What Format For Small Size & Good Quality

[martinsmith99]

I've been given some AVI files of a band I have done some work for and may put these on the band's website. However, they are massive files 200+mb and only 2-3 mins long.

If I wanted to host on youtube without losing too much quality, which would be a good format and settings to use. Any advice appreciated as this is new ground for me.

[Heathcliff]

Compress them with x264 & host them on the band website, i think this is the best solution.

[peterqd]

If you do post them on YouTube Martin, I read that you should upload at the highest quality possible because YouTube compresses them anyway.

[xjjohnno]

xvid works quite nicely for reasonable audio and video quality and lower file sizes.

[CameraRick]

Hi there,

using Streaming-Sites like YouTube is a better solution for Bands than hosting on their own.
The most User don't want to download things, they want to stream, to watch immediantly. Also, YouTube is the biggest one, if someone searches for Videos - he'll search YouTube. Everyone knows it, so it's a good solution (also, you can embedd it, even in HD (vimeo can't do this).

If you have a fast connection, than don't bother yourself with converting - just upload it to YouTube, they'll convert it anyway.
If you want to convert for another reason, use the h.264 Codec. Canon DSLRs use them too, but with a large data-stream of 44mbit.
For a good convert, you can use MPEG Streamclip by Squared 5. Use "Export to MPEG4", then use h.264 at 60 oder 70 Percent (just try a bit around, depends on source) and a MPEG4-AAC for sound (because it's about music, 192-256kbits would be nice I think).
You want to deactivate the Interlacing on the right side of the program.

Now, this makes movies small in great quality. If you are on a Mac and own Final Cut Studio, maybe you should use Compressor instead - on a Mac I got better videos with that.

Regards,
Lucas

[Jay Ace]

In case you decide to use Vimeo here's a little tutorial on how to do it with Compressor.