exporting XDCAM files for the web

Hello
I'm struggling with exporting XDCAM footage to publish on YOUTube. I'm exporting the file as Quiktime Conversion and as an H264. The file comes out at 1.3GB and it's under 2 mins long. I then run the file through streamclip to deinterlace it. Then I upload onto YOuTube and it won't play smoothly.

Could someone please give me the settings for web export to achieve the best quality and playback.
Thanks.

> The file comes out at 1.3GB and it's under 2 mins long. I then run the file through streamclip to deinterlace it. Then I upload onto YouTube and it won't play smoothly.

You're trying to play back a 1.3GB file on YouTube? And it's only two minutes? No wonder it won't play. Your bit rate is far too high.

You're also compromising your quality unnecessarily by going through two layers of H.264 compression. Just export the file full-quality, then use MPEG Streamclip for both the compression and the de-interlace.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks for the advice. I just exported the file as a Pro Res 422 and then ran it through Streamclip to deinterlace and as an H264 file and I still have 1.47GB file coming out as a 1.29GB one. This is too big for You Tube.

I also understand the mistake of compressing to H264 twice but that does make it much smaller. I'm a bit confused here.

Another route seems to be opening the full res quicktime and then saving it within quicktime as an 'export for web' file and I get a 17MB size clip that seems to look ok. Its an MPEG4 with H264 codec - shrunk from 1920 x 1080 to 852 x 480.

YouTube will recompress so it doesn't matter. The higher quality the file the better. As long as the size is within YouTube size limits. The smoothness issue is probably from whatever you are doing in Mpeg Streamclip. Can you tell us exactly what you are doing in Mpeg Streamclip? Does the file play fine after that?



www.strypesinpost.com

I've uploaded a 422 file - over a gig for less than 2 mins - and it won't play smoothly so that doesn't work.

The streamclip is because the footage is interlaced you can't deinterlace without recompressing the file. Deinterlacing in FCP isn't a good option. IN streamclip I'm selecting H264, size 1920 x 1080 (as with the original), full quality and deinterlace. After this the file is still over a gig and doesn't play smoothly on YouTube.

> The higher quality the file the better. As long as the size is within YouTube size limits.

At least up until my last test, this hasn't been true. I haven't uploaded this kind of massive file to YouTube in a while, but I've done a test with a trailer and had my director and his network access it. An 8000kbps file played back very badly on almost every computer that tried to play it (no information on their internet speed); a 5000kbps file is what we have up and running. So the bit rate of the original file is relevant.


www.derekmok.com

> IN streamclip I'm selecting H264, size 1920 x 1080 (as with the original), full quality and deinterlace. After this the file is still over a gig and doesn't play smoothly on YouTube.

You're not selecting "Limit Data Rate". Check that box and try 8000kbps, and then try 5000kbps. (My test was several years ago so playback may be better now). Use Export to MPEG-4, not Export to QuickTIme.


www.derekmok.com

YouTube does progressive downloads, and it recompresses the file. You can download the stream and take a look. Leaving the stream as is, has the potential to exponentially increase the bandwidth on the server, bringing down the server. But check to see if YouTube is mucking around with your framerate. Bliptv did that, although Blip will stream a 29.97 h.264 even at 15Mb/s, which also meant that users can kill their server pretty.



www.strypesinpost.com