What is the smallest a mp4 can be and still be HD??

[DJboutit]

I am just wondering what is the smallest a mp4 video can be and still be HD I am guessing 35mb to 40mb pre 1 min of video. I see a lot of videos at pay sites that are 2.5gb to 4gb these videos are overkill I guess these videos are for anybody using a 55"+ flat screen as there computer monitor there not many people using this big of a screen. I am using a 32" flat screen for my computer monitor and 1.2gb to 2gb videos looks just fine I think pay sites should not have videos bigger than 2.2gb videos if someone knows how to encode mp4s right then most video would be 2.2gb or less

[davexnet]

What resolution are you talking about? 720p ?

[DJboutit]

720p = 1280×720

1080p = 1920x1080

[jman98]

What you are doing is something like trying to use miles per gallon ratings on cars to figure out the size of an automobile. Or to put it another way, you are asking apple questions in trying to get information about oranges.

Size of video files depends on bit rate.
Whether something is high definition or not depends on resolution (ie. 1280x720) and has nothing to do with bit rate.

Quality is subjective, but for what it's worth we have people here who think that 1.2 - 2 GB is too small for high definition.

[smrpix]

As you have noted, HD is defined as either 1280x720 or 1920x1080.

And jman is absolutely right.

For reference, typical bitrates:
Vimeo recommends 5000kbs
BBC requires minimally 440-800Mbs

[mike20021969]

we have people here who think that 1.2 - 2 GB is too small for high definition.

That all depends on the length of the video.

[pandy]

You can reduce luminance resolution - for example 1280x1080 or 960x720 - it is up to You - if Your goal is to reduce bitrate and You are happy on small screen with higher compression in videos this can help a lot.
For typical broadcast quality, common bitrate for H.264 is approx 8 - 12Mbps, for web streaming usually this can be half.

[jman98]

we have people here who think that 1.2 - 2 GB is too small for high definition.

That all depends on the length of the video.

Yes of course, but are you REALLY going to make me play the game where I have to write a book specifying that "if the file is X size and under Y minutes it is fine" and so forth? The OP joined in 2004 so I would like to avoid playing the games we have to play with new members where we have to explain everything in excruciating detail, but if you are bored and wish to write a lengthy response specifying what should be OK and what shouldn't then please go ahead.

[Cornucopia]

we have people here who think that 1.2 - 2 GB is too small for high definition.

That all depends on the length of the video.

Also, it very strongly depends on the complexity of the content.
THIS VIDEO (below) is 5 seconds of Bars&Tone using h.264 1080p60. It's "HD", and although there are artifacts, those would probably be gone if I doubled the bitrate (to 512kbps!!!). But that's because it's a static screen with solid block colors and no edits.

Scott

[mike20021969]

5 seconds of Bars&Tone

What program do you use to generate the B&T?

Thanks.

[Cornucopia]

Quick & dirty for this example, I just grabbed a still from the web and some stock tone I had laying around and just dropped it in Vegas & rendered it to RGB 1080p60, then compressed it in QTPro (mainly cuz I know its h264 encoder is lame and I wanted to see if/how it would handle this low a bitrate).

I'm sure a true full Hd "generator" of B&T, with x264 as the encoder, tweaked, would be much better. I was just trying to prove a point.

Scott

[jagabo]

What program do you use to generate the B&T?

You can use ColorBars in AviSynth. Here's a five second sample encoded with x264 (AviSynth generated audio, 440 Hz sine wave, but I didn't include it here), 1080p60, 26 KB.

[hech54]

Quality is subjective, but for what it's worth we have people here who think that 1.2 - 2 GB is too small for high definition.

Exactly. If you payed thousands of dollars for an "HD Television" and it only accepted files up to 1GB...you would definately feel ripped off and start to question whether the TV was really "HD".