exporting to a good bitrate

[Matthew Max]

I have so many choices in Pro.
MPEG4 defaults to an export bitrate that's at least twice that of the WMV default (which is 1500).

What changes in today's streaming capabilities do I need to upgrade my brain to
in order to understand why the default bitrates are so much higher?

At least where I live, at the end of the broadband line out here in the country,
the lower the bitrate, the faster I see the video on my computer screen.

Has the rest of the world changed? Should I stop using the previous default WMV 512 bitrate
when I do WMVs, and what should I use for H.264 (mp4)?

Project settings are: editing mode 1080i AVCHD 1440 anamorphic.
Footage is shot with Sony XR 550 digital camcorder.

[Chuck Engels]

I have been exporting everything with the H.264 codec which creates MP4 video.
This can be an AVCHD preset or a Quicktime preset. The AVCHD preset is in Premiere Elements 10, not sure about CS5.5
For the internet I have used 640 x 360 (which will be widescreen), minimum of 1mbps and max of 3mbps.
This produces some reasonably good footage that is not terribly large files, about 12mb per minute of video.

Now that I have said that, for my website I use FLV files instead because I use Dreamweaver and embedding FLV files is as easy as drag and drop. Other formats take a little more work. The quality if the FLV video is great and embedding it on the web page is super simple.

Here is an example of some recent video I've embedded on one of my pages;
http://carpentersville.chuckengels.com/ ... today.html

[Matthew Max]

Gracias, Chuck.
But my connection isn't so good, I guess, because your video bogs down ever several seconds and takes several more to continue.

[Chuck Engels]

Give them a few minutes to load/buffer, the files are between 20 and 40 mb each.
It takes a minute for them to load on my machine but I have a pretty fast connection.
Would be much slower loading on a wireless network.

[Matthew Max]

But that is part of my point, Chuck. I have to have stuff that streams smooth as silk from the start. My twin says we do not want a file to load but to only stream, and that the choice of player determines that (as I understand his explanation).

Say, your videos are powerful nostaligic.

[Chuck Engels]

I think JWPlayer is what you may be looking for. A good friend of mine uses this for his customers to stream video.
He actually configures the player however he needs to for that particular client. There is lots of info on the internet about how to use it.

http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/jw ... -jw-player

http://www.longtailvideo.com/players

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhwLrYnor8s

[Jayell]

Matthew .. it sort of depends on what audience you're aiming at. I only send my videos to friends using my Website. Those with slow DSL usually choked a little past a bit rate of 1000 (and didn't understand about just letting the video load first). That's what I've gotten used to using. I've just switched from FLV files (since iPads don't read those) to H.264, but kept the bitrate about the same.

Don't know if it's relevant, but as Chuck mentioned I use JWPlayer to play the videos on my Website. Unfortunately iPads also didn't work using JWPlayer4, but are fine with the newer JWP5 (although IE has a problem with JWP5 .. at least with the initial coding) .. but that's a whole separate issue.