Video tutorial: producing H.264 video for Flash Distribution with Apple Compressor
- 7-5-2009
- Categorized in: H.264 production, Video tutorials
This video tutorial details how to use Apple Compressor to produce H.264 video files for Flash distribution.
Here's some background information explaining some of the encoding decisions made in the tutorial. First, the project involved a concert produced solely for streaming, so I shot in progressive mode. Hence no de-interlacing. Since music was involved, I encoded in 128 kbps stereo, where usually I produce in mono at 64 kbps or less.
I was producing for Flash distribution, so I encoded using H.264 and chose the MOV extension, which should work just fine with the Flash Player. The video will be distributed via progressive download (hence multipass, VBR encoding) solely to computers, and is not targeted at iPods or other devices. For this reason, I use H.264's main profile, and would have used the high profile if available. Had I wanted to produce a file that would load on an iPod, as well as play on a computer, I would have used the Baseline profile. Of course, had I been producing for a streaming server, I likely would have produced in CBR mode, though that's not essential.
If all this sound totally foreign to you, check out the streaming media primer, here, and the Producing H.264 Video for Flash: An Overview, here:
The video was produced and encoded at 640x480 resolution, though it's presented in 400x300 resolution on the page. Click the four-arrow full screen icon on the bottom right, and the video should look crystal clear. That's the plan, anyway, let me know how it looks to you.
Here's some background information explaining some of the encoding decisions made in the tutorial. First, the project involved a concert produced solely for streaming, so I shot in progressive mode. Hence no de-interlacing. Since music was involved, I encoded in 128 kbps stereo, where usually I produce in mono at 64 kbps or less.
I was producing for Flash distribution, so I encoded using H.264 and chose the MOV extension, which should work just fine with the Flash Player. The video will be distributed via progressive download (hence multipass, VBR encoding) solely to computers, and is not targeted at iPods or other devices. For this reason, I use H.264's main profile, and would have used the high profile if available. Had I wanted to produce a file that would load on an iPod, as well as play on a computer, I would have used the Baseline profile. Of course, had I been producing for a streaming server, I likely would have produced in CBR mode, though that's not essential.
If all this sound totally foreign to you, check out the streaming media primer, here, and the Producing H.264 Video for Flash: An Overview, here:
The video was produced and encoded at 640x480 resolution, though it's presented in 400x300 resolution on the page. Click the four-arrow full screen icon on the bottom right, and the video should look crystal clear. That's the plan, anyway, let me know how it looks to you.
Producing H.264 files for Flash using Apple Compressor from jan ozer on Vimeo.
Comments (4)
#1
Damon
Said this on 7-8-2009 At 12:15 pm
Super helpful, thank you.
Reply to this Comment
#2
Jan Ozer
Said this on 7-8-2009 At 12:21 pm
You're welcome, thanks for your note.
Reply to this Comment
#3
Ted Banucci
Said this on 7-14-2009 At 12:36 pm
I learned a lot of tips I was not aware of before, thanks for the post! Previously, I was always making my preferred quality web videos from within QT Pro, doing an "Export to Web" function and then selecting the better quality iPhone selection. I will try out your settings as well, but am curious if you know those same encoding options found in the iPhone compression within Compressor, I have not found a similar option.
Reply to this Comment
#4
Jan Ozer
Said this on 7-14-2009 At 04:29 pm
Hmm. I just looked at a very recent version of Compressor and it has low rez (320x240) and high rez (40x480) presets for iPod/iPhone. They are in the Apple device category.
Reply to this Comment
