Okay, it’s always hard to take a rough cut and get a fine cut (editing terms for taking your first draft of the movie to a slightly tighter version) and it’s even harder to share that cut with your peers to get notes. Try sending a file larger than 20 MB on any free service provider (i.e. yahoo, gmail, hotmail) and you’ll find it near impossible. So, how do you get a larger account or how do you shrink your .mov or .dv file?

You can always pay to get a “pro” account and these will let you send larger files - the problem of time still remains. It usually takes upwards of ten minutes or more (depending on file size) to send. If you’d like to get these “pro” services here are some providers: Yahoo Mail Plus, Runbox, or You Send It and then there is the option of getting a .Mac account. This is an Apple service that allows you to store things online - think of it as a floating external storage device - and you can give people web addresses to view your projects. Here’s that link: .Mac.

Compressing your file is the best option. This sounds easy, but it rarely is. Video compression, like data compression, is a tradeoff between disk space, video quality and the cost of hardware required to decompress the video in a reasonable time. Also, the length of your project is a major factor, as is the source material (i.e. standard dv or high definition dv or dvd). A Quicktime file is usually the way to go (.mov file) or if you’re sharing between Mac computers than you can export your file to be an iMovie quicktime. Okay, I want to make it a .mov file, that should be easy. It would be but you’ve got a ton of choices as to how to save your file to make it the smallest yet viewable. I recommend the following settings for a viewable, audible yet still sendable file:

20 frames per second (the usual rate is 30)
Width: 480, Height: 360, Pixel aspect ratio: Square
Crop: None - Padding: None
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

Finally, what do I use to compress my project? Good question - there are several programs out there and some that come with your computer. If you’re using iMovie (depending on the version) there are several options. In iMovie ‘08 you go to the <Share menu and then a submenu will come up with various options for types of files <iTunes or <Youtube or <Export to Quicktime. Then there are options inside of that as to how you want the specifics of the .mov file you wish to compress - for the <iTunes selection it looks like this:

On the iMovie versions prior to that (iMovie HD or iMovie 6, 5, 4…) there are fewer options but it turns out to be easier to do - you go to the <Share menu tab and then select <Quicktime. A sub menu will pop up and inside of that you can choose the following:

And as you can see, the compression setting will give you an estimated size for the file - up there it says 1.33 GB (i.e. hard to send). There is plenty of software out there - Cleaner, Sorrenson Squeeze and there is the Final Cut Studio program called Compressor which gives you all the bells and whistles for compressing files. Here is an in depth introduction to those programs and what it means to compress a video file: Creative Cow. (I highly recommend this site!)

This entry was posted on Friday, November 23rd, 2007 at 9:04 pm and is filed under Video Production Tips.