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Preparing videos for Ipods/Smartphones

Hardware, software, and methods for displaying & distributing your creations.

Preparing videos for Ipods/Smartphones

Postby Hawk10Vid » Fri May 20, 2011 10:59 am

Hi:

I have been preparing videos for business websites, shooting in highdef 1080, and standard format -- 1280 X 750. I now have clients who want to be able to view the videos on Ipods and smartphones. When I use PE9 and save a file in MP4 format, and then upload it to YouTube, stuff gets chopped off, and not just on the sides. Here is a link to a highdef video that looks normal,

http://youtu.be/JxjR2nyBJY4


Here is a link that shows the same video after I saved it in MP4 and uploaded to YouTube.

http://youtu.be/VdkOdgwC_ww

As you can see, even on the opening screen, part of the company banner has been chopped off, in the middle of the screen. Yet other screenshots show a whole picture just fine.

Can someone tell me what is happening here? Am I going to have to shoot the original footage in smartphone format (640 X 480) to be able to put the videos out onto these mobile devices?

Any help would be appreciated.

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Re: Preparing videos for Ipods/Smartphones

Postby Steve Grisetti » Fri May 20, 2011 11:21 am

You may or may not be able to use that 1280x720 video in its native form. It depends on what kind of camcorder this video is coming from. But the first thing you need to do is figure out which project setting will work with it. As we say in the books and in our Basic Training tutorials, your first step in any successful project is setting up your project to match your source footage.

What model of camcorder is this 1280x720 video coming from?

The next issue is that you're not going to be able to mix those two different video formats in the same project. It nearly always leads to issues later in your production. But finding the common format that both should be converted to depends on what model of camcorder your 1080 video is coming from.

What model of camcorder is your 1080 video coming from?

Finally, is your final goal to create the video for YouTube for your clients or do they want it delivered in another way (on a DVD, BluRay, etc.)

In other words:
1) We need to figure out the ideal way to make all of your video a common format.
2) We need to figure out which settings to use to create a project that will import this video natively.
3) We need to base our output specs on the delivery medium we're going to use to display your video.
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Re: Preparing videos for Ipods/Smartphones

Postby Hawk10Vid » Fri May 20, 2011 12:52 pm

Steve:

I have been shooting using a Panasonic AG-HMC40P camera, shooting in 1080i 30P. I use the PE9 presets of FullHD 1080i 30. All of this works great, and I can upload to YouTube (and on DVD's, etc.) with the 1080i resolution with excellent results.

But, now, clients are asking for videos that will be easily uploaded/viewed on smartphones, Ipods, etc. It seems that the defacto standard format for these is 480p (640 X 480), very compressed files with lower resolution but fast streaming.

My primary question is, is there a way to shoot at 1080i 30p and edit/convert/save the final video so that it will also look and play correctly on the mobile devices? Or do I pretty much have to do the original shoot at a lower resolution (720p is the lowest available on my Panasonic) and edit on the PE9 screen making sure to keep all the videos/still images within the boundaries of a 640 X 480 format?

If I can't convert from the 1080i down to 640 X 480, I guess I'll have to start doing two camera shoots, using the 1080i camera and another DSLR type (640 X 480) for those clients who want both high-res videos they can use on their websites/DVD's, and also the lower res ones for the mobile devices.

Thanks for the help.

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Re: Preparing videos for Ipods/Smartphones

Postby Bob » Fri May 20, 2011 1:14 pm

Looking at the two samples, it appears you are experiencing scaling issues related to both the mixed frame sizes of the source media and the differing frame sizes of the project and output format selected for sharing. I'm guessing you have the default "scale to framesize" enabled and you are manually scaling on top of that for some clips. You are also going from a 16:9 frame aspect ratio to a 4:3 frame aspect ratio.

Probably the easiest thing to do would be to export the project as standard high definition video first. This will give you a single video with all the components scaled and composited together as you designed them. Then, you can create a new project using the exported video and then share to your mobile format. If you are exporting interlaced footage, watch the field dominance carefully when you add it to the new project. To avoid excessive combing artifacts and jitter, you may need to reverse the field dominance if the project and video order differs. High def interlacing uses a different field dominance order than standard definition interlacing. FYI, mobile mp4 is progressive, not interlaced.

