Car Salesman comedy trailer...

Hey all,

I posted a trailer for a webseries I shot (HVX200), a very dark comedy about some very dark car salesmen (like there's any other kind). Hope you laugh!

WARNING: R-rated language, NSFW.





By the way, it was cut in FCP, mixed in Soundtrack, and CC'd in Color (which rescued half the footage. Incredible.)

Greg

The footage looks very clean for YouTube...but the movie stutters drastically on my Quad PPC in Firefox...can't even watch it. Plays like every 10th frame.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Same here; I'd thought my computer was underpowered. Maybe you overdid the data rate and actually tried to put through a 1GB movie file? The low-quality version plays better, but that one looks like garbage even for YouTube. Did you by any chance compress the low-quality one using the high-quality one? It looks like more than one level of compression. Either that, or YouTube's low-quality setting is that bad.


www.derekmok.com

Aarrgh, great...

I only sent it once to YouTube, and it was a 161mb h.264, at 12.28 mbits/sec, and at 23.98fps. YouTube then processed an "HD" version, and an "SD" version...

What's weird is that when I watch it on my dual 2.0 G5, the HD version is unplayably slow... but on my new Intel MacBook Pro it plays just fine. Are you guys both on PPC?

I know YouTube just launched their "HD" capabilities about a month ago, so I wonder if it isn't some encoding bug, because you're right, the HD can't play, and the SD looks like carp (on G5s at least).

Agh, I've got 1,200 views - I hope they're not watching garbage (aside from the content)...

PC?? This is a Mac forum my friend! ...as I said...I tried to watch it on my PPC Quad in Firefox (see thread above). 12.8 Mbits is ridiculous for internet streaming (too high). It should be more like 5. If it's H.264, you can even go down to 2.5. Anyway, you should always plan for viewers having slower computers than yours. Just because it plays on a MBP doesn't mean it will play on anything slower. I am positive that 9 out of 10 people watching (or trying to watch) get the same horrible stutter. I would recompress & repost.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

> 12.8 Mbits is ridiculous for internet streaming (too high).

Here's the thing, though...if YouTube is re-encoding the media, theoretically speaking shouldn't that even it out? I don't know how their Flash interacts with H.264 QuickTime movies.

I didn't see anything in his post that suggests a PC anywhere in the pipeline...I think he meant "PPC" -- Mac PowerPCs. The Intel Macs are a lot faster, but the problem is, even a Dual 2.0GHz PowerPC G5 is still a lot faster than most consumer computers out there. So if Joe (Quad PowerPC) and I (Dual Power PC) have problems playing it -- let's also throw in our internet connection, and mine is pretty decent, faster than average -- others will as well. And then it won't matter how crisp the image is, because they won't watch it, and the viewers are likely to get annoyed and never come back. Rather put up a grungy but playable piece than a high-quality piece that plays one in every 60 frames.


www.derekmok.com

Well that's the thing - I don't think it's a bitrate question going in, because YouTube is recompressing it, which, I would assume, puts a maximum bitrate on the finished product that should play on average machines. But who knows, clearly they haven't figured the whole "HD" thing out quite yet.

Unfortunately, I don't want to repost because that'll kill the hit counter, and I assume that if it's stuttering, people will just play the low-res version anyway.

And actually, I was just asking the PPC vs. Intel not for raw speed, but because I wonder if their codec (flash, I guess?) plays nice with Intel and not so nice with PPC.

Bottom line of course, YouTube is no place to display quality video, but unfortunately it's still the biggest gorilla out there...

I got a PPC and I cant watch it. Stutters like crazy

Michael Horton
-------------------

Yup, I think it's a PowerPC problem, which is interesting.

I'm at work right now, on a crappy 3-year old HP box, and the HD version plays like butter. It even plays great on my friend's 1st gen iPhone.

There must be something with the Flash codec that YouTube uses that hates PPC chips. Quite odd.

Quote

it's still the biggest gorilla out there...

It's only a gorilla if you want it for free and you don't care about quality. Because this is a Mac forum, if you want MORE PEOPLE to watch this (and I mean watch the whole thing), I suggest you post a link to the LOW RES VERSION in this thread so as not to alienate PPC users. There's still a lot of them out there (here).

BTW...worried about your "hit counter"...it is not accurate if people hitting on it can't watch it.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

"It's only a gorilla if you want it for free and you don't care about quality"

No, actually, that's not true. It's where people go. I'd much rather post it on Vimeo, which is far superior, but no one goes to Vimeo, and things simply don't become viral on Vimeo. If a trailer is released in the forest, and no one is around...

And I know you weren't suggesting I was cheap and didn't care about quality, after saying I posted a version that was too HIGH a quality for your machine to play, so I'm happy you weren't insinuating that, because that would be make no sense, and I know you're not like that, so that's awesome! High fives all around.

For PPC owners (like myself), here ya go! Hope you enjoy...

Joe, there *was* a link to the low-res version -- check the "watch in normal quality" link on the lower right of the video frame. Unfortunately, looks like when they said "normal", they meant "abysmal".


www.derekmok.com

That link you posted for PPC users is dead. Error said:

"The URL contained a malformed video ID."

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Hmm. Thanks for the heads up. Try that again...

Looks like an alternate take on Ron Howard's first film "Used Cars".

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

By the way, there is now a big discussion over at MacNN about how YouTube HD is unplayable on even high-end G5's, but can run on the lowliest Intel Mac. No one knows what it is yet...

[forums.macnn.com]

Guess we were on the cutting edge of the issue huh?

Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!

I have an actor portraying me in that movie. i am officially a net icon. I sold cars for 6 years.

EXCELLENT FLASH

BTW what did you shoot that with. the footage is remarkable.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Thanks! It was shot on a Panasonic HVX-200, and a ton of work in Color to correct for the fact that we shot a lot of outside stuff during different times of day.

Color was AMAZING. Some shots have 4-5 levels of traveling mattes, lighting up individual eyes, etc. Some footage that came in BLACK (shot after sunset) ended up looking correctly exposed. Which also speaks well for the DVCPRO-HD codec and its colorspace.

Looks like our series is being picked up for distribution (can't mention the site until the contracts are signed), so I'm pretty excited about it...

Thanks again!