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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Uploaded video looks worse then original....by far

Marc Dunham

Marc Dunham

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I'm going to post side by side screen caps of what I'm describing, just can't at the moment and figured I'd at least get the question out there.

I'm having some issues with my video going from CS6 to Vimeo. The exported video file (which is h.264 mp4 as vimeo suggests) when I play it from my computer retains its crispness and colors pretty well, even compressed down to 200mb. However when I play it over vimeo it looks highly degraded, edges are much softer, there seems to be some mudding or aliasing that isn't there in the source file. Obviously vimeo encodes the video to a smaller bit rate. However I've definitely seen videos on vimeo as simple as test shots that look better then this, so I know it can handle better quality.

What would I be doing wrong perhaps? I understand thats a possibly vague question, so let me know whatever Info you'd need to better help diagnose my problem, because this seems to keep happening everytime I upload something.

Thanks
 
Its the from Adobe Media Encoder, and It was the 1080p H.264 Broadcast Preset. Made sure everything was 100% or Best.


Heres a quick cap I did, 1st one is the source file, second is from vimeo.




They are like a frame off, but it shouldn't matter you can still see kind of what I'm talking about
 
hmmm weird, tried a different host




Uploaded with ImageShack.us




Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I just did a Preview Screen shot of my laptop screen so I could just show exactly what I'm seeing and comparing.
 
Mark,

If you're using CS6, there is a Vimeo preset under the H.264 section (make sure you're not choosing Legacy H.264). It basically encodes 2-pass VBR with the min and max bit rates set to 5 Mbps, which is what Vimeo wants (http://vimeo.com/help/compression).

I know it's a pain, but you'll also get better results if you first scale your footage to 1280x720 (or 1920x1080 if you want), and THEN add any sharpening in your workflow. Then output that using the Vimeo preset. Again, adds an extra rendering step, but if you want super sharp Vimeo footage, that's the way to go.

I'm sure others can chime in with more/better info on this... and I know there are past threads covering this as well, I just don't have time at the moment to search for them!
 
I've told clients in the past that you will never get a perfect output from your NLE to a video sharing site because the bitrates they use are so low that your video will always end up slightly different. Even if I told you to export a 100 Megabit per second video stream that was transparent to the original, it would still compress down to mush.


That being said, there are ways to pre-process your image so that it performs best on video sharing sites. For maximum bitrate efficiency I usually scrub all of the noise from the cB and cR channels, and leave a little in the Y channel, so that skin doesn't look too plastic. After that banding starts to occur in smooth gradients like the sky because there is nothing to break up your now 4:2:0 signal. At that compression the color channel is a quarter of the size of your original image which makes the situation even more tricky to fix. To counteract banding I add smart dithering back into the cR channel only on gradients to break that up.

This all happens before the video even touches the encoder. The result ends up being slightly different, but arguebly better than sending the video un-processed to a video sharing site.

I'm also seeing a color shift in your footage! Is your video playback color managed? It could explain why you're seeing something different from the local video playback vs what you're grabbing in the browser.

If this is for a paid client, I would hire a compression expert if you want maximum quality from this kind of sharing service.
 
Greg Barley said:
Mark,

If you're using CS6, there is a Vimeo preset under the H.264 section (make sure you're not choosing Legacy H.264). It basically encodes 2-pass VBR with the min and max bit rates set to 5 Mbps, which is what Vimeo wants (http://vimeo.com/help/compression).

I know it's a pain, but you'll also get better results if you first scale your footage to 1280x720 (or 1920x1080 if you want), and THEN add any sharpening in your workflow. Then output that using the Vimeo preset. Again, adds an extra rendering step, but if you want super sharp Vimeo footage, that's the way to go.

I'm sure others can chime in with more/better info on this... and I know there are past threads covering this as well, I just don't have time at the moment to search for them!
Click to expand...

Interesting, doing it this way vimeo probably doesn't reencode the video i presume?
 
Troy Smith said:
Interesting, doing it this way vimeo probably doesn't reencode the video i presume?
Click to expand...

Vimeo and Youtube will always re-encode your source no matter what. It helps to deal with encoder bugs in weird and old encoders that could cause issues on flash player, or hardware h.264 players. I would recommend encoding the highest bitrate you possibly can so that the least amount of detail is lost when it hits a second generation encoding.
 
I've tried the Vimeo preset, result seems to be the same. I'm already a Vimeo Pro member and so I've tried the 1080 option, etc. I've also done the high bit rate encoding, the source file seems to play nice and sharp like I said on any source I've tried, it seems to be the vimeo encoding that shifts the image, unfortunately coloring/encoding is not my strong suite, pretty new to the whole thing. This project is web only and so it really isn't that big of a deal, I am only using this as an example because I want to try to get the best export and encoding I can do on my own, Alexander you had awesome suggestions except I'm not 100% familiar with all the terms haha. Do you have any suggestions for finding a compression expert?
 
