Getting the best result on Vimeo?

[Fly-Catchers]

Having uploaded a few of my videos to the free version of Vimeo they still lose far more than I see in other peoples uploads. And thats including the free version of Vimeo as well.

 

If I use the Vimeo HD preset on PE 10 it gives me H264  1280 x 720 29.97 frame rate NTCS. When I go into advance and change it to PAL 25fps it changes the frame size to 720 x 576!! Why should that be?

 

Currently I am using my own profile of H264 1280 x 720 25fps PAL. In all cases the pixel aspect ratio is square pixels.

 

When saved and viewed on my PC it looks and sounds fine. Once uploaded to vimeo and further compressed you get brief patches of blocky pixels in the picture, and in my latest upload a jerky feel to any rotating motion. Also there is a brief audio glitch out of the blue as well! I understand that going to the paid version of Vimeo would give better results but I have certainly seen some excellent results of GH2 footage using the free account. Any tips on how to get the best out of the footage?

 

I have just added the latest small video to the screening room. This was mainly shot to test out a 50mm f1.2 rangefinder Canon lens on the GH2.    

[Bioskop.Inc]

This is the new compression guidelines for Vimeo:

 

vimeo.com/help/compression

 

But there are tones of how-to vids on Vimeo, itself. The best one seems to be using MPEGStreamclip.

[Sean Cunningham]

Unfortunately the current Vimeo help files don't delve passed the front most settings for the codec.  I was getting really good results for a while but then all of a sudden I started seeing momentary brightness changes during the course of a clip that featured more than just a few scene cuts.  Simply increasing the constant rate limit didn't eliminate these.  I finally, after piecing together bits and pieces from about a half dozen sites have a preset now that I use that's working so far, it just produces larger than expected files (that I can no longer play on my PS3 or other Sony "smart" BD players) but I can live with that.

 

The documentation on x264 is rather incomplete and poorly written conveniently for the options that seem to have the most impact on what ultimately got me fixed up :(

 

I'll look for where the preset file is saved so that I can upload it perhaps, or just add to this post with the settings I changed from default that appear to be working...more to come...

 

 

Multipass + B-Frames

(use the Vimeo suggestions for Kbps @ 100% Quality)

 

 

Under Options:

 

"Behavior" tab

 

[set FPS to that of your clip]

Force qmin on ABR/CRF mode qmin: 10

use 3rd pass

 

 

"Values" tab

 

refs: 6

me_subq/me_range: 7 + 16

KeyInt Min/Max B: 24 + 4

sc_threshold: 40

qcompress: 0.60

noise reduction: 0

VBV bufsize: 0

VBV maxrate: 0

deblock alpha/beta: -1 + -1

AQ strength: 1.00

rc_lookahead: 60

psy-rd RDO/Trellis: 1.0 + 0.1

qdiff/chromaoffset: 4 + 0

ip-factor/pb-factor: 1.00 + 1.00

 

 

me_method: UMH

coder_type: CABAC

directpred: 3:Auto

trellis: 1:Only final

Worker threads: Automatic

Faster FirstPass: Turbo 2

H.264 Level: Automatic

AQ mode: Variance

b_frame_strategy: Optimal (Slow)

H.264 Profile limit: up to High Profile

weightp pred: Weighted refs + Duplicates

 

 

...now, not saying these are optimal, just saying the only downside is slightly larger files to upload.  Pretty happy with the quality though.  Good preservation of grain structure.  No brightness shifts near scene cuts.  

[richg101]

adding a fine grain over your footage, exporting at h264 25,000kbs (or similarly high bitrate dependent on your upload limit) can help yield clean results.  The big file and sharp detailed grain remains and then is present for vimeo's compression to do its damage.  the grain seems to fool vimeos into less macro blocking and banding.  Sometimes I'll upload and the results will look horrific, I'll then 'replace the video file' with exactly the same file and the results are sometimes better.

 

I think its very dependent on the sort of footage you are uploading as to whether or not certain export techniques yield good or bad results post vimeo craperization.   

[Bioskop.Inc]

@BR

 

I've been experiencing that sort of light changes as well recently & i think Vimeo has changed something.

 

& Wow, that is very detailed - using MPEG or?

 

thanks, as i've got to upload something soon & have been putting it off because Vimeo quality has gone right down.

[Sean Cunningham]

I've been experiencing that sort of light changes as well recently & i think Vimeo has changed something.

 

& Wow, that is very detailed - using MPEG or?

 

thanks, as i've got to upload something soon & have been putting it off because Vimeo quality has gone right down.

 

Yes, that's MPEG Streamclip that I use, but the x264 settings dialog is the same for any app I use calling the encoder.  You can use it from the QTPro Player as well to save out your MP4 and, unless you're down scaling or doing some other kind of processing in addition to saving out the MP4 I don't know that doing it from MPSC buys you much, though it's still my go-to for making upload MP4 files.

 

 

edit: oh, and like I said, these files most likely won't play back on PS3 or "smart" BD players and TVs, but, once uploaded to VIMEO their smaller, re-processed HD version can be downloaded and these seem to play back just fine on simpler playback devices ;)

[Bioskop.Inc]

@ BR

 

Can you explain a bit more about x264.

Is it basically a codec you can tweek & then use as any other codec with an app?

 

thanks

[Sean Cunningham]

Yes, there are oodles of flavors of codecs writing h.264 but x264 is one of the highest quality variants around.  It's supposed to be part of the VLC install on Windows but doesn't appear to install well in Win7.  As these open source things go, finding something that just works can be hard, if you aren't the type to muck with compiling the source yourself.  These open source engineers can almost never design a decent interface that properly prioritizes information in a clear way for end users.  They just don't think like we do.

 

I run it on my OSX box using the much easier to install x264 Encoder for Quicktime.  Then it shows up in any application that lets you write Quicktime files.  I haven't gone through the trouble of getting the same encoding abilities on my Win7 box which, even though it's a quad-core where my Mac is only dual-core, performance isn't an issue, because (my guess) limitations in threading renders MPEG Streamclip not much faster, if at all, on my Win7 box.

[Bioskop.Inc]

Awesome!

I read through the notes that come with it & yes, there'll be a learning curve & a lot of head scratching for sure!

Really like the results you get with interlaced footage - the files i take off my Topfield PVR will now look so much better now.

 

Thanks for sharing & keep doing so... 

[see ya]

x264 is an excellent h264 implementation. Pre built as shared .dll's or as static binaries are available from here:

 

http://x264.nl/

 

Profile support includes 10bit, lossless and 4:4:4 as well as all the usual.

 

A 'decent' tool for those slumming it with badly designed open source software.

 

http://www.avidemux.org/admWiki/doku.php?id=tutorial:h.264

 

Except if open source 'engineers' spent all their time creating fancy interfaces rather than great quality flexible libraries and tools for others to wrap the simple job of a GUI around them then maybe x264 wouldn't be where it is now, I think they got their priorities right, in that bit of spare time they have, generally unpaid producing a h264 encoder that puts Apples to shame.

[Bioskop.Inc]

Nice one Yellow!

 

This is exactly why i love this forum - so many helpful people willing to share!