I got a real buzz out of the HD Snooker content that I produced a couple of weeks back so I thought I would post a mini tutorial about how I did it using Windows Media Encoder.
Before embarking on an encoding session that will take a while make sure your source video comes from a high definition source or none of this will work!
I am assuming that you have captured your content and have exported it from your favourite video editing software as a 1280×720 .avi file. The output file will be a .wmv encoded at 720p High Definition.
Now you have this .avi file you need to do the following:
- Open up a new session for Windows Media Encoder and select ‘Convert a File’
- Browse your hard drive for your source file – the .avi from earlier.
- On the next tab select ‘Windows Media Server (Streaming)’ – note, this is what we use for our files, where you eventually play your video will depend on what you select here.
- You then have encoding options for now hit next and make sure nothing is selected, we will manually do these later.
- You can now add a title and the copyright information if you wish.
- Before hitting next make sure that the ‘Begin Encoding when I Click Finish’ is NOT checked.
- Click the ‘Compression’ tab
- On the video drop down select High Definition Quality and then hit edit.
- Select your language, and at the bottom PAL or NTSC dependant on your source.
- Click Add, and enter 3500k into the box, thiswill be sufficient for the web, but if you have a lot of movement in your video like high speed panning then up this to 4500k as it will be much smoother. – Note, trial and error is the key here, try a bitrate and if it looks bad re-encode at another rate.
- Audio needs to be 192kbps stereo and the video size needs to be 1280 x 720
- Keyframe interval I always use 5 but you can try different values if you wish, video smoothness can be set to 85.
- Click OK, and at the bottom make sure two-pass encoding is selected.
- Click processing and make sure that ‘de-interlaced’ is checked otherwise you will get banding on your output video
- Click Apply and then you can hit ‘Start Encoding’
If you try this please let me have a look at your results, likewise if you spot any errors then please let me know so I can update them.
