video quality of sermon on website

[tommyboy]

Hey folks, I'm almost embarrassed to ask this question because I do our editing and techie stuff and should know how do do this stuff, but.....

I've finally started putting the video of our sermons on our website (youtube to be precise), but the quality of the video is very poor. I use Pinnacle Studio and it gives me several options to export. I've tried flv, quicktime, mp4, mov, and wmv.

Here's a sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVXVS...ature=youtu.be

Looking at other sermons @ youtube, I see some very polished, high-quality looking sermons. What can I do to improve ours?

Thanks!

Tommy

[rjwalker]

I'm far from an expert, but first, how does the raw footage (pre-edit) compare to the youtube version?

I'd open two windows, side by side, one showing the raw footage in whatever media player is handy, and one with the youtube video running, pausing one and and trying to view the same footage side by side. And how does the raw footage compare to the rendered footage before upload?

In my limited experience, the two most important factors are:

1. Quality of the camera (and no, "HD" doesn't mean "high quality" - high definition with crummy color is merely highly defined crummy footage - high definition with a soft, crummy lens is merely highly defined soft, crummy image.)

2. Quality of the lighting - for example - the overhead lighting of the B-roll of the daughter leaves her face in almost complete shadow - and the brightly lit face of the woman on the right not only is a irritating distraction,* but emphasizes how bad the lighting is. Basic Lighting can be pretty easily learned - tougher (and expensive) to implement in a sanctuary setting.

Really good lighting is an art.

And photographic/video image making is all about lighting. There are a lot of tutorials on-line, including youtube, about lighting.

A common mistake is too great of a brightness variance between the highlights and the shadows.

Here's a little clip showing two camera captures of the same object - both from medium to inexpensive priced amateur camcorders (a Canon Vixia HFR21, and a Sony HDR-CX110.)

https://vimeo.com/44157810

The wide angle, washed out shot with the Canon which includes the projection screen is what the church has been kludging for webcasting the services. It is shooting from the back wall.

The closer angle shot is the Sony, shooting from the back corner. (BTW, the image quality of the two is pretty close when they both record the same images from the same spot - the differences in the sample clip are almost entirely the result of the different ranges of brightness the two cameras are dealing with.)


= = = =
I used a very old version of Pinnacle years ago (maybe 10 years +/-) for my first attempted digital video editing. The output was unimpressive. That experience probably is totally irrelevant to today, of course.

I use Sony Vegas, myself - inexpensive (about $100 for the version I use.) Not nearly as powerful as the Adobe suite, but it has more features I'll ever use!

* FWIW, with Sony Vegas I could "zoom in" slightly in that bit of video to crop that brightly lit woman out of the rendered video footage

[tommyboy]

I use a Sony hdr-sr12 and dump to iso file to burn to dvds- which look very good.

[rjwalker]

How does the video look after you render it in Pinnacle - before upload?

[JoshGuerette]

Your YouTube link looks to be heavily compressed, as shown by the large block artifacts. I would guess you're probably exporting a very low quality video compared to what you're bringing in and editing. I don't use Pinnacle, but check your export settings and see if you can increase your bitrate, and make sure your size is something like 640x480 (standard YouTube size for SD).

[SterlingAug]

I upload our compressed videos to Vimeo.com and they come out fine.

Our raw video .mov file is 18GB and after compression it is around 700MB.

[JoshGuerette]

Originally Posted by SterlingAug

I upload our compressed videos to Vimeo.com and they come out fine.

Our raw video .mov file is 18GB and after compression it is around 700MB.

Normal compression is fine, and necessary. Looking at the video though, it looks visibly compressed and is artifacting like crazy. You'l notice it especially whenever there's any motion. Looking at the size of the flv on YouTube, it's around 150MB, which for a 50 minute video is quite small.

[rjwalker]

Originally Posted by JoshGuerette

Looking at the size of the flv on YouTube, it's around 150MB, which for a 50 minute video is quite small.

Where is that info available?

[tommyboy]

Ok, I uploaded the FLV file as the largest, highest quality Pinnacle will allow me. Here's the link: http://youtu.be/3uzKLmD68V4.

Is this any better? Is it acceptable? Talk to me?

[sempei13]

That's better, but the first dissolve is still blocky (it was a cross-dissolve and not some sort of block dissolve, right?). I notice some artifacts on the edges.

There are some different things you can tweak. First, your codec matters. H.264 is a great choice for video from a video camera (as opposed to animation). Bit rate and sample rate are important too as is resolution and frame rate. I wouldn't go less than 25 fps (if you capture at 60 fps, don't go to 25, but 30 might save a bunch of space). If you can choose variable bit rate, that might save some space, too.

It could be that Pinnacle isn't the greatest at compression. Some people make a whole career out of compression, so it's a big subject. Here are some tips from Youtube.

[JoshGuerette]

Originally Posted by rjwalker

Where is that info available?

If you plug the url into a site like savevid.com, you can see the size of the available versions of that video. Mind you, this is after YouTube runs their own compression on it, so it's not the same file you're uploading. However, it's an accurate reflection of the video file you're viewing on YouTube.

This looks to be a quality problem with Pinnacle. Are you able to download a trial version of Premiere or something similar? I would also try and find someone on YouTube who does Pinnacle tutorials or something, they might have some tips on exporting a good-quality video file.

[Gracepreacher]

I think your problem might be that if you are uploading an FLV, as it's already a very compressed format. Check out this list of guidelines:

Preferred Specifications
Here are YouTube’s recommended specifications for audio and video. The information below lists the optimal requirements for uploaded files.
Video Details
Bit Rate – Factors for consideration for video should focus on aspect ratio, frame rate, and resolution as opposed to bit rate. Codec basically dictates bit rate, and as such, there are no recommendations for it.
Codec – MPEG4, MPEG2, and H.264 are ideal.
Frame Rate – Avoid re-sampling the video frame rate and stick to that of the original. “Pulldown”, among other methods of re-sampling frame rates are not advised.
Resolution – The recommended resolution for videos is 640 x 480 (4:3 SD) and 1280 x 720 pixels (16 x 9 HD). High resolutions such as High Definition or HD are preferred. Keep in mind that YouTube does not have a minimum resolution requirement. This allows old content (of low resolution) to be uploaded to the service.
Audio Details
Channels – Stereo or 2 channels
Codec – AAC and MP3 are ideal.
Tips and Tricks
If an uploader is unsure about a video format’s compatibility with YouTube, the file can be converted to MP3 audio-enabled MPEG4 video.
FFMPEG-type software is easily available on the Internet. This command line utility can translate a video into a compatible format. This software is available as freeware or paid software.
Transcoding a greatly-compressed video file into an accepted format is discouraged, as this creates sub-par results. Apply the utilized video editing program (used in the initial video edit) to export the file in formats such as MP3 audio/MPEG4 video. If this cannot be done, the video file may be exported uncompressed, and then encoded via a peripheral program.



I would try using a preset for MP4, MOV, or MPEG-2. For a sermon, it should be at least 1 GB BEFORE uploading to a site like youtube that will compress it efficiently for the web.