Compressing Guide

[Maelstar]

I was just wondering if an elite editer (AKA Rure) Could post a guide on how to correctly compress files etc keeping them a good quality while reducing there size.

I have no problem with the actual editing, i just cant seem to sort the size/quality out.

The programmes i use are Fraps/Sony Vegas and Virtual Dub. I need to know what (If anything) i have to do with the raw footage. And how to compress them correctly using Virtual Dub.

Ty in advance

 

[rure]

In my movies, I use xvid mpeg-4 codec 1500kbps, which you can choose from Vegas. I leave the sound with the PCM uncompressed option. Vegas has some sort of bug with lame mp3 codec which is the best music codec in my oppinion, this bug makes vegas crash for some unknown reason. Hence I use virtual dub for compressing the actual sound; Lame mp3 48000 khz 16 or 12kbs.

I THINK Septina is using the same kbps and stuff to.

/edit: Did I answer your question properly?

 

[Vladamir]

Get hold of the file at each end, and push it together really really hard!

 

[Maelstar]

In my movies, I use xvid mpeg-4 codec 1500kbps, which you can choose from Vegas. I leave the sound with the PCM uncompressed option. Vegas has some sort of bug with lame mp3 codec which is the best music codec in my oppinion, this bug makes vegas crash for some unknown reason. Hence I use virtual dub for compressing the actual sound; Lame mp3 48000 khz 16 or 12kbs.

I THINK Septina is using the same kbps and stuff to.

/edit: Did I answer your question properly?

I'll give it a try using those then mate. Ty for the info.

 

[Kaun_IA]

Get hold of the file at each end, and push it together really really hard!

logic and sanity arent ur best friends it seems

i use virtual dub to compress sound... rest is sony vegas or adobe premiere thingy

 

[Septina]

In my movies, I use xvid mpeg-4 codec 1500kbps, which you can choose from Vegas. I leave the sound with the PCM uncompressed option. Vegas has some sort of bug with lame mp3 codec which is the best music codec in my oppinion, this bug makes vegas crash for some unknown reason. Hence I use virtual dub for compressing the actual sound; Lame mp3 48000 khz 16 or 12kbs.

I THINK Septina is using the same kbps and stuff to.

/edit: Did I answer your question properly?

Wtflies, use DivX 6.1 Pro, High Definition Settings with the 'Insane Quality Setting'.
For sound i use Lame MP3, 44100khz, 128kbps.
And same here, encode video in Vegas and then compress the sound with Vdub.

 

[Maelstar]

lol, sorry to be a pain. But do you think you could post a SS or two of the Custom Template section part where you pick the Codec etc, because i tested it out with what i thought were the right settings, but a 32 second piece of un edited footage came out at 11.9 MB (12,574,208 bytes)

That seems abit big to me, but i might be rong

 

[Kinag]

How do I compress a video clip in vegas?

such a noob

 

[crispy]

Rure can't you fine tune the encoder a bit more than just setting it at 1500kbps?

 

[rure]

Rure can't you fine tune the encoder a bit more than just setting it at 1500kbps?

I am sure you can, but I am no expert at these things, maybe Septina or SethNaket knows these things better.

Anyway here are two screens of my vegas rendering settings

 

[Vladamir]

logic and sanity arent ur best friends it seems

i use virtual dub to compress sound... rest is sony vegas or adobe premiere thingy

Nothing compresses like brute strength!

 

[Maelstar]

What is a good size for 1 minute of footage then? Because mine are coming out at about 9.78 MB (10,264,064 bytes).

 

[rure]

What is a good size for 1 minute of footage then? Because mine are coming out at about 9.78 MB (10,264,064 bytes).

Yeah 10mb per min is very good imo. I think my movies are about 12-13 mb/min with sound compressed

 

[Vodkafairy]

omg rure! use square pixels (1.0) and 25 fps

 

[liloe]

I've seen people use some pretty nice tricks to get better quality.

I found that ffdshow thing pretty interesting and like it or not, but RealPlayer had some really good image aswell. I only have one video in RealPlayer format, but the quality is nice, believe me.

EDIT: I need a LAME codec for 64bit plz, else I need to encode the sounds in a virtual machine =)

 

[Maelstar]

Is there anything i can do to fraps to Increase the quality (Or reduce the size) of the raw footage?

