Quality vs. Compression

Beowulf · Post by **Beowulf** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 10:30 pm

Zarxrax wrote:I always want my videos to look good. Size is always a secondary concern for me.

Perhaps a few people on a slow connection might have to wait a little longer for a nice quality video to download, but crappy video quality is crappy for everyone.

Flint the Dwarf · Post by **Flint the Dwarf** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:14 pm

As far as I'm concerned, what it comes down to is that editing makes a good video, not pretty pictures. There are some videos that are entirely pretty pictures and pretty editing, but I don't like those. I don't bother with downloading videos 60mb+ in size unless I'm fairly certain I'll like it. I set myself a 10 mb per minute rule, and that's always what I aim for, unless it's a really short song.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:43 pm

On the XviD encodes, I go for the 1000-1800kbps mark, which depending on the source and the filtering I put in it, comes out to around 10-15 mb/minute.

On the x264 encodes, I usually hover around 750-800kbps with comparable quality to the XviD encode - at a higher res, no less. If I wanted to, I could probably push it down to 600kbps and it'd still look fine, as long as I went down to 512x336 or 480x320 and did some smart filtering.

In terms of quality vs. size, I try to balance them as best I can (at least, since I started releasing them in AVI instead of MPEG-1). I make so many different encodes anyway that just because the distro is not as high-res as the MPEG-2 or the Quantizer 1 XviD doesn't matter to me at all. Since in my case, quality usually comes down to 'what dimensions is it?'

AquaSky · Post by **AquaSky** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:46 pm

Like others have said, 10 MB/sec is usually what I aim for. But I do value quality over a compact filesize; if it happens to be a bit larger than I'd expected (within a reasonable value, that is), I'll sooner go that route than reduce the bitrate to the point of noticeable artifacts.

AquaSky · Post by **AquaSky** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:47 pm

10 MB/min rather. Posting when in need of sleep + no edit button = typoed.

Flint the Dwarf · Post by **Flint the Dwarf** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:47 pm

IcyCloud wrote:10 MB/sec is usually what I aim for.

Ileia · Post by **Ileia** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:48 pm

IcyCloud wrote:10 MB/min rather. Posting when in need of sleep + no edit button = typoed.

Ha! That's the second time so far in this thread. I think if we get 5 we get a prize.

.:SR:. · Post by **.:SR:.** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:58 pm

aielI_Ileia wrote:
IcyCloud wrote:10 MB/min rather. Posting when in need of sleep + no edit button = typoed.
Ha! That's the second time so far in this thread. I think if we get 5 we get a prize.

10 MB/sec is usually what I aim for.

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:00 am

I aim for the 10mb/minute footage and 5mb for audio. If a video is short I'll ease up and let it go as high as it likes so long as it stays beneath a 50mb cut-off.

Personally, if I download an inflated video (usually huge because of the resolution, the easiest thing to fix), I expect not only perfect capture quality, but excellent content as well. It's not just download time, it's file size on my harddrive. I rarely burn grossly inflated videos to cd, so I avoid downloading them unless I know the creator *will* deliver that perfect quality and content to match the inflated ego (rightfully inflated in that case).

For videos that are huge because of mistakes, it's another story.

dj_ultima_the_great wrote:Of course, I use Windows Movie Maker II, so there goes my credibility.

Grrrr...

Eek-1 · Post by **Eek-1** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:56 am

I split my video to small pieces - fast motion & low motion, bright ones & dark ones. Then I compress each one with different ratios & filters while trying to maintain the quality. After that I join them back.