Need help making a decent .mov...

[Shirley Films]

How do I create a nice looking (but not ridiculously large) HD quicktime movie of the raw 4K/16X9/Redcode36 footage in my FCP timeline?

I have seen really nice looking HD QT .movs online that are not super huge in file size, but every method I try of exporting my footage returns a GIGANTIC file size (nothing I could ever post online/GBs) OR a grainy low res file. I don't know what I am doing wrong.

Here is a random example of what I would LOVE to do (not meant to be offensive). ( http://cdn.cloudfiles.mosso.com/c116791/RD-ABC-TV-480.mov ) This file is 247 megs and is 20 minutes long and appears to be 480p. Here is another. ( http://cdn.cloudfiles.mosso.com/c116791/Whale-Intermediates-v3.mov ) It is 2m33s long at 720p and it is 73.5 MB.

Can someone help me out with simple instructions for exporting a decent .mov - such as these? I usually don't think of myself as a complete idiot, but I am having trouble figuring this one out.

Sincere thanks.

-S

 

[Charles Angus]

What software do you have access to?

If you're on FCP, try using the 720p HD Apple TV preset. It's pretty good.

But basically, you should be using H.264 with a datarate of ~1mB/s for 480p, IMO.

 

[Shirley Films]

Thanks for taking the time to write back.

I have the FCP suite. Is there some other software that you would recommend for this purpose?

Thanks again.

-S.

 

[Bert Claes]

just use compressor. check the settings for the clips you like (using quicktime viewer; then movie properties or something like that (movie inspector?)) and using trial and error recreate those settings. Best codecs are probably h.264 and mp4 for these kind of things..

just my 2 cents