The best $30 you can spend is QuickTime 7 Pro from the Apple Store online. That unlocks the export functions in QuickTime Player, and gives you lots of great pro-level control if you don’t mind digging and fiddling. If you have a modern Mac, try buying Apple Compressor from the Mac App Store ($49, I think). There’s a compatibility checker built into the MAS so it won’t download if your Mac or video card aren’t up to scratch to use it.
For way too much money, there is Sorenson Squeeze, which is the gold standard of Web video compressors.
For no money you can use Handbrake, which puts a nice GUI on the venerable ffmpeg command-line tool. Handbrake suffers from too many knobs and buttons, and too many choices in my opinion.
Another no-money option is Miro Converter, which has no knobs and one button. If you like the output, then it’s great. But there’s no way to fiddle with settings at all. It may work really well for one video and utterly fail on another, and there’s not much you can do with that.
Whenever you are compressing anything (still or motion) you want to start with the sharpest, cleanest, nearest-to-first-generation source that you can get. Any time you compress something that is already compressed (particularly one that is heavily and lossily compressed), you start sharpening the algorithm noise, and ironically you will usually end up with a larger file than you started with.
For your page, I would try first using these settings: H.264, 1200 kbps, optimized for streaming, no audio, and don’t check “enable streaming”. (These settings are all from QuickTime Player 7’s export options dialog.) Maybe make it 320 x 240 or a little larger. You want to try for as small as possible without making it look blotchy on screen. It will definitely not look great or crisp, but it’s a background – you actively don’t want crisp backgrounds. If that looks just too horrible, tweak it upward a little bit. The numbers to fiddle with are the kbps (kilobits per second) and the overall dimensions. Aim for it to look a little bit crappy, in other words. That’s the sweet spot.
Walter
On Sep 4, 2013, at 5:02 PM, Steijn wrote:
Thanks Walter!
Alright, how do you recommend I compress it? And into what frame size/rate etc.?
Best regards,
Steijn
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