Since you are going from 16:9 to 4:3 frame aspect ratio, you have to make a decision. If you use a widescreen (16:9) project preset, the shared output will be letter boxed to contain the entire source image and have black bars above and below the image. If you use a standard (4:3) project preset, you can use the "pan and scan" technique to scale the image to fill the 4:3 frame as desired and position it to show the portion that you want to keep.
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Re: Preparing videos for Ipods/Smartphones

Postby Hawk10Vid » Fri May 20, 2011 1:35 pm

Bob:

That is helpful information. When you say 'save it to standard highdef first' and then reload that into a new project, would it be best to save it in through the Share function in PE9 as an AVI file format, MPEG, Adoble Flash, or some other 'share' format? Flash is 640 X 480, while AVI and MPEG are 720 X 480.

Thanks, again.

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Re: Preparing videos for Ipods/Smartphones

Postby Barb O » Fri May 20, 2011 2:52 pm

It seems that the defacto standard format for these is 480p (640 X 480), very compressed files with lower resolution but fast streaming.

I wonder about that conclusion - both for the question of 4:3 versus widescreen and for the fact that I think your pixel resolutions are too low for today's devices.

Referencing the wiki article about youtube at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube
In November 2008 720p HD support was added so the YouTube player was changed from a 4:3 aspect ratio to a widescreen 16:9
.
So I don't understand why you would make a 4:3 video even when you determine that it should be lower resolution for the purpose of streaming.

More specifically for smartphone and iPod resolutions -
My Android smartphone has a resolution of 800 x 480 but other Androids are higher res. The latest 4th generation iPhones and iPods are 960 x 640. Do you clients want video that will use the full resolution of their screen ?
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Re: Preparing videos for Ipods/Smartphones

Postby Bob » Fri May 20, 2011 5:13 pm

Hawkeye, I suggested sharing to high def to avoid the scaling problems you were encountering. Export it in a format that matches your project. You need to export to the same frame size as your project or you will encounter scaling issues again. Once you create this share file, it is very easy to use it in another project to produce your final desired format.

How are you intending to distribute the mobile video? Will it be downloadable like a podcast , or do you intend for the user to view it from YouTube in a mobile browser or app such as YouTube Mobile?
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Re: Preparing videos for Ipods/Smartphones

Postby Hawk10Vid » Fri May 20, 2011 6:59 pm

Bob:

The primary distribution will be through YouTube or on a business website to a mobile app. Obviously the size (small, smaller, and unseeable) of the screens on the mobile phones, Ipods, etc. creates problems for actually being able to see what is in the video. I am having to adjust images, font sizes, and basically 'dumb-down' the entire content to make it visable and effective. A number of clients are all excited about linking a video to printed CR codes that can be scanned on the smartphones, etc. But, as a person who has been involved in marketing and advertising for a long time, I can't figure out how scanning a printed code (which is almost assuredly on an ad or business card that already has a website address and phone number clearly displayed) and then being taken to either YouTube or the company website to view a video that then says "Call Us" is really accomplishing anything. But, time will tell. Anyway, I just need to figure out how to most efficently shoot, edit and share these simplified videos to the mobile devices, regardless of screen size.
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Re: Preparing videos for Ipods/Smartphones

Postby George Tyndall » Sat May 21, 2011 10:59 pm

Hawk10Vid wrote:Any help would be appreciated.HAwkeye


Hawkeye, I'm using PRE7, not 9, but when I want to share a HD timeline, I simply go to the Share tab and select from the following:

--Disc then either DVD or Blu-ray
--Online, where the choices include YouTube
--Personal Computer, with many options
--Mobile Phones and Players, which includes to iPhones

If I wish to share to more than one, I do each of the shares from that one timeline. I've never shared to one choice then tried to share that file to another file type--and I've never had a problem.

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