The "Watch (standard)" links take you to 568x320, 500kbps (vid) H.264 mp4.
The "Watch (HD)" links take you to 1280x720, 1.6Mbps (vid) H.264 mp4.
I am pretty happy with how the 720p version looks, but I think the 320p version looks crappy, mainly it has lots of large "blocky" artifacts. I am aware that 320p 500kbps is never going to look great, but I think this is as high bitrate (if not better) than what Youtube uses for 320p, and I don't usually see the huge blocky artifacts on Youtube. Even the 720p version I think has a little too much blockiness, compared to Vimeo or something with similar bitrate.
I am using Sony Vegas AVC render option to make my mp4 files. I choose the "use deblocking filter" option (not sure what that is, but it seems like it should help?) and also "number of reference frames" =1 (not sure what that is either).
What else can I do to make it look better at the chosen res and bitrate?
Re: How to reduce blocky artifacts in low res, low bitrate video by Douglas Spotted Eagle on Mar 16, 2009 at 2:38:43 am
Matt,
Why are you not using the MainConcept encoder? 2-pass with Deblocking filter? As indicated elsewhere, this is a better option than using the Sony encoder.
Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST
Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor
Re: How to reduce blocky artifacts in low res, low bitrate video by Matt Hoover on Mar 16, 2009 at 3:00:46 am
Oops, mistype on my part. I am using the MC, with 2-pass and de-blocking.
Some people on another forum (videohelp.com) have told me two interesting things:
1) x264 can do better low bitrate encodings than Vegas
2) (the bigger issue here): the web video player I am using is not very good at scaling and is introducing extra blocking
