Compressing video for the web can be a fine art but it can also be relatively simple. EngageMedia automatically creates a small version of your video to view online, so it's a good idea to create a file that a film festival or a community TV station could download and screen.

For encoding your video we recommend using ffmpegx for mac, Virtual Dub or MediaCoder for Windows and Gtranscode or ffmpeg2theora for Linux. These programs cost nothing to use though you can donate to assist their development. You can also use a range of proprietary video-encoding applications such as Quicktime Pro, ProCoder or Cleaner or even encode the video straight from the timeline in Final Cut Pro, Vegas Video or Premiere.

The following are our two main recommendations for encoding video (XVid and Ogg Theora), followed by one setting we recommend you use if you have any audio-video sync problems after uploading to EngageMedia. We encourage the use of free software and patent-free codecs where possible, but if you do experience sync-problems, use this final setting for Quicktime Sorenson instead.

We do however accept almost all formats and many codecs. Others you might want to try are MPEG4, H.264, MPEG2, MPEG1, and DivX.

These settings should result in a file that is about 11 megabytes per minute in size, or around 110 megabytes for a 10 minute video.

Important Note: Video File Size

If your video is longer than 20 minutes, please contact us and we'll help you upload it. Uploading a video more than 250 megabytes in size is likely to take a long time, and may be unsuccessful, when uploading over the web (via http). We can help you get around this.

Encoding for Screening Quality - xVid

VIDEO

Codec: xVid
Format: .avi
Video Size: 720x576
Data Rate 1400 kbits/second
Framerate: 25 frames/sec (native PAL)
Fields: progressive (de-interlaced)

AUDIO

Codec: mp3
Sample rate: 48000
Data Rate: 128 kbits/second

APPLICATIONS YOU CAN USE TO MAKE XVID

Mac OS X - ffmpegX (shareware - free/$15)
Windows - Media Coder (free)
Linux - Avidemux (free)

Encoding for Screening Quality - Ogg Theora

VIDEO

Codec: Theora
Format: .ogg
Video Size: 720x576
Data Rate 1400 kbits/second
Framerate: 25 frames/sec (native PAL)
Fields: progressive (de-interlaced)

AUDIO

Codec: Vorbis
Sample rate: 48000
Data Rate: 128 kbits/second

APPLICATIONS YOU CAN USE TO MAKE OGG THEORA

Mac OS X - Simple Theora Encoder (free)
Windows - Media Coder (free)
Linux - Ogg Convert (free)

Encoding for Screening Quality - Quicktime Sorenson 3 (when experiencing sync problems)

VIDEO

Codec: Sorenson 3
Format: .mov
Video Size: 720x576
Data Rate 1400 kbits/second
Framerate: 25 frames/sec (native PAL)
Fields: progressive (de-interlaced)

AUDIO

Codec: QDesign Music
Sample rate: 48000
Data Rate: 48 kbits/second

Note: The audio quality may not be very high using these audio settings. You could try AAC as your audio format if the audio in your compressed file is not of high enough discernable quality.

APPLICATIONS YOU CAN USE TO MAKE QUICKTIME SORENSON 3

Mac OS X - Quicktime Pro  ($25), plus many more expensive video-editing and compressing applications
Windows - Quicktime Pro ($25), plus many more expensive video-editing and compressing applications
Linux - Quicktime Pro (using Wine) ($25)