SIGGRAPH 2004 Video encoding

Video Encoding for SIGGRAPH 2004

Quicktime Related:

I'll specifically discuss how to create a Quicktime MPEG-4 file for submission. MIT LCS has already put up a decent page on encoding Quicktime 4 for SIGGRAPH submissions.

Details specific to UNC-CS:

Download and install the latest Quicktime Player (6.5) from
Get the key to upgrade to Pro. (Email Ming or me for the key) . The key is only for windows. If you do not see an upgrade otion (or asking for key), go to control panel->quicktime->registration to enter the key.
DO NOT directly export to Quicktime MPEG-4 from Premiere 6.0. Quality of output video was too bad for me.

Addendum: You CAN export the movie directly from Premiere. DO NOT set the bitrate option, simply set the quality factor (0-100%). This may give you better results as it might be using variable bit rates vs constatnt bit rates. The quality vs size tradeoff will have ot be adjusted using the factor.

In Premiere, export your video to an uncompressed AVI file (as shown in MIT page). Another good alternative is the Microsoft DV AVI codec if short on space - it gives some compression, but quality is as good as DV tape (better than DVD). The DV codec should be installed along with Premiere 6.0
Open the AVI file in Quicktime and select File Export as. Under export, select Movie to MPEG-4. Click Options, set the following:

General : Video track : Improved
Size: Use 320x240 if that is sufficient. However, for screen captures etc., you would want to use 640x480 or 720x480. Set the frame size in Premiere project and use Current here
Audio - Music is enough
Video: Video Track : Improved. Keep the settings for frames per second and keyframes. A bitrate of 2048kbits/sec gave me video quality almost indistinguishible from a 4000kbit/s MPEG-1 video. Test for your worst footage and set accordingly. For electronic submission, they suggest a file limit of 100MB. A 5min video, with size=100M => 2500kbit/s, so you should be able to make a 5min video at highest bitrate within 100Megs.

For MPEG-1 encoding, the encoder of choice is the LSX-MPEG encoder (available as a Premiere plugin), with settings of MPEG-1, datarate=4000kbit/s. This will give an approx 150MB for a 5 min video.

Other tips/problems:

Install quicktime pro on a FAST pc. Copy ur final DV/uncompressed avi file to quicktime pc and compress
Premiere would crash on export for me after installing quicktime pro. Reinstalling premiere fixed that.

Powerpoint Related:

Creating Slides in Powerpoint to import in the video:

Change the default slide size to a 3:2 aspect ratio to match 720x480 ratio of the video. (for eg 12in x 8in), else the text/images can get anisotropically scaled.
Avoid using italics. Italicised fonts have more aliasing artifacts. Use bold/colors to highlight. Feel free to use multiple colors in the video - it will never get printed ;) .
Stay away from saturated colors (more than 85% R, G or B). Saturated colors bleed and get cropped during the color transforms.
Captions which get overlayed with captured footage require a transparent alpha channel. I dont remember how to set that in powerpoint, You can create those caption slides in premiere (which has a useful tool - tell it to create a new title).
Exporting from Powerpoint to Premiere. Export the slides as Windows Metafile (.wmf) files in powerpoint. This exports the slides as vector images, and fonts, line-art dont suffer aliasing inside premiere.

Premiere Related:

While exporting the video, enable the option 'Optimize Stills' to get high quality slides. The option is under settings->Export Movie Settings->Keyframe and Rendering while exporting.