ptg16476052394 LESSON 14: Integrating Multimedia: Video and Sound
First, choose a filename for your video using the Destination field. You’ll also want to
stick with the default output format: MP4. The four tabs at the bottom enable you to
optimize the video output for your purpose. First, though, check the Web Optimized
button for your video. It enables your video to start playing immediately as it’s being
downloaded and makes it easier for players to skip around in the video. The only cost is
slightly longer encoding time. If you think your customers will be using the older iPod
fifth-generation models to play your video, you should select the iPod 5G Support.
Under the video options, the default codec is H.264. Keep that. Under Framerate, the
default is to stick with the framerate in the video you’re converting, but you can choose
another option. The higher the framerate, the larger the resulting file. If you change the
framerate, you can enable two-pass encoding, which causes encoding to take longer (by
adding the additional pass) but results in higher-quality video for a given file size.
Finally, you’ll tweak the Quality settings. Video encoding is all about tradeoffs. The
higher the picture quality, the larger the resulting file. Larger files take up more space
on the server and take longer to download. On the other hand, they look better. You can
change three variables that affect the overall size of the file: the height and width of the
video (a 320×240 video will be much smaller than a 640×480 video), the framerate, and
the quality. If your video will be played in a small box embedded on a web page, you can
afford to lower these settings to create smaller videos. If your video will be played on a
42-inch television, you’ll probably want to raise the quality settings. Bear in mind that
your web pages will be viewed by people using many different size screens, so don’t go
too small or too large.FIGURE 14.6
The interface for
HandBrake.