Encode H.264 so it will play on your iPod
As of late I have totally gotten into Video blogging, both consuming and creating them. I have a nice camcorder, a copy of Final Cut HD Express, and lots to say. However, despite my general know how in regards to computers video encoding is something of a black art to me. I usually just export my videos using the 'iPod' setting that QuickTime provides, but I know that isn't the best way to do it.Ryanne Hodson, video blogger extraordinaire, has created a screencast at Freevlog that explains how to squeeze the best video for your iPod out of QuickTime. There is no way that I could have figured this out, so if you are into video but don't know your codecs from your filters check out this screencast for some pointers.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Memnoch said 6:49PM on 12-17-2006
Seems a bit out of date. Correct me if i'm wrong but isn't the max data rate a lot higher now?
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Jim said 7:17PM on 12-17-2006
Correct, when apple switched to the 5.5gen iPods and the "iTunes Store" withi movies they made the standard res 640 width for h.264 and I'm not sure of the bandwidth cap now, but it is higher. Average for a 640x480 h.264 Baseline (which is less efficient, by the way, but needed for the ipod) is about 1400kbps total audio and video.
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derek said 7:52PM on 12-17-2006
Or you can just use FFMPEGX and set it to iPod H.264...
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LD said 7:51PM on 12-17-2006
Or just drop the video on iSquint and be done with it. Keep It Simple, Stupid.
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Tim O'Bryan said 11:24PM on 12-17-2006
compressor anyone?
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Chris Roberts said 1:02AM on 12-18-2006
The 5.5g ipods have a max data rate of 1.5 Mbps for 640x480 h.264 video. 768kbps for 320x240 h.264 video. And up to 2.5 Mbps for mpeg-4 video... although don't try running that off the battery for too long. I agree that this video is outdated, but also giving questionable advice. Frame rate of 15? No thanks, take your choppy video to YouTube. (The ipod supports up to 30fps) The methods shown in this video aren't the best. FFMPEGX & iSquint are great at this. I personally use compressor, and don't see why a video on final cut wouldn't mention the power of that. I have presets for different compression and content in compressor, and I can get video to look darn good on a video ipod.
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jonas said 2:51AM on 12-18-2006
or j00 kan just buy a zune omg!
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Verdi said 3:56AM on 12-18-2006
I'm the co-producer of Freevlog and I'd just like to add a few things to this discussion. You guys all bring up some good points, let me see if I can address them or at least explain our thinking.
Max data rate - For 320 X 240, h.264, baseline profile video the max data rate is 768kbps according to Apple's specs. The max of 1.5Mbps for 640 X 480, h.264 video is for the "low-complexity" profile and not the "baseline" profile that you can use at 320 x 240. And like previously you can use up 2.5Mbps with regular mpeg 4. The reason why this screencast is focused on 320x240 and lower 500 - 600kbps rates is because it's aimed at videoblogging and playback on a blog as well as an iPod. Also we make these tutorials as starting points. Not every video needs the same kind of compression.
Certainly compressor is a great tool and I use it all the time. One issue I have with using it to create video for the iPod is the lack of customization for the frame size. So, for example, if you were compressing widescreen video you'd be stuck with 320 x 180 video instead of the 365 x 205 that you can get with this method. Also we were trying to make a quick and simple tutorial that worked for both iMovie and Final Cut Pro.
As for 15fps, I hear you - I usually do my videos at 30fps but again it's a starting point and you can get away with different settings in different videos. That screencast for example is 15fps and is perfectly acceptable.
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Saverio said 4:47AM on 12-18-2006
Total overkill!!!
The standard quicktime ipod conversion (the one before the high resolution update) already gave 320x240 at 600 kbps video bitrate. And that is absolutely overkill, even for 128kbps, 44100 khz audio and 30 fps video.
The point of vlogging is to reduce file size, so ok, reduce framerate, and be consequent and reduce bitrate too. I guess that for a 15fps low res ipod video in h264 it is more than enough to give a 200kbps video bitrate, considering also that you are sacrificing a huge audio quality by selecting 32kbps mono.
So either go the size route, but reduce the size for real, or go the quality route, and stick with quicktime's own ipod profile. If you need quality but want to stick with low res, go for 500-550 kbps video, at full framerate.
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ryanne hodson said 12:17PM on 12-18-2006
hey all
just a side note, these are the settings i generally use, so that's where i was starting with this screencast. everyone has their preferences (including apple and those are the ones that usually work for the ipod eh?) so yeah, 32 khz mono at 15fps harks back to my videoblogging beginnings 2 years ago (and i still use those!)-agreed. also, maybe someone can speak to this- when i compress using these settings at 30fps it looks like single pass h.264 (crumby!) rather than luscious dual pass which looks great. i don't know why that is. so this was a reason also for me to suggest 15fps. verdi (or maybe anyone else in the world) does not have this issue. i guess my powebook hates me... thanks for watching and thanks for all the suggestions!
-ryanne
freevlog.org
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Nick Schmidt said 2:05AM on 12-19-2006
I have been a vlogger for over a 1.5 yrs & I just want to point out the is the best setting so far. Again just to remind everyone what someone else said in a previous post. The goal for vloggers is to have max video/audio quality with least amount of time needed to download.
So with that said.. This setting shows it. & it is easy to put on your ipod, just drag and drop..simple..
Now with youtube. I would suggest you to upload 2 videos of the same file, but one file at 15fps & 30fps. You will see that 15fps is better.
Everything is changing so rapidly in the video compression and etc. I just think we should have a central location where people can post their trial & errors for the new settings. The we have one place with the most recent post where can go and use the settings. And hopefully not have too many complaints about people's posts. Because over the next few months with iTV, youtube/google, they are going to improve all their services of video. So let's work together.. much love
Nick Schmidt
www.schmult.com
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