Need to re-do the source files?

Having just completed the Adobe CS4 Compression tutorials it's starting to dawn on me that there's a lot more to video than simply outputting a composition from Final Cut Pro!

I've just looked at the output given to me by my video compositor. It's encoded using the Little Endian H264 codec at a whopping bitrate of 3.94 Mb/sec for an 853 x 480 movie in PAL at 25 fps. This from the original footage I shot on a Sony HDR 1000E. No wonder my video teaching project would require 10 DVDs to hold it!

My question is this. For optimum compression and best quality should I ask my video guy to re-export from FCP using a more efficient codec or can I simply use Quick Time Pro to re-encode the movie before I put it through the Adobe Media Encoder? Sorry for this newbie question. Any help gratefully received!

Answering myself on this one - just for the record. Jeez this forum is so lonely I can almost hear the echos from my keyboard!

The bottom line is that it doesn't seem to matter how inefficiently encoded the source files are. Adobe Media Encoder seems to do a truly amazing job of squeezing it down to the bare minimum.

It's always best to have the highest quality source files going into the final encoding output. I'm a big fan of QuickTime Uncompressed, or the Animation codec at 100% quality (lossless). Apple ProRes 422 is also nice. If you don't mind buying another codec, BitJazz has their SheerVideo codec, which is a lot like Animation, but better (smaller file size, about 50% smaller!) at the expense of more CPU utilization.

Hope this helps...

-Robert

I'm also a fan of the Animation codec, and have used it in the past with good results!

I'm interested in the Sheervideo codec... 50% smaller sounds very tempting :)

Here's a link:
http://www.bitjazz.com/en/products/sheervideo/

Thanks!
Rounik

Hi Robert and Rounik thanks for the responses.

We were having a head scrtach here about why we need to double compress at all. Apparently, though I haven't tested it personally, the Flash FLV Component will play movies with an mp4 extension. So if this is the case would it not be better just to encode direct to MP4 straight out of Final Cut Pro?

Hey Graham,

I would do as Rob suggested and compress to your final output from the original. If you're really picky, then you'll probably notice a difference in quality and few shifts in color, etc. if you compare a file compressed twice to one that was compressed from the source.

It kind of depends on what you're planning on using it for too I guess..

Hopefully you can get something that works no matter what!