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Carlos
Hi Todd,

Sorry for the late reply!

Well, I have converted about 275mb worth of .rm videos to .avi (divx 5.02)

I don't have the original AVI's, and don't know if it would compress better starting off the original files (I assume it might make a diff) So maybe if I could get one of the original AVI's from you, I could test this out.

As of now, I am converting straight from .rm to divx.

Arctor, after the last incident with my host, I may be taking you up on the offer of hosting the files and linking to them from my web page

Seems my website served out 10gigs in just 7 hours or less yesterday!


Cheers,

–Carlos
goldfarb
“…10gigs in just 7 hours or less…” :shock:

I don't know if I can host them alone…a friend of mine works at my ISP so instead of killing my service he'd just call me and say ‘wtf?’
but I'd be happy to mirror the videos…I don't know how it's done but isn't there a way to spread out the downloads among a number of different servers so that they all serve an equal amount…so that one server doesn't serve it all where others serve nothing?…?…

and of course the smaller the videos are the less bandwidth we use…
jason_iversen
SESI could optionally addintionally post the movies in the Techsmitch Camtasia native codec and just post up the codec and a link to the Techsmith site. Of course this would only work for windows customers properly, but the Camtasia codec is lossless and very well compressed. I think there are a few codecs out there that are geared specifically to screen-capture work. I wonder if any are pluggable to RealMedia and are platform independant?

Cheers,
Jason
pbowmar
Hi Jason,
Interesting idea, but since each edited tutorial, in Camtasia format, is ~150megs, I doubt too many people would be keen to host it Unless you're vounteering Odforce for several gigs of download bandwidth?

CHeers,

Peter B
jason_iversen
Erm, yes - so much for that idea then.. :wink:

Personally I have no problem with the Realmedia format myself, except that RealOne is the worst piece of software in existence. But since I'm on linux anyway, G2 works just fine.

Are there any RealMedia codecs for specialised for screen-capture movies?
todd dufour
I know that I should have had some compression test done already but I have been way too busy to sit down at my home computer for any length of time…. And when I do have 30 minutes I just want to go through the tutorials… I get about 30 mins a day with houdini… My wife tells me that this sunday I do not have any kids birthday parties to go to… So I am planning on starting a pipeline for some compression test this weekend… but I have not had a problem with any of the reel media files since the first set of object states… The rest of the vids have played perfectly…. So my plan was to find the nicest alternative and comproess all the files to that spec and burn the movies to cd for backup… Instead of posting all the files to a server, only the files that end users are having problems with will get posted on a request basis…. That way no one's server get overburdened….

I intended to be finished experimenting with codecs and posting some of the results by now. I feel bad that I have not had the time.. Work is very busy and I am cranking long days for the next few weeks…We are doing a big character job at work and my weekends have been filled with inlaws kids birthdays and soccer games…

Todd Dufour
MarkCreer
Todd - if you do try Quicktime (but I think you said you'd prefer other formats) I don't think Sorenson would be a good bet - the playback size (around 800x600 I think) is too big and Sorenson wont play smoothly except on a really fast machine

you could try the Animation format which is lossless at 100% quality - if you set keyframes (are you using media cleaner?) to natural only and then quality to 50% or less you'll get good picture quality and a smallish file - but while it will be MUCH smaller than lossless avi's it will be bigger than divx -

you could also set the frame rate to about 5 fps - fine for a moving pointer!

and colour to 16 bit too..

for the sound don't compress it too much - 22khz at 16 bit and then any of the compressors (IMA or the other one…whatever its called)

I dont think divx or mpeg will preserve enough of the text quality

good luck and when I get to go at Houdini again whatever you do has to be nicer than RealPlayer!
Mark
pbowmar
I actually use 3 fps and that's fine for these tutorials. Saves a huge amount of space. I also use 8khz sound, fine for a voice, crappy for music )
MarkCreer
pbowmar wrote:
>I also use 8khz sound, fine for a voice, crappy for music

On headphones 8k sound is horrible!! - (you sure you dont mean 8bit?) - anyway in Quicktime using a sound codec like IMA or the other one gives similar file sizes from a 22k 16 bit source and it sounds good too!
MichaelC
He probably meant 8 khz, 8 bit, mono. This is perfectly fine for these tutorials. It's a little hissy, but it's just a person's voice. It's good enough. There's a HUGE difference in filesize between 8Khz, 8bit and 22khz, 16 bit.
todd dufour
Well it is sunday and I am home without too much to do… Carve pumpkins later… I finaly got some instalations done… Yes I will use media cleaner to do some of the compression.. I must say that I think that it will be difficult to come up with a compression scheme with a better balance of screen text readability to file size…In fact I am not trying to up one on the reel files… Again a few of the files did not play back correctly on my system and I wish that I could have had an alt… So that is my goal is to develop an alt… So I will begin trying everything exept divX which would probably be a good place to start.. I was going to purchase divx pro tonight but I only have american express and they do not except that form of payment so I might try some of the other suggestions… Peter thanks for stating what your playback fps was and your sound settings…
todd dufour
Never got to carving pumkins with the kids… Costco and albertsons did not have any..

I ran a few test tonight… My first thoughts are that it is just amazing how Peter got the Reel media files to be around 6 megs and still be able to read the text clearly…

I tried some slight modified compression test using divX soreson cinepack at 50/50(temporal spatial) and techsmith… both of the quicktime test simply did not work.. The playback was pathetic… I did not try the suggestion of the animation codex but will try that test tomorrow night..

so far techsmith with its near default settings worked the best… It was the only test that I could read the text as clearly as Peter's reel media file… the techsmith test was 25 megs. Peter's reel media file was 6.29 megs..
Big difference….

