Exporting from FCE into distribution format

[Kaji01]

All right, I've spent the last 3 hours exporting my video playing with the settings in every way imaginable, and I can either get it to fluctuate between 96-630MB or completely bottom out at 20MB with terrible quality (5-minute video, for reference). Been going to File -> Export -> Using Quicktime conversion, and then telling it to export in H.264 and playing with the quality level; the 20MB version was when I selected MPEG-4 with H.264 instead of the Quicktime movie route.

While the quality looks pretty decent at 96MB, don't get me wrong, I know that people on the org have little patience for such an inordinately large file size. Anyone with experience here know how to set things to strike the best balance?

[LivingFlame]

1) Be sure you are compressing your audio as well as your video.

2) If all else fails, you could export uncompressed and try running it through AviDemux to see if it gives better results.

[DeinReich]

Honestly, I have found that .mov is the best route as far as file exporting goes, though you might want to try exporting it as a .mp4 and not a .avi.

[Kaji01]

Hit it on the head with the audio, that cut 50MB off right there. Guess I just took it for granted that it would compress it. Thanks for the help!