Real World Video Compression

by Andy Beach

Overview

Video is the Internet these days and as the growing trend toward viewing video on mobile devices increases too, the attention is turning toward creating a good user experience for downloading and viewing that video. One of the keys to this is delivering video in the correct format with the proper compression for that delivery. Real World Video Compression is one of the first books on this topic to demystify the various approaches to compression. It begins by describing the basic concepts of video compression, explains why you might choose a particular compression tool over another, and covers important workflow practices. After the groundwork is laid, readers will learn how to compress their video according to the specific requirements of their projects and will learn some best practices by following the author's own tips and recipes. Experts in the field lend their own solutions in several sidebars throughout the book, making this a valuable learning tool for anyone learning to encode video, whether they are bloggers, DVD authors, video editors, or students.

Contents at a Glance
Chapter One: Understanding Video and Audio.
Chapter Two: The Language of Compression
Chapter Three: Best Practices
Chapter Four: Preprocessing
Interview with a Compressionist: John Howell
Chapter Five: Compression Tools
Interview with a Compressionist: Nico Puertollano
Chapter Six: Compressing for DVDs
Interview with a Compressionist: Ben Waggoner
Chapter Seven: Compressing for the Web
Interview with a Compressionist: Jim Rohner
Chapter Eight: Compressing for Mobile
Interview with a Compressionist: Ryanne Hodson
Chapter Nine: Compressing for Set-Top Boxes
Interview with a Compressionist: Andy Beach

"In the highly accessible REAL WORLD VIDEO COMPRESSION, Andy Beach 
illuminates the dark-art of encoding and provides candid insight from 
working professionals. Andy's fluid style and easy prose decode this 
often misunderstood and often misinformed world...he is the Carl Sagan 
of compression."

Brian Gary
Filmmaker, Compressionist
Author of the COMPRESSOR 3 QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780132089517
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	04/16/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	99998
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Andy Beach is the Director of Product Management at Inlet Technologies. Prior to joining Inlet, he served as the Director of Product Development at Magnet Media where he oversaw the creation of Zoom In Online. His expertise in video postproduction, compression, and interactive design has attracted clients worldwide, including: Apple Inc., Adobe Systems, British Design Council, V2 Records, Universal Music and Paramount Pictures, to name a few. Andy has spoken at industry conferences including NAB, Web Video Summit, and WWDC, has been featured in industry magazines, and has taught digital filmmaking and encoding at the School of Visual Arts.

Table of Contents

Real World Video Compression
Table of Contents

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Chapter One: Understanding Video and Audio. . . . 1
Elements of Video. . . . . . . . . . . 2
Frames and Fields. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Benefits of Interlacing . . . . 4
Problems Caused by Interlacing. . . . . . . . . . . 4
Progressive Scan Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Resolutions. . . . . 7
Aspect Ratio . . . . . 9
Analog vs. Digital. . . . . . . . . . . 12
How Compression Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Lossless and Lossy Compression. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Spatial (DCT) and Wavelet Compression . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Quantization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Interframe and Intraframe Compression. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Audio Compression . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Evaluating Video for Compression. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
How Was the Video Shot?. . . . 21
How Was It Edited?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Who Is the Intended Audience? . . . . . . 22
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23


Chapter Two: The Language of Compression. . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Players . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
QuickTime Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Windows Media Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Adobe Flash Player. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
RealPlayer. . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Other Video Players. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Wrappers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Codecs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Descriptions of the Commonly Used Codecs. . . . 40
A Time and a Place for Everything. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Delivery Codecs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Authoring Codecs . . . . . . . . 45
Legacy Codecs . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Compression Parameters . . . . . . 47
Data Rates. . . . . . . . 48
VBR and CBR . . . . . . 48
Frame Rates . . . . . 49
Frame Types. . . . . . 49
Aspect Ratios. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Square and Nonsquare Pixels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Resolution. . . . . . . . . . 53
Online Delivery: Streaming vs. Download . . . . . . 54
Conclusion . . . . . . . . 56


Chapter Three: Best Practices. . . . . . . . . . 57
What Are Your Compression Needs?. . . . . . 58
Long-Form or Short-Form Content?. . . . . . . . . . . . 58
What Is Your Final Delivery Target?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
How Is Your Content Delivered to You?. . . . . . . . . . . 58
How Much Content Are You Compressing?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Is Compression All You’re Doing?. . . . . . . 60
Quality or Timeliness?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Are You a Content Owner or a Cog?. . . 60
How Knowledgeable Is Your Client?. . . . . . . . . . . 60
Equipment and Workflows for Different Scenarios. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Encoding as an Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Encoding as a Compressionist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Automating the Encoding Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Enterprise Systems: The Big Leagues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Essential Encoding Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Productivity Tips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Minimizing Quality Loss Without Overdoing It. . . . . . . . . . . 75
Stay Organized. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
File-Naming Conventions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Experimenting Can Be a Good Thing. . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Make Your Own Recipe Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Mezzanine, or In-Between, Files . . . . . . . 79
Archiving and Transcoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Conclusion . . . . . . . . 80