Greg Barley said:
Mark,

If you're using CS6, there is a Vimeo preset under the H.264 section (make sure you're not choosing Legacy H.264). It basically encodes 2-pass VBR with the min and max bit rates set to 5 Mbps, which is what Vimeo wants (http://vimeo.com/help/compression)
Click to expand...

I've been having a bit of a headache around what the most appropriate min/max bit rates are for Vimeo and Youtube - does anyone know if, for a 4k>1080p workflow, there's a mathematical way of working out which is best (I've been told anywhere from 6mbps - 15mbps) - or is it entirely based on the destination of the footage?
 
I'm having the same issues and no one can tell me why that is, not even the guys at vimeo.

I uploaded several files in the last few weeks that all had this problem, all encoded 1080p in best quality as H264, looking fine on the computer and as soon as theyre on vimeo, the file is blurry, out of focus, latest example here:

I'm a vimeo pro member too and these were exported from Final Cut Pro.

the original file of this video is tack sharp and there are definitely no options in my vimeo uploader that allow me to change quality or format or anything like that. their conversion algorithm must be mesed up.
 
I've always downscaled my footage to 1280x720 after noise removal and grading, THEN added sharpening, and encoded 5Mbps constant bit rate for Vimeo using AME with max render quality checked... and never had any complaints. I'll try and run some different tests / examples this weekend and upload them all to Vimeo and report back to this thread!

Also, dumb question, but I have fallen victim to it myself... is everyone making sure to view the video on Vimeo in HD? If you're internet connection is detected to be too slow, Vimeo defaults to the SD version. Make sure the HD icon in the lower right of the player is lit up in blue (or whatever color if you changed the default color scheme!)....

Also, with embedded Vimeo videos, remember that unless they are being embedded at their uploaded resolution, it is being scaled again, which can make text / graphics jagged or sometimes soft. I know I've read somewhere about what multiples you should scale embedded video at to retain the most sharpness. (Maybe try 1/2... so 640x360 player size if you uploaded 1280x720...?)

When my company does web videos for different companies and if they are being shown in a specific size video player, we make sure to upload the video at that player size (for example, if their video player is 600px wide, then we upload 600px wide video files). Of course, if they want a full-screen option then this is all out the window!

So, to summarize, as far as I'm concerned, there about 178 different factors that can affect video quality online...
 
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Ya I figured it would be hard to pinpoint where the issue is, but I like the conversation its got going. There really isn't a whole lot of resources out there on optimal exporting, at least nothing in depth. Dominik, not to wish bad on anyone but I'm glad I'm not the only one having the issue, let me know if you figure out any tricks or tips.
 
Marc, I had this issue a few weeks ago...I contacted vimeo and all they were able to tell me was...encode in h264 at best quality....when i told them that the file was indeed h264 at best quality, they didnt have a proper answer for me either :/

seems to me they are a bit in denial about their internal workings of their website.
 
Ya I've never had any good results when talking to vimeo, they are very closed off and almost "ignorant" on purpose it seems
 
Youtube and vimeo will always look worse than the original. If your result looks crappy, then upload a video with the highest bitrate as possible so when their converter destroys your project it will look decent. Bitrate is key, especially for the poor adobe encoders. 5mbps for 720p is too low. 5mbps is an SD DVD bitrate, unless you are using x264. If you are committed to adobe's h264 then for 720p video I'd render 15-30mbps. For 360p 3-6mbps, for 1080p 20-40mpbs. It won't hurt you to dump excess bitrate in there; it will take a little longer to upload, then they'll downconvert it. I'd recommend using x264 to get the best quality encode. Youtube supports dnxhd, so consider that since its an intermediate codec, which is what you are giving youtube and vimdeo: an intermediate.

Cory
 
I tried rendering a 4K DPX sequence out of After Effects CS5.5 to a 4K x264 file and it crashes every time. I tried toggling OpenGL render and setting the secret preferences to purge my cache every 480 frames. I checked the RAM and it never gets more than 40% full.

I'm on OSX 10.6.8 w/ 12 cores and also noticed that x264 only uses half of the threads when rendering while ProRes uses all 12.

The last time I used Compressor w/ x264 wasn't a problem (but I was outputting 1080p). I'd love to create 4K x264 masters to save archival space, but I have hit a wall on this issue. Any ideas or alternatives?
 
As x264 is a command line encoder, I'm sure you are not using it directly from after effects. Neither am I. I'm on windows and I use vfwx264. On mac you must be using some sort of packager that translates the output stream from AE to x264. Thus you need to look at the logs that x264 and that packager you are using (vfwx264 in my case) put out to determine why it is crashing (ie. out of memory or something).

Look at what crashes. If the whole system crashes you probably have hardware issues, like inadequate heat distribution or faulty memory. If AE crashes, that's a problem and you need to look at AE logs. If the renderer crashes, look in the logs for the packager and x264 command line. Then google the errors and troubleshoot from there. You may also need to increase the verbosity of AE and your packager and x264 logs.

Try using a different x264 packager. Also update to the latest version of the packager so that x264 is updated. If the packager has an install of x264, you can upgrade it directly by replacing it's x264 files.

Cory
 
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