Resizing, compression, and format = HELP

[Sebast1an]

Hello all, my first post...

...but down to business.


I put together a movie via iMovie that I will be entering into a contest, but the biggest problem is this...The limit is 15mb, right now the entire file is somewhere around 1.67gb. I need NEED to resize/compress it as much as possible, if at all possible. I have done all the editing and removal off all of the extra parts and useless fluff as possible, and have sacrificed everything possible before it ruins my project so that option is out.


I've tried to burn it onto a disk and bring it back to my computer (I was using my friends mac to work on it), and compress it as if I was about to burn a CD, but unfortunately he doesn't have the software required to burn it. I can't e-mail it to myself because of the size, and I've tried sendspace to send it to myself as well, but it's too big for that. Any other sites available?

Also, I can't figure out how to re-format it to get it to become an MPEG. I know I'll need a certain kind of software, but which and where to find it is a problem for me.

Any advice would be great....this project has taken up about 24 hours of my life, and I've worked my ass off to get this done in time, I can't have this stop me now. So please, any and all advice is welcome....

p.s. Sorry if this has already been addressed, but I wouldn't even know what to begin to search for because of the breadth of my question.

[Baldrick]

What kind of mpeg? mpeg1,2 ? or mpeg4(divx,xvid,h264,etc) ? or doesn't it matter?

[Sebast1an]

I'm not sure that it matters, it simply says MPEG (if that helps at all...)

[guns1inger]

What is the running time ? 15 MB is not a lot of space. Space is a product of running time X bitrate. The lower the bitrate, the lower the resolution you may have to use in order to preserve image quality.

[Sebast1an]

The running time is about 1'52" or so...I'm sure that's probably a little too long I suppose, but as I said I've sacrificed as much as I possibly can.

But I am very willing to sacrifice bitrate for the end product, how would I go about doing something like that through iMovie?

[Scorpion King]

The running time is about 1'52" or so...I'm sure that's probably a little too long I suppose, but as I said I've sacrificed as much as I possibly can.

But I am very willing to sacrifice bitrate for the end product, how would I go about doing something like that through iMovie?

If that is 1 minute and 52 seconds then your 15MB target filesize is:

984Kbps video / 128Kbps audio
952Kbps video / 160Kbps audio
920Kbps video / 192Kbps audio
888Kbps video / 224Kbps audio
856Kbps video / 256Kbps audio

Since the contest looks to be from iMovie then I would say QuickTime and H264. The bitrates tend to reflect that IMO. If they mean MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 then with these bitrates its going to look like crap.

If thats 1 hour and 52 minutes........ then you're on your own.

As far as how to get the file home... just encode it first. Then it's only 15MB.

-or-

Winzip or Winrar can split large files. Your 1.67gb file would take about 3 blank cd's. In Winzip creat a zipfile of the 1.67GB file then click "Actions - Split" and choose your media type or custom size. This might be a little different since my Winzip version is pretty old. It's easy.

Good luck.

[guns1inger]

But I am very willing to sacrifice bitrate for the end product, how would I go about doing something like that through iMovie?

A question best asked in the Mac forum, however it is just a matter of reading the online help, and finding out how to export video and change the settings. Generally this is under the file menu (or Mac equivalent). They all pretty much the same in the basics.

[Sebast1an]

I finally figured it out (all thanks goes to you all for your help!!!!) and managed to compress the file down to 8.8mb

BUT, unfortunately, it's still in an unacceptable format. I went through QuickTime and compressed it there, so it's in the standard format that QT7 comes in...but it's still not an mpeg or mp4 or anything.

How do I go about doing this?

[Scorpion King]

Well, your encode wasn't at the target bitrate because the filesize is too small. That 8.8MB comes out to at 455Kbps video if you used 192Kbps audio. You left out about 1/2 the video quality possible because the target filesize of 15MB was not met.

Also it looks to me that you need to find out exactly the necessary encoding specs for this contest upload. All this guessing is making a simple project very difficult. Once you know the specs this project will fall in place quickly I think. At least you will then know what to encode that 1.6GBs into anyway.....

In my mind anyway, .mov is mpeg4. (MPEG-4 Part 10)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264

Good luck.

[Sebast1an]

I don't really mind the quality, I watched the post-compression product, and I'm reasonably satisfied with it. I'm not all that concerned about the actual visual quality, just that my ideas and editing is understood.


"Please send your work to us in either MPEG or MP3 file formats and pay attention to the size limits; 15MB for video and 5MB for music."

This is a direct quote from the upload guidelines, other than that I have nothing to go on...except that it wont let me upload it. It must be in the wrong format, how do I change the format to the allotted formats?

[RabidDog]

change the file extension try moviename.avi or moviename.mpg or movie.mov

[Sebast1an]

change the file extension try moviename.avi or moviename.mpg or movie.mov

I've tried what you said, assuming that you meant to save it in a different file format...but it won't allow me to do that. It will only allow me to change the title of the file being saved...unless I was misunderstanding your suggestion?

Please correct me if I was, and feel free to elaborate on your advice, a layman is a good term for what I am when it comes to this kind of stuff...

[Scorpion King]

This is an easy project so treat it like such. ok

They want MPEG and 15MB max filesize. Your file is 1minute-52seconds. My bitrate calculator says to encode it: 920Kbps video / 192Kbps audio. You are so close to VCD (videoCD) specs that I would probably start with it.

The freeware version of Tmpgenc Encoder will do VCD and so will the trialware version of Tmpgenc Plus. I don't know about using it on a MAC, but I guess it would install. That you can find out yourself.

I would export the video out of iMovie as uncompressed AVI. This will be compatible with any encoder you choose. VCD is 352x240 so you have the choice to let iMovie resize it or Tmpgenc. VCD audio is 224Kbps 44,100Hz. I would use 192Kbps 44,100Hz Stereo. I would export the audio out of iMovie in the unaltered original captured format, whatever that is.

In Tmpgenc (cancel the Wizard mode) you will need to 'Load' the "VideoCD (NTSC).mcf" template. Then in Setting - set the Motion Search Precision to "High Quality-Slow". In Settings "Unlock" the Bitrate and set it to 920Kbps. On the Audio Tab 'Unlock' the Bitrate and set it to 192Kbps. (to unlock Tmpgenc settings simply 'right click' the item and choose "Unlock". You will then need to click OK - Unlock-Agree popup box.) Then encode the file. Tmpgenc will do the rest.

MPEG-1 is probably the most compatible video format known to man. With 920Kbps bitrate you will certainly need the 352x240 framesize or the output file will look like crap. Actually I would use a 2pass-VBR encode to mpeg-1 which Tmpgenc can easily do but it will take twice as long to encode. If you want to do a 2pass then unlock the Rate Control Mode in Settings and set it to 2pass-VBR, then click ->Settings and set it to 920Average - 1200Max, and 0 minimum. Even setting the average and max to 920 the output should still look better than 1pass-CBR. This is up to you.

I don't know if iMovie can output VCD MPEG-1 files or not. If so then you could try it but I would bet Tmpgenc will output a better looking file expecially when using a 2pass encode. But that again is just my guess.

Oh yea. I would say MPEG means MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video with audio, and MP3 means an audio (music) only file.

Good luck.