Help Video for web

[Rubber Bullets]

Hi,

I have created 4 short videos, 6.5 mins at the most, for use by Exeter University. They will be put on Blackboard or WebCT, not sure which, for students to watch and answer questions about.

They are currently almost 4Gb in size .avi files, 720 x 576 px, and I need to create more web friendly versions.

I'm going to use Super© to do this but would be grateful of some advice on format and resolution to use.

The audio is more important than the video, but I would obviously like to keep quality as good as possible.

Do I go for DivX or Xvid, or WMV or mpeg-4? What resolution? Something not too small I guess.

Any help gratefully received.

RB

 

[nath]

DivX and Xvid are more or less the same except Xvid is free and open source (I think). WMV is a good way to piss off Microsoft haters I expect (not sure if it can be played on *nix or Mac).

Urm, I'm not actually sure what to suggest - Xvid is nice but I don't know how straight forward that'd be to play for most people. The only constructive thing I can suggest is perhaps put a copy on Youtube so anyone can see it?

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Thanks Nath,

Confidentiality issues mean that it can't go on Youtube.

*nix isn't an issue, but Mac is. It really does need to be playable on them as the uni computer lab only has Macs!

I have got the 6.31 video down to 16Mb, which should stream OK shouldn't it? I could still reduce the bitrate further I suppose, that is 320x240 and 12.5 fps but it look pretty good really.

RB

 

[nath]

I'd imagine 16mb is fine for a vid that long. Oh, also - how about .FLV format - I don't know how easy it is to convert but it's a very light format and easily embedded on a webpage.

 

[Cadelin]

Mac's have no problem with WMV

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Ah that's good news Cadelin, thanks.

Nath, I tried a 'free download' avi to flv converter, of course not free to buy, but the result was pretty much the same size as the WMV7 version, maybe a bit bigger, as it would only do 5 mins

I'm going to provide the Uni with the original files anyway so if they don't like the wmv then they can do something else themselves.

Thanks for the help.

RB

 

[Chilly]

I wouldnt worry too much about streaming, its for use in the labs? Gigabit networks all over, nej?

 

[Rubber Bullets]

I'm not certain, but I think this is stuff that they will be able to access from home. Are you familiar with Blackboard and/or WebCT? (actually I just found that WebCT is now part of blackboard). I guess some will use the stuff in the computer labs at Uni, but others will do it from home.

RB

 

[Chilly]

yeah I used blackboard at uni. awful

 

[gunner440]

yeah I used blackboard at uni. awful

WebCT vanilla was even worse