HD Video: SC over a new high school in Laveen, AZ

[clipper453]

There's a brand new $57 million high school that opened this past August in Laveen, AZ (developing suburb of Phoenix). I finally got a chance to fly over it this weekend to get some aerial photos and video. Here's a link to the video:

www.vimeo.com/681082

Note: This is an HD video. It is best to view it in full-screen mode. If your internet connection is not fast enough to view this video smoothly, then toggle the "HD On/Off" button in the upper-right corner of the video window.

[mararra]

Wow, nice vid !

[SCC]

Very nice Matt.
Does your camera actually shoot vid in HD?

[clipper453]

Thanks! No, my camera does not shoot natively in HD. It shoots at 640 x 480 @ 30 fps (480p). However, even though Vimeo offers better quality than YouTube, they still scale down standard definition videos. When I found that they accept and and display 720p videos in their full resolution, I tried a test of upscaling one of my 480p videos to 720p using Adobe Premiere Elements. I was very surprised at how well it turned out, so that's when I started throwing in some still shots cropped/resized to 1280 x 720 to take full advantage of the resolution as well. Even though all of this is technically cheating to get to an HD video, I think the end result looks pretty nice.

[mac]

Clipper what settings are you using when exporting your video in AP. when I exported mine I was left with a 1 gig file and couldn't find a way to get it below 500 MB.

When I rendered I used

Compressor: Microsoft DV AVI

If I try to use Microsoft AVI with Cinepak Codec by Radius it take hours to render and results in a file around 800 MB.

My video as posted was rendered using Adobe media encoder and was compressed to 28 MB (i think) and is no where near the quality I would like it to be.

I don't know if this makes any sense or not any help would be appreciated.

[clipper453]

mac said:

Clipper what settings are you using when exporting your video in AP.

I'm using the H.264 (MPEG-4) format in a Quicktime MOV container. I used to use these settings:

www.mattclipper.com/H.264_Settings.pdf

But I have since tweaked the profile to match those recommended in this FAQ:

www.vimeo.com/help/hd

[swampfox201]

Very Nice!! Thats some of the clearest aerial video I've seen.

[mac]

Clipper, Thanks I was able to get a better quality video rendered with your suggestions.

[clipper453]

swampfox201
Thanks for the compliment. I've really been working hard to fly smoother, edit my videos better, and learn the best transcoding methods to result in nice looking videos. After months of trial and error, I'm finally getting to the point where I'm satisfied with the results myself.

mac
I'm glad my suggestions helped. That's what these groups are for. I'd be lost if it weren't for all the tips I've picked up from the Super Cub Club and RCGroups.

[duck9191]

awesome video, vimeo is doing very nice with the hd video. nice school too lol

[frazer1981]

Clipper, you seem to get so high and far away! How are you sure it aint gonna be too gusty up there?

[clipper453]

duck9191
Thanks! I've been really pleased with Vimeo so far. Even their uploading process is easier and quicker than YouTube's. I'm surprised more people aren't using it yet. If YouTube wants to remain the leader in online video streaming, they really need to improve the resolution and compression of their videos.

frazer1981
I guess I'm lucky that the Phoenix area typically has pretty calm winds, even at the upper altitudes. That's probably what contributes to our extremely hot summers. In any case, before I go out fly, I always check the link below, and I try to only fly when the wind is 5 mph or less.

www.weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/85339