Compression Settings

Hey Kids,

Compression settings are going to be very important for all potential authors. You want to shrink that epic lesson of yours down to something that is, well, bite-sized. It should be small enough to be downloaded quickly by conventional internet connections and of a certain quality that the purchasers are not shrugging their shoulders in confusion, trying to decipher the pixilated blur on their screen that vaguely resembles a person giving badmitton lessons.

We’ve found that iPod compatible formats work the best, the files are small and still look great, thank you Mr. Jobs. Below are some specs that we at MindBites use when compressing our lessons. We’ll continue to update users as we come across more useful settings for compression.

SPECS

VIDEO:

H.264 video @ 600 kbps. File extension: m4v (aka mpeg 4) Size: 320 X 240 resolution or QVGA (Quarter Video Graphics Array)

Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixel Depth: 24 Multi-pass: On Frame Re-order: Off Spatial Quality: 50 Average Data Rate: 0.6 Mbps Maximum Data Rate: 0.768 Mbps

AUDIO:

Audio is 44.1 Khz Formate: MPEG4 Channels: 2 BPS (Bits Per Sample): 16 AAC Encoder Quality: High

Hey Kids,

Got some more info for you Fina Cut Pro Users out there. The best way to export a MindBites movie from FCP is to use Compressor, as newer versions will actually have an iPod export setting that takes care of all the grunt work for you (if your Compressor app does not have this, you might be able to find a plugin for it somewhere online, though I don’t know where at this point in time).

However, for those of you out there sans Compressor, you can still use FCP Quicktime conversion as an exporting medium and attain quality results.

Specs

VIDEO:

Format: MPEG4

(then go under options and set the following:)

File Format: MP4

Video Format: H.264

Data Rate: 600kb/s

Image Size: 320 X 240 (QVGA)

Frame Rate: 30fps

Keyframe: Every 24 frames

AUDIO:

Just keep the audio at its default settings.

just a side note, but remember that there is a 100 MB limit on the file size. It can be frustrating to wait for your movie to compress only to realize you are 2 MB over the limit. If you compress at the above settings, anything longer than about 21 minutes will be too big. Try to take another pass at editing if you can and see if there is anything that can be removed. If you know your video has to be that long though, try adjusting your data rate from 600 kb/s to about 550 kb/s (or lower if need be). The quality won’t be affected that much, but once you get closer to 500 the change becomes much more noticeable.