422 The Digital Filmmaking Handbook, 4E

Web Video and Video-on-Demand

Digital distribution has become the viewing method of choice for both filmmakers and viewers alike. It’s a boon for independent filmmakers who might have trouble getting their films shown on television or in theaters. There are many different distributors out there, but they break down into three categories:

nSelf-distribution through your own Web site.

nFree streaming media sites such as Vimeo and YouTube.

nPaid video-on-demand services such as Netflix.

The last two are easy—sort of. Typically, the host Web site will either compress your video for you or tell you exactly how it needs to be compressed.

As for your own Web site, you have some choices to make. Streaming or download?

A lot of your Web output decisions are dependent upon how you will host your file. Different Web hosting services provide support for different video formats. If you have a preference for a very particular video technology, then you’ll want to find a host that supports that. If you already have a host, then you might need to determine what technologies they’re capable of serving before you commit to a particular approach.

The good news is that basic movie delivery is something that pretty much every Web host is capable of. Things only get trickier if you are interested in streaming.

Streaming or Download?

Streaming is similar to on-demand broadcasting. When a user decides to view a streaming movie, the host server begins sending a data stream to the user’s computer. That stream is decompressed by the user’s computer and displayed, but no copy of the movie is kept on the user’s machine. When the stream is over, the user has to re-stream if she wants to view the stream again.

Streaming is ideal for live events and for content that you don’t want the user to be able to save a copy of (although, this is not foolproof, as there are ways for the user to capture the stream and save it in a reusable format).

If you want to use a streaming technology, you first have to ensure that your host supports your chosen streaming server. Most services charge money for hosting streaming media, so you’ll probably have to pay an extra fee for streaming hosting. In addition, you’ll need to compress your final movie using special software provided by the makers of your chosen streaming system.

Most users will simply want to make a movie file available on demand, without the hassles of streaming, and without concern for whether or not the user can save it at the other end. Just as you can create a link to a graphic or a file in an HTML page, you can create a link to a movie. When users click that link, their computer will automatically download and play that movie, either using some sort of playback software, such as the QuickTime or Windows Media Player, or as a video embedded in the Web page using the video playback architecture of your Web browser.

These days, most video architectures and Web browsers are smart enough not to download the entire movie before starting playback. Instead, they employ a progressive download scheme. The downloading begins, and the computer calculates how long the entire download will take, based on the current download throughput. When enough content has downloaded that the computer can play back the entire movie without outrunning the download speed, then the movie will start playing. This greatly reduces the delay that the user experiences before the movie begins playback. (Nearly instant playback startup is another advantage of streaming video. Progressive downloads, though, can be very quick to start, depending on the user’s connection speed, your hosting speed, and the duration of your movie.)

Compressing for the Web

As you’ve probably already guessed, your final video must be compressed before it can be served from the Web. In fact, it has to be compressed a lot. Fortunately, there are a number of high-quality compressors now that allow you to deliver first-rate quality from a Web download. Luckily, software compressors like Sorenson Squeeze (see Figure 18.5) make this very easy for you.

Figure 18.5

Stand-alone batch encoding apps like Sorensen Squeeze make it easy to encode your file-based master in multiple delivery formats.

424 The Digital Filmmaking Handbook, 4E

Compressing

No matter what codec you choose, compressing can take a long time. You’ll want to make sure that you have everything right before you start compressing, and you’ll probably want to perform your compression overnight.

Ultimately, you might want to compress your video using several different options to support the greatest number of users.

QuickTime is the most popular architecture for online video. With a free player available for both Mac and Windows, you can be pretty certain that just about anyone will have the capability to play back your movie if you post it in QuickTime format. If you decide to do a multiformat posting, then you’ll need to recompress your file-based master using the appropriate software for each format that you want. Converting from one compressed format to another is not always possible, and when it is, will always produce severely degraded video so it is better to create each version off your file-based master.

The standard QuickTime export box provides access to all of the standard QuickTime codecs. Anyone who has installed the latest version of QuickTime will have these codecs, so feel free to select any one.

QuickTime Components

For Mac users, you can go to the QuickTime folder in the Library to see which codecs and components you have installed for QuickTime.

For Web delivery, your best codec choices are MPEG-4 or H.264 and 30p (30 frames per second progressive scan) is the standard. These codecs all yield exceptional results and produce very small files.

Some compressors provide lots of settings and customization options, allowing you to finely balance final movie size with image quality. Knowing how to optimize these settings can make for dramatically better-looking footage. Often, the best way to determine good settings is just through trial and error. Because compression can take a long time, perform your tests on a small clip of your final movie, ideally one with representative lighting and color.

In addition to setting compression options, you’ll also need to resize your movie. In general, Web-based QuickTime movies are usually 50% or 25% of the original size, though if you know your server and intended audience can handle it, you can go full screen.

Note that there is no overscanning when exporting for the Web—in other words, the viewer will see the entire frame. If you want to conceal action outside of the action-safe area of your screen, you’ll need to crop your frame before exporting.

Also note that some older video formats, such as VHS, typically have an area of jittery garbage at the bottom of the frame. This garbage is usually obscured by your monitor’s overscan, but it will be visible in your Web outputs, so it’s a good idea to crop the image a little to eliminate this area.

Similarly, some cameras produce a black edge or border within the overscan boundary. You’ll definitely want to crop this out.