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A few Vimeo users asked me to share the encoding settings I use in iMovie 08 for my HD videos. So, I recorded a little tutorial. The settings in this tutorial will produce a large video — like... really, really, big — but they look great!

If reasonable file size is what you desire, watch Bernard's tutorial here: vimeo.com/348114
This was the tutorial I followed when I started with HD @ Vimeo.
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  • Eugenia Loli-Queru 8 months ago
    Thanks for the tutorial, nice! Although I would shoot for 128kbps audio, as most TVs and Vimeo itself doesn't take full advantage of that anyway, so it's a waste of bits. Also, I would shoot for 5mbps bitrate and not let imovie to do that automatically, because imovie will go for a really high bitrate that again, it's not necessary for 720p videos. :)
  • Eric Anderson 8 months ago
    I appreciate your comments Eugenia. I found that setting the max bitrate at 5 or even 6mbps produced a lower quality vid in the end. All my stuff here is short, and I am no pro - so I blow through those bits with reckless abandon.
  • Eugenia Loli-Queru 8 months ago
    It will produce a slightly less quality, but thing is, Vimeo re-encodes at around 2mbps, which is way too low anyway. So basically, what I am saying is, that if you export at 5mbps you save uploading bandwidth, without the quality difference been visible on the final Vimeo re-encoding.
  • Eric Anderson 8 months ago
    I get it.

    I have compared at least six different ways of encoding HD for Vimeo. Just like vincenzof - I found that all the tweaking caused unwanted affects - in iMovie. The video looks better without the bitrate limit.

    But I am sure the more advanced software you use is better suited to the proper compression ratios. In iMovie 08, these settings produce a fine looking video. That's all I am sayin'.
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  • Kevin Miller 7 months ago
    Thanks for this. Really helped out.
  • Eric Anderson 7 months ago
    Cool. Glad it helped.
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  • CTD3 7 months ago
    Good tutorial now just need an HD cam & iMovie'08!
  • Eric Anderson 7 months ago
    Thanks man... HD is big - get a big fat drive too :)
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  • David Moffitt 7 months ago
    sorry to dig up something from a month ago - but in support of the original author, starting with the highest possibly quality even IF it's to be re-encoded at 2Mb/s is a good idea - arguing otherwise would be akin to saying "why clean your lens, it's going on the web" :)
  • Eric Anderson 7 months ago
    Hey Thanks David -

    You're good people.
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  • assbach 7 months ago
    i dont have good source material, but anyway... thanks for taking time to do this.
  • Eric Anderson 7 months ago
    Thanks for the like and the comment.
  • assbach 7 months ago
    sure thing!
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  • bigd1971 7 months ago
    Does iMovie 08 only support AVCHD? I have 08, but my HV20 is on the way from B&H,
  • Eric Anderson 7 months ago
    It will work with DV as well for sure... new cameras are great.
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  • Roman 6 months ago
    Great tutorial, Eric. They should link to this from the FAQ rather than (or in addition to) the settings they list there. Tried iMovie 08 for the first time today. Gotta say I'm pretty impressed with what you get for the cost. I could see where iMovie will keep me shooting and posting where Pinnacle... well Pinnacle is just more work in general.
  • Eric Anderson 6 months ago
    Thanks, Roman. Glad you like the tutorial. I agree - iMovie is easy to use and makes creating videos less of a chore.
  • Roman 6 months ago
    Only problem I'm having is the video that I manually copied over to the hard drive. iMovie won't recognize the .m2ts files. I found a post on a Mac forum that says to convert the folders into disk images, but apparently I'm not smart enough to do that...
  • Eric Anderson 6 months ago
    I have no idea... I pull everything right off the camera using iMovie. Isn't there an Option-click for "convert file to dmg"? Kidding.
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  • Jacob 6 months ago
    Nice tutorial! I tried to use these settings but I had one question. At what size do you import the footage? 960x540 or 1920x1080?
  • Eric Anderson 6 months ago
    Thanks Jacob.

    On the iMac I use "Full". If I am at my MacBook Pro, I import using the "Large" setting (960x540). My older MBP tends to choke on the full size video - plus, I am limited by hard drive space.
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  • diroussel 2 months ago
    I followed all those settings, and exported movie look great. 1280x720, but when I view it in vimeo it's got a case of the jaggies.

    Any suggestions? vimeo.com/1326965
  • Eric Anderson 2 months ago
    Jaggies are generally caused by a frame rate that doesn't "gel" with the Vimeo encoding. Selecting "Current" usually does the trick, but it may depend on the camera. Try setting it to 30 fps - that may help.
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