the results.

I know my explanation is a little nonsensical. But strange as it is, it works for me.

Thanks for the great question!

hey Izzy,
yet another informative vodcast! i love what you are doing even when we don’t get video footage. I realize this is a little off topic but i had a question about slow motion. when you shoot at high frame rates the picture at normal speed looks jittery and strobe-like, and when you slow down video shot at normal frame rates the picture doesn’t look very smooth. logically, a newbie like me would think that if you shoot at a higher frame rate you would get smoother more cinematic slow motion. am i on the right track? i know shake can produce these effects but that’s still a bit out of my league…even at $499. thanks again for your time and for putting such passion into something that has no promise of monetary reward!

sorry i goofed…when i was talking about a higher frame rate i meant a higher shutter speed!

Very handy tutorials. I hope you keep them up. I was wondering why you didn’t just export the mp4 directly from Final Cut?

EditBlog,

Wow, it would be a lot quicker if I just exported from Final Cut Pro. I’ve tried a number of methods, but the video always came back a little stretched horizontally. I believe it was using rectangular pixels instead of square ones.

Do you happen to know a way around this problem?

Hmmmmm…. I’ve never had an mpeg4 stretch. If it’s a 4:3 image it should be fine. I just jumped into FCP and did a quick export, I chose export > QT Conversion > mpeg4, used the Broadband high preset and went in and changed the screen size to the 320×240 QVGA and it looked fine. Try that.

Editblog, what file size did you end up with? When I tried the “Izzy Way” with a the 1 minute segment I got a 4.9meg size file (which works out on the Izzy Video MP4 files if you do the math). When I try the way you describe I get a 17meg file. I’m most likely missing something. The closest I could get is with compressor (which makes a slightly larger file) but the quality is a little less in my opinion. The beauty of compressor is the batching and it cuts out the intermediate steps (dv to mov). I used the Web Download(QT6)>MPEG-4 800kbs. Tweaking the settings may improve the quality. Thanks.

joey, the test I did above was about 3 seconds to see if it stretched. 1 minute @ 17 megs sounds WAY big. One thing that seems to affect the size is the bandwidth limit. I’d experiment with that and see if you can get it down.

Editblog (Izzy and everyone else),

I think I’ve got it! If you open Compressor and copy the preset I mentioned above to the Custom folder, you can open the copy and make adjustments. I changed the frame rate from 15 fps to 29.97fps and viola! It took about thirty seconds to squeeze out the 1 minute test segment.

I’m currently working with 30 minute segments of an oral history program that’s 2 hours long. I’m going to DVD and the web. Windows Media takes 2 hours to squeeze out one segment. I’m looking at maybe twenty-five minutes with this setup.

Thanks.

hi

Was wondering why do you not export directly from FCP directly as a.mp4 file?
thanks

Izzy,
Since you are using SnapZPro to capture your initial tutorials, I was concerned with what settings within SnapZ you are using. Am I correct that once the SnapZ is done,you re import that back to FCP and export out using the QT compression and settings you state in your tutorial?
Thanks for replying
Steve

Izzy,
where can I look to download free Mac software on the internet…the ones I looked at before are cheesy. I’m looking for a film filter to make DV look like film, Is there a natresse free down load sight? Thank you Izzy
Robert

hai … its fine but most problem i want upload 2 hours of my film from fcp … the video shot on hd .. edited on fcp but the main main problem is i tried couple of ways h.264,mpeg4… eventhough compressor .. the resolution is not coming out well and also its taking near by …40 hrs …..let me know the solution for this

Robert, I presume you don’t mind paying for it? The cheapest find I’ve got for FCP is Nattress. You’ll be able to get it at their website for about 100 bucks.

a godsend!!!! thank you sooooo much!!!!!