Jeff Greenberg 3/22/13 Jeff Greenberg 3/22/13

Golden Rule of Compression

The Golden rule of Compression (above all others) is this:

Try to compress your video only once. Each time you compress your product, you're taking a chance and lowering it's final quality.

I keep seeing people use tools like Handbrake to rip a DVD into MPG4 and then use another tool, like Apple Compressor to make ProRes. That's taking a distribution quality codec (MPEG2) taking it to another distribution quality (h.264) and then to an editorial codec.

Try, when possible to only transform your video once - at the end of your editorial process.

Compression Tips like this can be found by attending sessions at Post Production World at NAB (this link includes links to non-PPW sessions)

Jeff Greenberg 9/24/12 Jeff Greenberg 9/24/12

Advanced Media Composer tips

Tip sessions are my favorite. They're unique, custom to the room - based on everyone's needs. My favorite saying is:

“I want to show you something so cool it makes you cry”

...and then find a dozen or so things to make each person in the room cry.

But there're no notes from sessions like this because it's so custom. If you have a question about something I did during the session, feel free to ask me in the comments or email me.