"Share to Vimeo" and video quality concerns

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Level 1

4 points

"Share to Vimeo" and video quality concerns

I've been working on a 4K video in Final Cut Pro, and used the "Share to Vimeo" builtin option, which is quite nice for an effective workflow.

However, after the upload was complete and the video was processed by Vimeo, I got a message from Vimeo:

This video’s bit rate is only 20047 kbit/s, which is lower than what we recommend for H.264 video. Your video might not look as nice as it should. For 4096x2304 video, we recommend a data rate of at least 30000 kbit/s.

It seems to me that FCPX applies too aggressive compression with this preset.

Is there a way to change it to a lower compression? Naturally, I'd like to retain the high quality of my work when sharing it online

Thanks

IMAC (RETINA 5K, 27-INCH, LATE 2015), macOS High Sierra (10.13.2)

Posted on Dec 13, 2017 11:16 AM

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Answer 1

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Agresvig Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 15, 2017 3:10 AM in response to Agresvig

For anyone interested, to wrap this up:

I did another direct-to-file export from FCPX which ended up having more than twice the bitrate of the "direct to Vimeo" export (43mbps vs 20mbps), and then uploaded it to Vimeo. No significant difference in quality noticed.

I compared the two videos side-by-side, locally on my 5K iMac (original 4K exports) and I really cannot tell the difference.

So to conclude, use the FCPX Vimeo export plugin and don't worry about Vimeo's warnings

Here is the video in question: A timelapse journey through Provence on Vimeo

Couple other thing I noticed:

- Playback in Chrome isnt't 100% smooth - it has slight hiccups at 4K. In Safari on the other hand it is butter smooth

- VLC has more saturated colors by default, compared to Quicktime

Thanks and have a good weekend

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Answer 2

Dec 13, 2017 1:56 PM in response to Agresvig

I would not worry about it. How does it actually LOOK? Those numbers are not written in stone. You only should act on this if the end result you see on vimeo shows a clear loss of quality. Let your eyes be the judge.

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Answer 3

Agresvig Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 14, 2017 12:20 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Sure, thats a fair point, but to they layman it is of course worrying when Vimeo warns you by email that your video is of insufficient bitrate (ie. quality). I'd assume the FCPX 4K Vimeo preset is optimised for the purpose, which clearly it is not

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Answer 4

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

151,004 points

Dec 14, 2017 12:54 AM in response to Agresvig

There is no correct answer to that question, which is why I wouldn’t use FCP as an encoder for web video delivery. The answer can only be based on the content. For some content FCP’s data rate is more than adequate, for other content Vineo’s might not be enough for high quality. Of course if you make the data rate higher playback performance becomes very poor with the video constantly pausing to cache more of the stream. Bottom line is that the internet isn’t a good delivery mechanism for high quality video.

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Answer 5

Agresvig Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 14, 2017 2:14 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

Well thats uplifting. 2018 is around the corner, and while Elon is working on shipping people to Mars, we're concluding that HQ video cannot be reliably shared across the internet.

It seems to me then, that there should be some bitrate which Vimeo can guarantee to deliver buffering-free, granted the viewer's download speed is sufficient. I'm on a 100mbit line and modern iMac - playback should be flawless, even at 4K.

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