Re: Compressor Output Questions.

Craig thanks, you've always answered my posts with specificity, and I appreciate that. Daniel, sorry for the name issue. Craig, in your perspective, what would be the ideal for H.264 encoding, whether it is from tests or from articles, or from your personal preferences, how do you prefer to encode H.264 and with what software? I understand that each project, client need, website specs, etc, it is all different and each source file is different, but can you suggest what your majority of H.264 encoding, or past encoding H.264, has been done with, and what the settings you felt were ideal, in this case, with the majority, if applicable? For example, I do a lot of compression using compressor, but most of the time, I usually do a preset, then tweak it alittle, and output a:

Name: H.264 800Kbps
Description: H.264 for high-bandwidth connections
File Extension: mov
Estimated size: 295.31 MB/hour of source
Audio Encoder
AAC, Stereo (L R), 48.000 kHz
Video Encoder
Format: QT
Width and Height: Up to 854 x 480
Pixel aspect ratio: Default
Crop: None
Padding: None
Frame rate: (100% of source)
Frame Controls: Automatically selected: Off
Codec Type: H.264
Multi-pass: On, frame reorder: On
Pixel depth: 24
Spatial quality: 50
Min. Spatial quality: 50
Key frame interval: 150
Temporal quality: 50
Min. temporal quality: 50
Average data rate: 0.688 (Mbps)
Fast Start: on

Also, there is a publication on the web called "Simple Encoding Recipes for the Web", which takes one through various set-ups, suggestions, and areas where you can go in and tweak, and they tell you why, and how, and etc. It's by Philip Hodgetts and Intelligent Assistant, and after the read, it was able to inform me somewhat on basics on encoding softwares and how to encode them, but this book seemed a little to vague and also detailed where it didn't need to be, and not detailed where it needed to be.

Anyways, this book and reading many articles on Streaming Media magazine on-line were some things that spawned my curiosity and posted questions about Compressor and how far one can really go with it, in terms of quality. But since it doesn't even play in the same fields as these other bigger name encoders, what would be your top 3 encoders and why?

Tom Laughlin
Producer/Editor
Salt Lake City, UT
FCS3/Sony EX-3/Mac Intel