UPDATE: We go into greater detail in the updated post over here!
Most of work now is delivered & viewed online now, whether it’s client review (for which, by the way, we recommend dropbox) or final delivery. Most often, we upload our content to Vimeo because of their video quality and embed options. Since ubiquitous fiber optic is nowhere on the horizon, the balance between great-looking footage and file size is something we deal with often.
H.264 is certainly the most popular codec out there. However, we’ve found that videos that are encoded in H.264 using Quicktime sometimes look faded out or experience heavy banding. To fix this, we’ve used the x264 encoder along with a Compressor setting that has worked very well for us. This setting produces 720p files at 5000Kb/s. To upload standard definition footage, we’d recommend going for 2000Kb/s.
First, download the x264 encoder for Mac. (Also works on Windows) (EDIT: to install on Mac, copy the x264Encoder.component file to /Library/Quicktime/)
Then, download this Compressor setting file, unzip, and put the .setting file into /Users/yourusername/Library/Application Support/Compressor/
The setting will then be available in your Custom presets bin.
Note, if you don’t use Final Cut Studio with its included Compressor application for encoding, you can still use x264 within Quicktime Pro for encoding.
Thanks! Nice one.
this doesnt work, there is no quicktime folder in that folder directory. fail. (i own a 12core mac with the latest software, there are no quicktime folders at all, just the icon on the computer and that’s it). tried uninstalling it, reinstalling it to see if it would place a folder in that directory or a folder at all, and nothing.
Did you make sure to go to /Library/Quicktime under the root of your system drive, not the /Library under your user directory?
Hi
Thanks for providing this information
I have problem’s with opening the zipped file in mac. I downloaded winzip but I can’t open your file.
Would it be possible to upload some screenshots of of your settings?
Thanks again
Warm regards
Peter
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Hi Ryan.
I have been using your preset with great success. I use Compressor. Is there any need to turn on Frame Control, will tweaking with those settings have any benefit. I use 720p all the time.
Regards
Finnur
Not necessarily. You would only use that if you were changing the frame rate or output resolution and wanted to have control over the balance between render time and quality.
Check this out for more info. http://bit.ly/10Zsn0U
Thanks for the answer. I put a test clip on Vimeo with frame control on and there was no difference what so ever. So I stick to my original settings
Thank you
Finnur
Yep, sounds about right. You’re welcome!