Rendering video 18/03/15

I know next to nothing about exporting videos. I've never known any detail about the ideal setting or which codec is ideal for what video purpose. Yesterday and today have been dedicated to finding out all about this. This is because I will need three versions of my work:

• Final: one total uncompressed file of the complete project, in the best quality available
• Accessible: a good quality piece to be sent in for my EPQ, compressed and not too large in size
• Personal use: I'd like to upload my video onto YouTube in my show reel list, this needs to be a compressed version

With my client, I have learned a lot of technical details which crop up in the render settings. We are trying to make the video come out so that it fills the screen of the player that is being used, rather than being in a small box (black around the edges of the image).

We also had a problem, which was that his final track glitched out at 1:13 in the video, and needed replacing. So, I re-synced the video and the new final track without the glitch.

Here are the things I've learned from this process:

• The format of the video once it is rendered out (.wmv, .avi, quicktime etc.) is the codec, meaning the piece of software which interprets the file so that it can be viewed, once it is opened up
• The American frame rate is 29.970 NTSC, which is fast, where as British frame rate is 25fps, because British films tend to be more about the sharpness than the speed (apparently)
• Mbps means megabytes per second
• CBR means constant bit rate, while VBR is varied bit rate; the mbps in the video is compressed either at a constant rate or, when varied, it is compressed differently per frame. The latter can be more efficient (smaller sized file once rendered) however some codec have difficulty with VBR and can cause it to misinterpret the file and crash
• Learned about the sharpness/smoothness percentage levels

Finally, the best render settings we could find for the most accessible video are as follows, which I have favourited for future reference:

Format: Windows Media Video (wmv.)

8 Mbps HD 1080-30p Video (*)

Image size: custom 720 x 540 (exactly half of 1440 by 1080, almost HD and gave full screen rather than a boxed image after rendering)

Frame rate: 29.970 (NTSC)

Pixel aspect ratio: 1.333 (HD 1080)

Video smoothness: 90%

Seconds per key frame: 1 (or up to 5 max)

Bit rate: Internet/LAN (ticked) 25 M

This seems to have provided me with the best quality my video can be before the size is too large that it becomes inaccessible for my tutor!

Overall, the three main video files that I wanted to render out for their separate purposes are as follows;

1. 6. Outer Peace EPQ new project settings music video.avi at 56.9GB (which is the best quality, and uncompressed)
2. 8. outer peace compressed 
3. 7. outer peace uncompressed to compressed.wmv at 291MB

Project complete... YAY!

Time spent: 5 hours