Reducing picture quality for web site

[pdbowling]

Hi, all.

I've got Cinema Craft encoder installed in my Adobe Premiere 1.5 (purchased a license from Visible Llght).

I wanted to export an mpg that was of low quality for a web site. I'm not sure exactly how to get CCE to do this, but these are the things I've tried.

Original mpg = 75MB result 13MB (has great picture quality but would be OK with grainy, pixelated result for smaller file size if CCE can do this)


Export settings from Premiere - General:
Choose Cinema Craft MPEG and click Compile Settings.
Audio settings: 96 kbits/s: stereo
Add CRC checked.
Mode: MPeg-2 1 pass CBR System Stream.
CBR 1000 (if I go lower I get no video in the mpg file-that shows in WinMedia)
Tried both Quality Setting slider all the way left to 'Simple' and Quantization Characteristics set to zero.
Aspect 4:3

Advance settings:
GOP sequence m=3 nm = 5 (no idea what this does)
GOP header (default =1)
SEQ header = every 1 gop's
Checked 'Add sequence end code'
Check 'Close all GOP's'
Check 'Output top field first stream'
Offset line = 1
Intra DC precision =8
Block scan order =Alternate
Luminance = 16-255
Packet size 2048

Export Settings from Premiere - Video
Compressor: MPEG-2 MP@ML
Code Deph Millions
Frame Size 720x480
Frame Rate 29.97
Aspect D1/DV NTSC (0.9)
Limit Data Rate 128 k/sec
Recompress: Maintain Data Rate.
Quality slide bar is greyed out.

Any hints on how to get a worse picture welcome (opposite of the usual request I'm sure).
Thanks
PB

[anti]

Have you considered dropping the resolution?

What version of CCE do you have?
2.66SP doesn't seem to have a manual resolution setting but 2.70SP does.

[pdbowling]

It is 2.70.01.04 Cinema Creaft Encoder Basic. The options that I could find were the half horizontal resolution and half vertical resolution. I checked these. The second time I cut it in half and the picture got even smaller but the file size didn't change.

Are there resolution options I haven't found?
PB

[anti]

It is 2.70.01.04 Cinema Creaft Encoder Basic. The options that I could find were the half horizontal resolution and half vertical resolution. I checked these. The second time I cut it in half and the picture got even smaller but the file size didn't change.

Are there resolution options I haven't found?
PB

SP has that extra feature, guess basic doesn't.

Try playing with the Avg.Bitrate, max and min. Towards the lowering side that is.


Edit: My bad, put a little more thought into it. Decreasing the resolution in and of itself would not decrease file size. It would however increase quality giving you more bits to go around. Lower resolution while also lowering bitrate would decrease the file size while maintaining a bit more quality.

[Video Dude]

The only thing that determines file size is the bit rate, resolution has no effect.

1,000 KB is much to low for 720x480 to look good. To make it look better I would downsize to half D1 which is 352x240. Insead of using 1,000 KB CBR, you would get better results if you used 2 pass vbr with an average of 1,000 KB.

[pdbowling]

Does anyone know why I get no video when I set the bitrate less than 1000? I guess that'll be my last question for this thread.

Also, DVDLab will reduce mpg size very well but it is demuxed. What software can do a simple remux?

Thanks everyone.
PB

[hartford]

@ Video Dude

Half D1 is 352x480 if NTSC. Perhaps you're thinking of VCD?

@ pdbowling

No idea why you get no video. Perhaps you could try "Min Rate" is set to 500?
(long shot). Or bump "Max Rate" up 250 at a time until you get an encode; or both.
Or, try Hank's HC16. I think that it produces better output at low bitrates than CCE.

re: muxing

Try MuxMan:

http://www.mpucoder.com/Muxman/

[Video Dude]

@ Video Dude

Half D1 is 352x480 if NTSC. Perhaps you're thinking of VCD?

My mistake, Half D1 is 352x480. Anyway, 352x240 is a valid mpeg-2 DVD resolution, if he wants to also use it for DVD in addition to his web page.