Hi Zooppa community-
Today I had a Zooppa community member (Zooppa name = “Fumbles”) write in asking some advice on converting an animated video to a version he could use for the Go Daddy contest.
I couldn’t answer his question – Is there anybody out there who might be able to lend a hand?
Here is Fumbles’ question:
Forgive me, but I wonder if you can tell me where I might get help getting my GoDaddy video into a proper format for upload to YouTube.
I’ve consulted various experts, including a fellow on Squidoo. I’ve read all the specs and rules and guidelines on Zooppa and GoDaddy and YouTube. The problem is that none of the output files I’ve created per their advice are quite up to snuff.
My spot is a simple 30-sec animation created in Adobe Aftereffects (1920×1080, 30 — really 29.97 — fps). I’m using Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 to create the output file. As I said, I’ve had advice from various experts.
A couple say to create a QuickTime MOV. Per one suggestion I tried the Quicktime format with an H.264 Codec at 1280×720. The good news is it’s a very small file, less than 7 MB. The bad news is it looks absolutely awful — out of focus, completely unacceptable.
Another expert recommended the QuickTime format with the video codec set to “animation”, which gave me 853×480 and 29.97 fps. The resulting output file had no video at all, just sound. (Another expert said animation was not the right codec to use.) So far not much luck with QuickTime.
(And regarding data rate, I see no “QuickTime conversion Options — Video menu” in Premiere. The “quality” setting is not helpful when it is there, and not there when it might perhaps be helpful.)
When I specify H.264 directly as the file format, and set the preset to HDTV 720p 23.976 HQ, then change frame rate to 29.97 (pixel = widescreen 16:9, frame widthxheight = 1280×720), I get a pretty decent MP4 file, tho my cat juggling sequence (you’ll just have to wait and see!) is a mite “gappier” (not flickering, just not quite as smooth-flowing as before). The file is only about 7mb, so I’ve still got a lot of size to play with. Any way to improve flow by tinkering with some settings, and will it still look good after YouTube and GoDaddy get thru converting it?
What format, codec, field order (progressive etc), pixel aspect ratio, etc etc do you recommend, to best survive the conversion that YouTube will do?
Also, my sound was originally recorded at 44.1kHz. Some of these formats/codecs insist on 48, and I see where YouTube prefers 44.1. Will being converted up and down affect my sound significantly?
Can you help me find someone who can walk me through this? I would be most grateful, and would be happy to pay for the help. I hope to get the video up on YouTube in the next few days, so I need an angel ASAP!