The divX with slight modified defaults was 19 megs and the text was unreadable… Playback would get sriously messed up with any attempt to scrub…

Sorry that I am not quite writing down all of the settings I used here tonight.. I am keeping a log file of settings that I have used…


Again any suggestions would be greatly appreciated….

I am willing to try 3 test a night which accounts for about an hour and a half of time…. I still need to keep up with my learning of Houdini which is my favourite personal pastime next to surfing and time with my wife and kids…
MarkCreer
Michael - what I said was “using one of the sound codecs in quicktime (to compress the audio…)”

if you do that the file size comes down really small and then its no longer a raw 22k 16bit - Peter's files are remarkably small I agree but its frustrating when they cut off a minute before the end…

Mark C
todd dufour
Any suggestions on how to compress the audio in both avi and qt formats would be great. And does anyone have an opinion on the max allowable file size. There are a lot of videos. At 25 megs each, a server could quickly get consumed. And what is anyones opinioin towrard techsmith being the alternative format… I realize that the linux crowd would probably be left out. Do we need two alternatives to the reel media files… So far I only had problems with the object state videos… I currently have worked through the all of the tutorials except for the last pop and rendering…. Although aren't there more videos that deal with the roller coaster projects.
todd dufour
I tried the animation codec as a quicktime with the settings described earlier in this post. I think that I might just have a problem with quicktime on my machine… I get some bizarre playback artifacts that effect my entire display.. The initial frames looked great and were comparable to my latest techsmith test… Both files came to about 18 megs… the audio has a hiss in my bose headphones. So if anyone has audio compression expertise please chime in.

I am convinced that peter picked the best possible file size to quality (especialy text display) optioin. Meaning the Reel Media Files Arrgh.
The techsmith codec for screen display and scrubbing ability is just awesome… The file updates in real time without quality loss… Definately designed for video tutorials… The original uncompressed file was about 256 megs.. After techsmith that file is about 18 megs… Now we do not have to fit all these files on a cd and we do not even need to post them all… I would like some people in the comunity to take a look at my current techsmith attempt and give opinions and suggestions.. Also after I batch these babies I will keep them for anyone who is willing to post them… Yes I am only part of the equation to getting alternative tutorial files on the internet.. I need a partner to host the files… Think of all the hits you will get.. I am satified on a personal level with the techsmith codec.. I only have 30 days before my eval period runs out for the ability to encode with techsmith… So I will be batching all the files starting next week or the following week…. Again if anyone has any suggestions on compression please let me know as soon as possible.
goldfarb
hi todd,
send me an e-mail and I'll host a test file (or two ) and we'll see what people think re quality/size etc…40 movies at 18MB (assuming they are all the same length) is over 700MB so until Side Effects goes with an Apprentice DVD we'll have to do our best with what we have
MarkCreer
Todd - re audio compression - not sure what options Techsmith has - its just another codec for WindowsMedia Player??
(i've used Camtasia but just for raw avis)

there should be some choices under the audio dropdown

just do some experiments on 15 seconds worth of file - dont worry about a bit of hiss - basically 22k 16 bit is fm radio quality, 11k 8 bit is a bad telephone line, with other options in between — compression on top degrades everything but will make the files smaller

seems like quicktime is not a good option - I've had better luck with Cleaner running on Macs…

Mark C
todd dufour
When I get home tonight I will email and try to figure out how to get the files to you.. Probably ftp? Which I have never done from a pc…. I always use fetch or transmit on my mac… There must be some kind of ftp program on win 2000.. I'll ask our sys admin guy today about it… I will send you the qt just to see if it works at all on your machine…
The techsmith works great but the audio is a little bad… I think that can get dialed in… There are no propriety audio optionis with techsmith.. In fact the only option techsmith gives is a slider range from faster compression to better compression… I picked better compression…

About the utlimate size of the files… There is 20 gigs of uncompressed files… The file I started with last night was about 260 megs uncompressed… Techsmith compressed it to about 20 megs or roughly 10 percent of its size…. Redoing all the files should be about 2 gigs which is a lot… but my feeling is that we only need to post the files that people can't play with reel media… For me I could not view the object states.. The rest have been fine…. I don't mind being the point person for others that need an alternative video as long as I have a way of sending them the files…. besides burning cds and mailing them… I realy do not want to get into sending out tons of cds but ftping or posting some of the files is fine….. We will get this figured out… So I will drop an email now…
goldfarb
todd…I sent you an e-mail today…

did you try the real media files I posted here:
just right-click on the links below and select ‘Save As…’

Object States 01 [arctor.com]

Object States 02 [arctor.com]

Object States 03 [arctor.com]

Object States 04 [arctor.com]

Object States 05 [arctor.com]

Object States 06 [arctor.com]
todd dufour
No I never did but I should…Just to find out if the cd burrn was bad… I actualy figured out most of the objectstate stuff because I have been to an introductory class at sesi… I am actualy almost done with all the tutorials.. So I realy do not need them… I just wanted to help people who might encounter some of the same problems that I did… I want to help the potential Houdini user base… I figure that I am going to put most all my free time and all my free money into learning Houdini. I also thought that with a strong user base Houdini may actualy have the chance to unseat maya as a main tool… I just think that a lot of tool writing needs to be done. or at least setting up the types of procedures that end user will find extremely easy to use.. I basicaly want to td much of that stuff but I need a user base to use it… So I figure get them learning with little or no impairments… Anyway that is what the thinking is…

I did get your email and I will ftp up to you tonight when I download ws_ftp…..
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