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914World.com _ 914World Garage _ OT: MPEG Videos

Posted by: Part Pricer Jan 26 2005, 03:09 PM

My sister has a problem, so naturally it is now my problem. I know that some of you have some expertise in this area (Hi Sean IPB Image ) So, I'm hoping that you can provide me with some guidance. Here is the deal:

My sister is a casting director. She does movies, TV, commercials, all that stuff. However, her clients are producers that are located all over the world. I've come up with a system that gives her clients secure and easy access to auditions from aspiring talent (actors). The clients love the way it works. People working on the same project in different locations can login to a secure server, view the auditions, and leave their comments on each audition so that it is available to the rest of the team. That part is good.

The part that I am unsatisfied with is the size of the MPEG files that are generated and we are currently working with. My sister has two complete digital video studios in her office. I think that they just turn on the equipment, say "action" and then hit stop when they are done. The size of the files seems to average anywhere between 30 and 40 meg for short auditions.

Now, here comes my question. Is there any software that can optimize MPEG files to reduce the file size without losing much in the way of quality for the stuff that is being viewed over the Internet? We would still like to maintain the original files since they are all eventually burned to DVDs and archived.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Posted by: SirAndy Jan 26 2005, 03:23 PM

QUOTE (Paul Heery @ Jan 26 2005, 01:09 PM)
Is there any software that can optimize MPEG files to reduce the file size without losing much in the way of quality for the stuff that is being viewed over the Internet?

nope.

MPEG is already *highly* compressed data, any off the shelf compression tools will not yield any satisfying results (think winzip etc.) ...

the only way to get the size of a MPEG significantly smaller is by reducing quality/displaysize/sound/# of frames etc ...
you can also play with different codecs as there are some differences in size due to different encoding algorythms.

IPB Image Andy

Posted by: seanery Jan 26 2005, 04:46 PM

Paul,
Is she using MPEG 1 or 2? If so, MPEG 4 can be made much smaller and still look great. Windows Media's MPG4 will start playing before the whole file is downloaded, this may help as well.
Are they using a full size image? - reducing it to 1/2 will make a file approx 1/4 the file size.
Frame Rate - reducing the frame rate will also lower the file size...don't go too low, as this may start to affect the perception of the actor
Are they PC or Mac? Apple has a new codec that will be released with OS Tiger http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/quicktime.html (this looks great!)

making any changes to the original video takes time, and time is money...so there are trade-offs involved...

Posted by: iamchappy Jan 26 2005, 05:49 PM

I use this product (cleaner 6) but there are many more out there, this is also available to windows users. There is more software available to mac users who do video and graphics than you will find for windows. You might want to check the adobe site also. Quick time pro has a good compressor but not many options.
http://www4.discreet.com/cleanermac/

Posted by: seanery Jan 26 2005, 06:13 PM

david,
cleaner is slow as sin and I've been very unhappy with it's mpeg 2 capability, 36 hours to encode 40 minutes and it was crap. I've been using a plug-in for quicktime to encode my mpeg 2 for the last year or so and it's great. Compressor (mac) is very good as well, but I've had problems with one of it's presets causing unwanted noise.

Cleaner is good for converting uncompressed QT into WMV, it works very nice at that application.

Posted by: iamchappy Jan 26 2005, 07:41 PM

You know it's weird, I have had to play around with different compressors and have wasted many hours and days trying to figure it out. I have used all those you mention, I have had cleaner work for me on a video for a whole day only to have it turn out lousy and way too big then Ive dinked around with the settings a little bit and got a great result in a few hours time and in a very small size. In the hands of someone that knows the tricks I think it can work, they always have another upgrade that seems to do it faster and better by the time you put all the add on stuff you've spent a fortune and you still have to get it all figured out.

I have had good success turning 200 to 400 mg files into 2 to 4 mg files or less.

I am not an expert on this if someone knows of something out there that works, is simple and fast im all ears.

Posted by: iamchappy Jan 26 2005, 07:50 PM

Sean, I also wanted to mention I have never had any experience on a 40 minute video compress job, I cant even imagine waiting for anything that big to render and compress only to find out it didn't work.
I guess I would try to split it up into ten 4 minute segments first and compress them separately then reedit them together.
Would that work or not.

Posted by: sgomes Jan 26 2005, 08:16 PM

Have you tried Divx?

Posted by: seanery Jan 26 2005, 08:58 PM

editing mpeg 2 is a huge issue....see the info regarding HDV, it's MPG2 and that's a tough thing.

I tried many different versions of the settings, and couldn't get cleaner to do anything acceptable. I talked to some other friends in the industry and most had the same results. I didn't have the budget for
multi-thousand dollar stand alone compression hardware, not many do.

My pieces needed to be one file, I had 3 40 minute segments. The best compromise was the MPG-2 plug-in for the mac quicktime, 40 minutes took about an hour and 10 minutes and did a fantastic job.

Posted by: seanery Jan 26 2005, 08:59 PM

divx is a good format, I like it's size/quality trade off. A lot of the DVD-stealing people use that codec.

Posted by: iamchappy Jan 27 2005, 12:52 AM

WOW i will have to try quicktime, more time saved to work on the turbo teener.

Posted by: Air_Cooled_Nut Jan 27 2005, 01:25 AM

Speaking of reducing file sizes...can you reduce your sig? Though I think I understand your purpose it's ridiculously large and excessivly bloats thread sizes/readability.

[edit]Please?

Posted by: seanery Jan 27 2005, 08:56 AM

QUOTE (iamchappy @ Jan 27 2005, 01:52 AM)
WOW i will have to try quicktime, more time saved to work on the turbo teener.

Chappy, are on a Mac? If not, the plug-in won't work. If so, PM me your e-mail address IPB Image