I'm new to ableton live, and I'm using it's video functions to complete a project for a client. The fairly high quality video was original taken from a mini DV tape - when I dump it into ableton and set my music to it, then export the new material I'm getting a horrible video quality. I've tried several different formats and settings including the (highly recommended) h.264 and still it's crappy!
How do I achieve the best quality video in Ableton Live? Help!
Thanks, forum!
Best video settings
Re: Best video settings
In the Export Audio and Video dialog, you first choose the format -- Quicktime, MPEG-4, etc. This should presumably be whatever your client wants to get from you, if they have a preference. I usually make Quicktime by default, because you have lots of options for how to render it.
You then click Edit, and from there go to Video / Settings and Video / Size. For Settings, H.264 can give very good results if you set the compressor quality on the high side, and do multiple-pass rendering. It takes forever though; you might want to try some single-pass rendering to see if it's good enough. The data rate is just a different way of setting the compressor quality. Some of the formats other than H.264 don't give you quality controls because the compression is fixed.
In the Video / Size dialog, one thing to be aware of is that "Current" means whatever the video window is currently displaying at, so if you have made it small you'll get a small image that will look bad if you stretch it up. If you have a particular size in mind you can enter it manually.
I've never tried it, but I would think that if you could match the settings of the original video, you'd have a good chance of preserving the quality. You might search through the Video / Settings menu to see if it's in there when you use Quicktime as a wrapper.
hth,
-Luddy
You then click Edit, and from there go to Video / Settings and Video / Size. For Settings, H.264 can give very good results if you set the compressor quality on the high side, and do multiple-pass rendering. It takes forever though; you might want to try some single-pass rendering to see if it's good enough. The data rate is just a different way of setting the compressor quality. Some of the formats other than H.264 don't give you quality controls because the compression is fixed.
In the Video / Size dialog, one thing to be aware of is that "Current" means whatever the video window is currently displaying at, so if you have made it small you'll get a small image that will look bad if you stretch it up. If you have a particular size in mind you can enter it manually.
I've never tried it, but I would think that if you could match the settings of the original video, you'd have a good chance of preserving the quality. You might search through the Video / Settings menu to see if it's in there when you use Quicktime as a wrapper.
hth,
-Luddy
Re: Best video settings
Thanks. That offered a different approach to my situation. I've already started reverting back to the primal features of iMovie and garageband for rendering video (UGH!), but with these new tips I'm going to go back and mess around. Thanks a lot for taking the time to explain to me!!!