Thread: Help with video Compression without loosing quality.

Hi Digital director forum,

This is my first post at this forum, so I don't know if I posted in the right section.

My main problem is the following.

I shoot HD videos every day and I work with a friend that lives in Argentina, I live in the U.S. I shoot the videos and then I have to upload them (I use dropbox) and he has to download them so he can edit them and upload them to the website.

Every day I have more videos and work and they all weight an estimate of 1gb to 3gb. My internet connection is not fast enough to upload all the videos, it takes the whole day to upload a couple of videos and also it takes him a lot of time to download them and upload them.

My main question is:

Is any way for me to compress the videos that weigth 1-3gb and make them weight less without loosing video quality?? Is there another way to do things?? maybe we are doing it all wrong. I shoot the video here in the U.S. I upload the video using dropbox so he can download the video in Argentina, edit it and upload it again.

PLEASE PLEASE any help will be totally appreciate it.

Thank you so so so much in advance.

Gabriel.

Is your friend in Argentina unable to advise you on the best method of compression to A) Maintain quality for editing on whatever system he is using B) Be a simple enough process for you as the end user?

Hi Gabrial and to the forum.

I remember using a software programme that came with a printer that you could compress and email photos. i did a quick Google. Handbrake looks like it will do the job. You can see what they say here on Youtube 2.18gb down to 157mb.

Hope this helps.

What you need to do is send a proxy files, a small HQ file, with same names as original clips
you need the same edit suite, your friend edits the video, sends the project files back to you, you open the project , open the full HD files an then render as required.

That's how I would do it

Originally Posted by Z Cheema

What you need to do is send a proxy files, a small HQ file, with same names as original clips
you need the same edit suite, your friend edits the video, sends the project files back to you, you open the project , open the full HD files an then render as required.

That's how I would do it

Sorry to bother you, but can you explain in more details on how to send a proxy file with a small hq. I did not understand how to do that process.

Thank you!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Bpotter908

Is your friend in Argentina unable to advise you on the best method of compression to A) Maintain quality for editing on whatever system he is using B) Be a simple enough process for you as the end user?

Any chance you could communicate with your editor in Argentina?...

Originally Posted by Bpotter908

Any chance you could communicate with your editor in Argentina?...

He is not an expert either. We recently started with this, I shoot the videos here, and he is learning to edit them over there. The problem we came across is that the more videos we shoot the harder it got for me to upload 1gb-2gb and even 3gb videos online for him to download edit them and upload it again. Is getting really frustrating and I know that there are a lot of solutions but I can't seem to find any :(

The proxy video seems like a solid idea but I been looking over the internet on how to do it and have no clue!!!!!!!

Still looking for help. Any help will be really appreciate it.

Thank you!!!

1) What file format comes out of the camera currently
2) What editing software does he use?
3) What is the format of the finished edit?

Originally Posted by Bpotter908

1) What file format comes out of the camera currently
2) What editing software does he use?
3) What is the format of the finished edit?

1) What file format comes out of the camera currently
mostly .mov

2) What editing software does he use?
he uses adobe premiere.
3) What is the format of the finished edit?

.flv 720p or 1080p

Render a low resolution version of each separate clip but keep the file names the same as they are currently. Send these lower resolution clips to the editor. He can do the editing work and send you the program project file. You then open the project file in the same editing program and all the editing work is done but the program needs to be told the location of the original files so it will use them. If you don't have the same editing program as the other guy this won't work.