Chapter Four: Preprocessing. . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Deinterlacing Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Blend. . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Weave. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Area-based. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Motion Blur. . . . . . . . 83
Discard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Bob . . . . . . . . . . 84
Progressive Scan. . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Motion Compensation. . . . . . . 84
Telecine and Inverse Telecine. . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Cropping. . . . . . . . . . 86
Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Image Aspect Ratio Correction. . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Pixel Aspect Ratio Correction. . . . . . . . 89
Noise Reduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Luma Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Gamma Correction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Brightness and Contrast. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Chroma Adjustment. . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Saturation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Hue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Audio Preprocessing. . . . . . . 95
Adjusting Volume. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Noise Reduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Interview with a Compressionist: John Howell . . . . . . . . . . . 97


Chapter Five: Compression Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Adobe Media Encoder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
What Does It Look Like?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
How Does It Work?. . . . . . . . . . . . 105
What Makes It Special? . . . . . . . . . . . 108
What Should You Watch Out For?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
What Should You Remember? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
QuickTime Pro. . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
What Does It Look Like?. . 110
How Does It Work?. . . . . . . . . . . 112
What Makes It Special? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
What Should You Watch Out For?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
What Should You Remember? . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Compressor. . . . . 119
What Does It Look Like?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
How Does It Work?. . . . 121
What Makes It Special? . . . . . . . 125
What Should You Watch Out For?. . . . . . . . . . . . 126
What Should You Remember? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Microsoft Expression Encoder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
What Does It Look Like?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
How Does It Work?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
What Makes It Special? . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
What Should You Watch Out For?. . . . . . . 133
What Should You Remember? . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Squeeze Compression Suite. . . . . . . . . . . . 133
What Does It Look Like?. . . . . . . . . . . 136
How Does It Work?. . . . . . . . . . . . 137
What Makes It Special? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
What Should You Watch Out For?. . . . . . . . . . . . 143
What Should You Remember? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Episode Pro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
What Does It Look Like?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
How Does It Work?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
What Makes It Special? . . . . . . . 149
What Should You Watch Out For?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
What Should You Remember? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Higher- and Lower-End Options . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Less-Expensive Solutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
A Note About Enterprise Solutions. . . . . . . . . 153
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Interview with a Compressionist: Nico Puertollano. . . . . . . . . . . . 157


Chapter Six: Compressing for DVDs. . . . . . . . . . . . 161
What’s a DVD?. . . . . . . . . . . 162
Producing SD DVDs . . . . . . . . . 162
SD Media. . . . . . . . 162
SD Codecs . . . . . . . . . 165
What the Heck Is a VOB?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
What’s a Blu-Ray Disc? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Producing Blu-ray Discs. . . . . . . . 169
Blu-ray Overview. . . . . . . . . 171
Recording Blu-ray Discs. . . . . . . . 172
DVD Workflows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
That Whole Bit Budget Thing. . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Recipes for Producing SD DVDs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Compression and DVD Studio Pro Markers. . . . . . . . . 178
Rendering a DVD-Compatible File in Compressor. . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Creating an SD DVD in DVD Studio Pro. . . . . . . . 186
Recipes for Producing Blu-ray Discs. . . . . . . . . . . 191
Working in Premiere Pro. . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Managing the Handoff. . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Producing an MPEG-2 Blu-ray-Compatible File in Adobe Media Encoder. . . . 193
Producing an H.264 Blu-ray-Compatible File in the Adobe Media Encoder.. 196
Creating a Blu-ray DVD in Encore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Interview with a Compressionist: Ben Waggoner. . . . . . . 203


Chapter Seven: Compressing for the Web. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
The Early Days of Web Video . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Modern Web Video. . . 211
The Rise of Short-Form Video. . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
More Broadband Penetration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Better Tools. . . . . . 213
Audience and Creator Are the Same Thing. . . . . . . . 214
Everybody Is a Star. . . . . . 215
Citizen Journalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Traditional Media Catches On. . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Modern Web Tools and Formats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Recipes for Compressing Video for the Web . . . . . . . 218
Encoding for YouTube from Episode Pro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Streaming Windows Media from Compressor . . . . . . . 226
Progressive Download Flash Video. . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Interview with a Compressionist: Jim Rohner . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239


Chapter Eight: Compressing for Mobile . . . . . . . . . 243
How Little Video Became Big. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Live Streaming to Mobile Devices. . . . . . . . . 245
Download and (Maybe) Sync. . . . . . . . . . . 246
Mobile Devices and Their Formats of Choice. . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Cell Phones. . . . . . . . . 249
Smart Phones and Pocket PCs . . . . . . . . . 252
Apple iPhone . . . . . . . . . 253
Media Players. . . . . . . . . 254
Recipes for Compressing Video for Mobile. . . . . . 259
3GP Files for Those Non–Smart Phones. . . . . . . . . . 259
Adding Chapter Markers to a Video Podcast. . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Interview with a Compressionist: Ryanne Hodson . . . . . . . . . . 275


Chapter Nine: Compressing for Set-Top Boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
More Than Just Cable . . . . . . 280
Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
IPTV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
IP-Based STBs. . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Apple TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Xbox 360. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Vudu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Recipes for Compressing Video for STBs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Ripping a DVD with HandBrake. . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Standard-Definition Video for Xbox . . . . . . 296
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Interview with a Compressionist: Andy Beach. . . . . . . . . . 301
Index. . . . . . . . . . 305