Best Flash Video Compression Settings

Encoding an FLV

Resolution
  • For 4:3 aspect ratio (normal): 480 x 360 pixels
  • For 16:9 aspect ratio (widescreen): 480 x 270 pixels
  • For the iPhone the ratio is 1.5:1 and the size is 480 x 320 pixels, but the video format it plays is 640×480
Codec On2 VP6 or h.264
Encoding 2-Pass VBR
Maintain Aspect Ratio: Off (The above Resolution settings will provide the correct aspect ratio.)
Frame Rate: 30 fps
24 and 25 fps footage should be encoded as “Same-as-source”
Video Data Rate: 464 kbps
Audio Data Rate: 48 kbps
Total Data Rate: 512 kbps
Keyframe: Every 6 seconds

What program to use?

If you already have flash, it comes with flash video encoder which is a separate program in the same directory as your flash application. If you don’t have flash you could download flix standard which is inexpensive and available for windows and mac.

Batch h.264

If you’re going to be doing a lot of compression you should look into this USB device that comes with it’s own software: Elgato Turbo.264

Our client Arsenal Films uses it for all their compression — in their own words:

It’s basically compression software with a USB stick that adds processor juice to your computer. It gives you all these different iPhone, Apple TV, iPod, YouTube, optimized codecs. it cranks things out super fast and doesn’t lock up you computer – and it’s under $100 bucks

Exporting a Quicktime out of FinalCut

These are the best settings to export a Quicktime movie out of FinalCut for us to encode for flash. You should make sure you set the size of the movie to the final size we’ll be showing the video on your site. If we resize it ourselves when we encode the movie, the quality will not be as good.

  1. Go to Export
  2. Choose Using Quicktime Conversion
  3. Format: Quicktime movie
  4. Options: Settings (Compression Type: H264, Frame Rate: 30fps, Key Frames: Every 180 Frames, Compressor: Best)
  5. Size: Dimensions (Custom 480×360)
  6. Use: Broadband-High

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6 Responses to “Best Flash Video Compression Settings”

  1. Matthew says:
    January 6, 2010 at 2:56 pm

    When was this written?

    Reply
  2. shravan b. says:
    January 13, 2010 at 7:22 am

    I made animation movie in Flash 8 (720×576, 25fps), converted it to AVI, edited in Adobe PremiereCS3. Now i need to export the movie very good quality and show on the wall with a projector and DVD player.
    please tell me flash 8 export setting and Adobe PremiereCS3 export setting

    Reply
    • mimoymima says:
      January 13, 2010 at 9:40 am

      Why did you export the movie originally at 720×576? That seems like a low resolution to be using to edit your original footage. Small outdated computer monitors are 800×600 which is larger format than what you are using. You should find out what resolution your projector is capable of displaying and try to export your AVI out of flash accordingly. After you edit the footage together in Premiere you can export it in any format you want assuming you’re playing the video on your computer and feeding it to the projector that way. A good free video player is VLC which should be able to play nearly any format you can export out of Premiere at full screen. Hopefully this helps, good luck!

      Reply
  3. mrblue says:
    July 24, 2010 at 2:50 am

    Hello,
    I think for compressing videos with flash is really cool. If you do not know then I would like to tell you that you can even compress video of h.264 file format. http://forums.techarena.in/guides-tutorials/1354200.htm#post5017170

    Reply

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