Video format preference

[mcatrophy]

I'm asking for opinions.

I'm playing with a video camera, and I might publish one or two videos. The camera I'm using produces HD videos (that's High Definition, not Hardly Dangerous ). On my home computer or TV, they are fine, however the bit rate is too high for many internet connections. So they need compression.

I'm initially experimenting with two methods of compression, one is to crop the video to the centre portion, half width and half height, the other is to maintain the full picture and number of pixels, but compress the video harder to reduce the size at the expense of image quality. A third way would be to maintain the full video frame, but to reduce the number of pixels, I've not yet tried this.

Question is, which would be preferred by a discerning audience? Since I couldn't find such an audience :biggrinsmiley: , I'm asking for opinions here.

Here's a short video as an example, firstly the full frame highly compressed:

(Click on image to play the video)



Secondly cropped, but higher quality:



So, which do you prefer?

All comments and suggestions will be read, and if not too dismissive, will be considered.

Thanks in advance.

Some background information:

Video taken along the A83 near Tullochgorm in Scotland.

Camera and Mount:

The video was taken using a Tomtom Bandit camera. The camera is mounted on the front brake fluid reservoir using a home-brew plate and the Tomtom 360 degree mount.

Video Files:

The original video is quite wide angle, high resolution, 1920x1080. It would require a very high bandwidth internet connection. To reduce the bandwidth requirement, the full frame is compressed, the other is cropped to the centre rectangle, 960x540 pixels. The required internet bandwidth is around 5Mb/s.

Sound:

I suggest you turn your sound right down. Unfortunately, above about 30 mph, the noise from wind and/or vibration drowns out the natural musical soundtrack provided by the bike. I've yet to sort this.

 

[russperry]

its hard to answer the poll with a single response. I think its about a 3 wide decision matrix:

1) Accessibility - is it for people to watch on their phone, or will it be on a TV or desktop computer monitor?

2) For each clip, where's the action? You might find that in some cases the cropped center captures everything you want to see, but in others you might want the wider view. Of course the weird flattening of scenes with mega wide angle action cams screams for cropping.

3) Compression is my last resort. I'd rather have a smaller image with less compression if I'm in a bandwidth crunch - I genrally hate the intrusion of compression artifacts.

For this video, I'd prefer the cropped POV, though it does give you a more vivid view of the bug hits on the windscreen

Regarding the sound levels, I've switched to cameras with external mic jacks (Ion Air 2 to be precise). This lets you string a mic out of the wind and put it near your airbox or by the exhaust, depending on which you think sounds more bitchin'!

 

[Laser Dude]

Where do you plan on uploading them? If it's something like YouTube, upload it as high quality as possible. It will down sample it if the end users connection is slow. That takes the burden off you. If you plan on hosting the video yourself, that's different.

 

[eflyguy]

Resolution isn't too important. The cropped version is nauseating.

 

[LKLD]

The cropped version accentuates the vibration, that isn't as noticeable in the un-cropped version. I'd go with the un-cropped one.

Since most watch videos on phones, iPads, or computer, I wouldn't fret over bandwidth, especially using YouTube or the ilk.