Final Cut Express: Horrible export quality

[Anicsi]

Looks like I always come up with a new question every now and then Well, fact is that my exported mov files (aka the finished videos) are still very big. A 4 minute video will usually take about 100 MB even if I restrict the kbps to 2500 as Kio suggested. (x264Encoder)

However, I found out (by accident, as MPEGStreamclip still won't let me move the video into an mp4 container because it loses the audio stream and ignores flagging) that the audio stream makes up almost half of the file, usually about 40 MB!
So, what can I do to reduce the final video size without a noticeable quality loss?

Solutions for smaller audio size prefered. (Audio is converted to aiff (FCE can't handle mp3) and then exported as Format: Integer (Little Endian). Render settings: Quality: Normal size. )
Thanks for your help

[Kionon]

Audio should be AAC.

Remember to compress your audio!

AIFF is just another way of saying PCM, or uncompressed!

[Anicsi]

Oh thanks so much ^^"" Looks like I missed something again xD Kionon for most helpful 2010 lol

[Anicsi]

I hope you don't mind me picking up this thread again. Well, basically my Macbook died a while ago. They had to replace the harddrive and now I am reinstalling everything. I haven't upgraded my OS so I am still with Tiger (10.4.11).

Anyway, just now I wanted to redownload the x264Encoder, Kionon mentioned before.

OK. I have a solution.

If you have x264Encoder installed, then you can encode directly out of FCE into the MOV container. Normally this is frowned upon, but the results I came out with worked well. You should see this screen:

Quoted Image converted to link:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y58/Ki ... 3027PM.png

Now the version she linked to is apparently updated and only for Leo and higher. So I looked for a previous version and installed the 1.1.3 one found here.
It doesn't work though. I dragged the 'x264component' into Library --> Quicktime and I even restarted the computer but it doesn't shop up in my FCE export options.

Where did I go wrong? I checked in 'How to Use', I should have done it right. Maybe it is still the wrong version? Strangely enough the 'creation date' was March 18th 2010. I downloaded a previous version 1.1.1. it was the same...
How can I get a previous version of the component?

Hope you know something because I am clueless... Thanks as always ^^

[Anicsi]

Well, nevermind, I asked a friend who also uses Final Cut Express and she sent me the old component (V 1.1.1)

In case anyone wants to download (x264Encoder quicktime component):
http://www.sendspace.com/file/uie1sx

Just drag/drop to HD --> Library --> QuickTime