X3 H.264 YouTube Presets

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

Have you tried Settings-Make Movie Template Manager to explore the options available.

[colin]

Regarding the topic in question, I was wondering how to produce a 720 x 576 video encoded to H264. As VStudio doesn't have that resolution available in H264, the only thing I could think of was to produce, in VS, an avi file at 720 x 576, encoded with a lossless encoder such as huffyuv, and then convert it to H264 at the same resolution, in something like avidemux. This should work for 640 x 360, as the OP wanted.

The lossless encoded file could be rather large though.

[mrtsherman]

So I looked into this some more and came across a lot.

368x208 is available as a resolution under h.264 MAIN or h.264 BASELINE in VideoStudio X3. This seems close enough to 360p that it could suit your purposes.

I tried creating a lower resolution h.264 encoded video and using "same as first clip" in X3, but it defaulted to uncompressed avi as the output format. Oh well.

So I started to read up on Codecs because although you cannot select a custom h.264 codec you CAN select many resolutions under the h.263 codec. I read a great article here http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/ffm ... 12190.html that explains the difference.

I tried outputting a 1080i rock climbing video that included slow movement and lots of colors in h264, MPEG-SP, and MPEG-ASP to figure out the differences in quality/file size. SP is short for simple profile and predates h264. ASP is advanced simple profile and supports more advanced features (obviously).

In H264 at 720p (the lowest setting available in VideoStudio X3) the file was 45mb and the quality was great.
In SP mode at dvd resolution 720x480 (480p) the file was 3.6mb and the quality was soso. It looked quite blurry in full screen viewing, but fine in windowed mode.
In ASP mode at dvd resolution windows media player did not pick up a video stream. File size was also 3.6mb.
In H264 at dvd resolution the quality was better than in SP mode, but not by much. The file was 6.6mb.

So my conclusion was that AVI Demux was a satisfactory means of converting files to h.264. However, I don't think the quality was much better than mpeg-SP at dvd quality and the file size was twice as large. Overall the lower resolution videos save A LOT of space. The HD resolution videos are 700% larger than DVD resolution for h.264 and 1500% larger compared to mpeg-SP.

One problem that I did run into is that AVI Demux inverts uncompressed AVI output by X3. Not sure how to fix this :/

[laurentje]

VS has not enough possiblities for outpu H264. I use VS12 + Megui (free tool). I output 640x360 3000kbps for YT.

[Trevor Andrew]

Regarding the topic in question, I was wondering how to produce a 720 x 576 video encoded to H264. As VStudio doesn't have that resolution available in H264, the only thing I could think of was to produce, in VS, an avi file at 720 x 576, encoded with a lossless encoder such as huffyuv, and then convert it to H264 at the same resolution, in something like avidemux. This should work for 640 x 360, as the OP wanted.

The lossless encoded file could be rather large though.

Hi Colin

Using Make Movie Manager.
You would have to use the Mpeg Transport Stream Files
Then select H.264 Video as the video format

This is what I saw………

MPEG Transport-Stream Files
24 bits, 720 x 576, 25 fps
Upper Field First
(HDMV-PAL), 16:9
H.264 Video
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 12000 kbps)
LPCM Audio, 48000 Hz, Stereo

[colin]

Trevor, I found Make Movie Manager in my VS10, but it isn't there in VS13 X3?

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Colin

With X3 Corel have created a different menu structure by using a Settings Tab

Settings-Make Movie Templates Manager

[colin]

Hi Colin

With X3 Corel have created a different menu structure by using a Settings Tab

Settings-Make Movie Templates Manager

Thanks, I have found it and tried it, making a .m2t file. The result wasn't wonderful though.

It made a 16:9 frame out of my 720 x 576 original by putting black bars on either side. Well, that's not too serious. But the resolution looked way inferior to my creation using VS - huffyuv - mp4 (H264) with avidemux. The file size was about 8x larger as well.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Colin

Why the need for H264 when your source files are Pal 720 x 576, you don’t say if your using 4:3 or 16:9.
I doubt if converting from standard DVD size to H264 is gonna improve quality, “Silk purse and pigs ear” comes to mind. Although I will probably have to eat my words,

The sample hear was shot with Panasonic to DV-Avi, converted to MP4 H264 1920 x 1080.
at 85Mb to upload to You-tube:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL-iQJmD2tA

Other videos use a mix of formats, some HD, some not, just trying them out, all seem ok.

For You-Tube you could convert to:-

Pal Mpeg2 probably as good as anything.

MP4

Flash (Flv)

I’m sure they are others to consider, for me Mp4 seem to work……….

Black borders:-
may be caused by using Non Square Pixel Rendering, it really depends on the source video and what you are converting to.

[colin]

Trevor, my reason for using mp4 H264 is simply to get the best quality/small file size for emailing or otherwise sending my movies to relatives overseas. I'm not using HD, as you see, but the H264 codec seems the sensible one to use these days, whatever the picture format.

Your youtube movie looks nice in HD. I would have to be keen to upload 85MB, but YT provides a good service with all those formats.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Colin

H264 is not the one I would choose, camera manufacturers seem to produce their own flavours, most of which Video Studio can read but others give problems. Your relatives would need the appropriate codec installed on their systems to play these files.

I assume your relatives are gonna view on their pc’s, Wmv and Flash are usually installed on all windows computers making it easy to play these types.

I have run a few tests comparing file sizes for a 60 second sample DV.Avi converted to:-

Flash 720 x 576 5.5 Mb
WMV 5.7 Mb
MP4 8.5 Mb
Mpeg 4 H264 640 x 480 8.5 Mb
Pal Mpeg 6000 kbps 46 Mb
H264 720 x 576 TS 85 Mb
DV- Avi 211 Mb

Run your own tests to compare quality.

Colin just how long are your videos?

Sending files over the internet, have you tried Windows Live Essentials, has a section called SkyDrive which allows you to share your files, limited to 50 Mb per file, I think.
Windows Messenger also part of Windows Live Essentials will allow you to send any size file, but both parties have to be on line during uploading.

[colin]

One can spend almost forever assessing quality/file size/codec, and it is even then hard to get a definitive answer. But Flash may be the one to use as you suggest Trevor. There are still options to consider, as .flv is only a container. I came across an interesting exercise using H264 inside the Flash container. Whether this file has .mp4 or .flv on the end seems immaterial.

http://flashvideofactory.com/test/DEMO7 ... _500K.html

Certainly looks like a good result for a modest average bit rate.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Colin

The quality of the video is excellent.

I think it may be MP4 type if its using H264.
I may be wrong but I don’t think Flash and H264 goes together.

Although the uploaded video is probibaly re-coded to flash.

Can you post details of the actual template, I assume you used Make Template Movie Manager.