 

[rure]

omg rure! use square pixels (1.0) and 25 fps

Bah I know fk all about these things

 

[liloe]

Is there anything i can do to fraps to Increase the quality (Or reduce the size) of the raw footage?

screw Fraps, I got a 2x better program in the making and it supports every possible resolution aswell.

Just need some more testruns and a better GUI and it's ready to run on my PC. The friend of mine who programs that is a genius imho =)

biggest frame I've seen it record was 77kb, so at 30fps you have 2310kb per second of movie (which gives 135mb/min) and that is only on very violent moves when using the maximum quality, which means not a single pixel gets wrong. If you get it more blurry, the size goes down very fast (just that filter isn't working atm) =))

I'll test it in action soon I guess =)

 

[SethNaket]

The thing about Vegas is that the program is made to make DVDs and Videotapes for TV playback. It is not made for compressing game footage to xvid for pc playback so you have to change almost all the settings that exist for the best pc playback. That's where the strange resolutions (everything that starts with 720 = DVD), strange framerates (29.97), strange pixel ratios and interlace all come from (dunno if you noticed but both haxen movie and vodkas release from a while back where interlaced ).

The settings in rure's picture is about half of what is "correct" settings are for pc playback. He just needs to set pixel aspect to 1.0 and make sure it's set to progressive stream instead of "lower field first". 29.97 fps is ok as long as that's what he recorded it at, although 25fps is the PAL standard so if you record with tv-in you should probably use that.

I'd recommend using 2pass variable bitrate instead of 1pass CBR, that lets you lower the bitrate some without losing any quality. 2pass with 1200kbps should look pretty much the same as 1500 1pass cbr. The downside is that 2pass is exactly what it sounds like, it encodes the entire thing twice so it takes much longer . Doing 2pass can be more complicated though, not sure if it's doable in vegas.

 

[SethNaket]

Actually, if you're going to do compress the sound in Virtualdub afterwards anyway, I'd just render lossless in Vegas (Huffyuv codec) and then do the xvid compression in virtualdub at the same time you do the sound.

If you want to get really advanced then I'd set up MeGUI and configure a 1click encoder for both video and sound. Then you'd just drag-n-drop the vegas render to MeGUI and it will do both sound and video automatically. That however is quite complicated to set up. A nice method if you're going to spit out new movies every week *cough*Septina*cough*.

 

[illu]

Very Interesting post so far

Oli - Illu

 

[ebenezer]

hmm...my movie i just made ended up very big
im a complete fraps noob, but i made the movie like i wanted it now in adobe premiere. And its 24 minutes long...and ended up 400 mb^^ quality looks ok, using that xvid 6 something pro i saw someone else mention. is there anything else i can do to compress it without loosing anymore in quality?

 

[Rigga Mortice]

hmm...my movie i just made ended up very big
im a complete fraps noob, but i made the movie like i wanted it now in adobe premiere. And its 24 minutes long...and ended up 400 mb^^ quality looks ok, using that xvid 6 something pro i saw someone else mention. is there anything else i can do to compress it without loosing anymore in quality?

Check that you are using audio compression also... the basic MPEG 3 set at somewhere around the 4-6 kb/s audio should be enough to still give you decent quality.

 

[ebenezer]

thanx for that, will check)

 

[Aloca]

One of the videos i made in photoshop i didnt encode at all when compiling video. compressed it in "dub" later. (file was 20GB tho)

 

[Vladamir]

Fuck the lot of you my idea is the best still

 

[Raven]

screw Fraps, I got a 2x better program in the making and it supports every possible resolution aswell.

Just need some more testruns and a better GUI and it's ready to run on my PC. The friend of mine who programs that is a genius imho =)

biggest frame I've seen it record was 77kb, so at 30fps you have 2310kb per second of movie (which gives 135mb/min) and that is only on very violent moves when using the maximum quality, which means not a single pixel gets wrong. If you get it more blurry, the size goes down very fast (just that filter isn't working atm) =))

I'll test it in action soon I guess =)

sounds good, will it be available for download?

 

[liloe]

once it's tested properly, maybe =)