Need Flash Video Encoder- please recommend

[jmanncharters]

I shoot small videos for the company website. I prefer to edit them on my mac at home instead of at work in the AV room. The only glitch is that to upload the videos to the website they must be flash video (.flv). Currently, I edit the movies, ftp the video to work, go to work, use sorenson squeeze to convert to .flv and upload it to the website.

I am looking for a program that will allow me to convert to .flv, but doesn't cost as much as sorenson squeeze. I would prefer something under $100 if possible. Please help. I have tried ffmpegx, but every time I try to encode it takes less than a second and gives me a blank file. I don't want to pay to register unless I am sure the program will work for me.

I will take all suggestions and advice, because in truth there could be lots of operator error.

thanks,

[minidv2dvd]

try mediacoder or xmedia recode, they're both free and will encode to flash video.

[Captain Satellite]

I used xvid4psp for the videos on the site below. Good picture quality and sound for free.

http://myfavoritevideoclips.com/videopage/index.html

[jmanncharters]

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I need it for a mac. I have a power book G4 that does everything for me. thanks for your suggestions though.

[lordsmurf]

The best quality image will come from Adobe Flash Encoder --- the quality on others varies from pure crap to acceptable. Adobe Flash Encoder is part of several different CS3 and CS4 packages -- all of which are available on Mac OS X (student edition is 117 GBP). I've used CS3 on a MacBook Pro, and it was great.

Your PowerBook G4 may be too old to run Windows in a virtual environment, which would give access to some of the low-end software -- probably slow too, on the old G4. It definitely can't do everything anymore -- not in quite a few years, now, in fact.

[Baldrick]

MOving you to our mac section.

You could convert to mp4 h264 video with aac audio also, using for example handbrake.

[minidv2dvd]

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I need it for a mac. I have a power book G4 that does everything for me. thanks for your suggestions though.

my fault, sorry. you did mention working on a mac, and i skimmed right over it. fyi there is a mac section of the forum here with quite a few users.

[terryj]

VisualHub ( if you search, you can find it), ffmpegx ($15) and of course,
Adobe Flash Encoder are the top dogs on a mac.
You could also just use youtube....

As for your problems with ffmpegx, I can say that 9 out 10 times,
the problem with getting something out of ffmpegx the way
you want it has A LOT to do with the Video Type you are trying
to encode FROM.
That being said, have you tried to encode something plain jain,
say DV Stream, and produced an .flv file?
if so, then it was something in your settings on encode.

if not, then you may be missing an essential library for ffmpegx.
I'd start there, re-installing the libraries.

[Captain Satellite]

The best quality image will come from Adobe Flash Encoder --- the quality on others varies from pure crap to acceptable. Adobe Flash Encoder is part of several different CS3 and CS4 packages -- all of which are available on Mac OS X (student edition is 117 GBP). I've used CS3 on a MacBook Pro, and it was great.

Your PowerBook G4 may be too old to run Windows in a virtual environment, which would give access to some of the low-end software -- probably slow too, on the old G4. It definitely can't do everything anymore -- not in quite a few years, now, in fact.

Aw, come on, lordsmurf, wouldn't you agree that the video quality on my site is more than "acceptable"?

[Herve]

my favorite Flash encoder
http://www.vimeo.com/
the best site quality and free

send your video to vimeo
let iit encode it for you
download it
delete your video in vimeo

no more concern about indexation of the flv, all is automated by vimeo
PS: I dislike Adobe encoder, my results were often out-of-synch

bye

[jmanncharters]

[quote="terryj"]

As for your problems with ffmpegx, I can say that 9 out 10 times,
the problem with getting something out of ffmpegx the way
you want it has A LOT to do with the Video Type you are trying
to encode FROM.

Hi terryj . . you are right. I tried a straight .avi file and ffmpegx changed it to .flv with out a problem. I will play with it this weekend to see if I can get it working. Thanks for your help, I knew it was some kind of user error. I just put these videos together quick and dirty in imovie. What is the best format to export to, then use ffmpegx to change to .flv to put on the work website?

Thanks again for your help!

[lordsmurf]

Aw, come on, lordsmurf, wouldn't you agree that the video quality on my site is more than "acceptable"?

Nope, it's acceptable at best. Lots of blocks and other encode noise in there.

Audio is good, however.

[poisondeathray]

^ Captain Satellite - the noise and artifact noise is from both a bad deinterlacing method and using the old flash format, h.263 (not h.264).

You could improve your results (both video & audio) by processing it with a higher quality deinterlacer, and using h.264/aac. Although the audio does sound good, its @ 192kbps. Using aac audio, you could get the same quality at lower bitrate, or better quality at same bitrate compared to MP3.

Since you are using JW as the front end, you don't need to use flv container, .mp4 works fine.

I disagree with lordsmurf; the best image quality does not come from Adobe Media Encoder. It's average at best for h.264 encoders. And technically, CS4 doesn't use h.264 for flv , it uses f4v which is a .mp4 derivative (you're stuck with vp6 in flv if you use Adobe Media Encoder). So if the flv container is required by the OP for whatever reason, you would need to work around that, either remux or try renaming.

[Captain Satellite]

Thank you. All of that stuff is over my head. I'm most likely screwing something up in Adobe Premiere Elements.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, guys, I appreciate it.

[terryj]

@jmanncharters:

Best format is ALWAYS to convert from is going to be DV Stream.
It is as plain jain vanilla as you can get, and being so,
there is nothing to worry about as far as random codecs
needed to first decode then re-encode from to your new file format.

[lordsmurf]

It's average at best for h.264 encoders.

Professional encoders disagree.
I know you like x264, but you're more or less in the minority with that opinion.

[poisondeathray]

I know you like x264, but you're more or less in the minority with that opinion.

That's fine, and "quality" is an objective attribute, and I respect your experience.

The truth is each encoder has peculiarities and strengths/weaknesses for various situations, source formats and settings, you would know this if you use them enough. But if you've actually examined this as much as I have, and not just take someone's word for it, I am 100% certain you would agree with me.

The difference is that obvious, especially at streaming flash bitrates: entire textures and background elements are missing compared to using x264. And I mean thoroughly examined, not some half ass comparison or random frame grab. I'm talking about dozens of different sources/genres, varied bitrates, varied settings, objective analysis with SSIM, PSNR, difference masks, stream analyzers, interleaving with avisynth, watching on the intended target, etc..

The Adobe Media Encoder for flash f4v is a based cheap version of the Mainconcept SDK. You have virtually no control over settings except for bitrate. Everything is oversmoothed, and detail retention is severely lacking, unless you bump the bitrate. Very inefficient encoder. It's stage of development is what x264 was like 2 years ago.