COMPRESSION AND QUALITY
There are 3 main codecs used in compression, there are many different ways to compress and I will be discussing some ways I've picked up from personal experience AND other websites (Special Note: some of these settings are similar to those found on other websites and therefor I must credit MovieMakers and csflicks). Below are some methods of configuring your codecs, scroll down lower to see some tips and other techniques I use to achieve the highest quality. The following tutorials are for Vegas but the codec settings can be replicated in VirtualDub or any other encoding program.
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XviD
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When I want to quickly compress short clips to send to friends, I usually use this method of XviD which I based off of MovieMaker's XviD tutorial. 1. Download and install NICS XviD codec from the links page, restart your computer 2. In Vegas, if you don't mind a long render, click the 'Project' tab and set the 'Video rendering quality' to 'Best', if you want it to be slightly faster, set it to 'Preview'. Find your way to the settings for the codec and select 'XviD MPEG-4 Codec' 3. Set the 'Frame rate' to 30 4. Set the 'Field order' to 'None (progressive scan)' 5. Set the 'Pixel aspect ratio' to 0.909 6. Hit the 'Configure' button, an XviD Codec box should appear 7. Set the 'Encoding Mode' to '1 Pass - quality' 8. Set the 'Quality' to 85-95. I personally like to use a higher Quality setting with de_dust2 because otherwise it does not look as good. For maps like de_inferno and de_nuke, 90-92 seems to work well with me but for for clips on de_inferno, I get a much higher file size regardless of codec so look out for that. 9. Render and you're done
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WMV9
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I like to use WMV9 for clips and movies alike, it is less configurable and therefor harder to tweak but produces nice quality. Some say it to not be as 'crisp' though and therefor prefer XviD 1. Open up Vegas and set the File format to 'Windows Media Video 9 (*.wmv)', click 'Cutom' 2. Click the 'Project' tab and set the Video rendering quality to 'Best' 3. Click the 'Audio' tab and set Mode to 'Quality VBR' 4. Set the Format to 'Windows Media Audio 9' 5. Set the Attributes to 'VBR Quality 10, 44kHz, stereo VBR' 6. Click the 'Video' tab and set the Format to 'Windows Media Video 9' and the Mode to 'Bit rate VBR' 7. Set your Width/Height and put the Frame rate (fps) to 30 OR 24 (24 should produce a slightly smaller file size but some say it to be less smooth) 8. Set the Pixel aspect ratio to '1.000 (Square)' and Seconds per keyframe to 3 9. Set the Average bit rate (bps) to 4M, 3.5M, or 3M (4M produces 35mb/min with audio for me which is ok for clips but for a movie, 25mb/min is really what you need, play with it some) 10. Render and you're done
