Guy, you're a marvel! The medal will be in the post tomorrow.

I would never have dared to try to create a custom template. The video currently posted is based on your suggested settings as above - with the exception of specifying Interleaving, lower first, which I think is right for PAL, rather than Progressive? It's the right size, the right shape, smaller than the previous .avi.mp4 versions and it uploaded in a shade under 15 minutes.

Three queries, if I dare:
1  It runs more quickly than the original .mov, but it's still a bit of a wait.
2  Is the audio bitrate off? It sounds as if I'm in a box!
3  Resolution is patchy here and there.

Fine tuning, no doubt.

granpa

Exploiting my new liberation, I explored other settings:

Video - The next pre-set bitrate is 768 kbps, which works. I couldn't tell if intermediate, manually entered values actually worked because there was no noticable improvement on 384 kbps.  I saw no need to change the frame size.

Audio - Some higher settings were worse, one or two produced an interrupted audio track or one even that went silent after a few seconds (weird!). The defaults (48,000 Kbps, 128,000 Hz) do the job.

File size is double the 'original' new version (72 Mb as against 36 Mb), but the quality is infinitely better. Perhaps one or two members might notice the difference. Thanks again for your help and patience, Guy (and for your contribution again, Dave); I've learned a lot, and hope that this thread might give help and encouragement to other non-techie video-makers who follow here.

granpa

The only fix for it, Dave, is to upgrade to VMS9 Platinum or Platinum Pro Pack.  The upgrade to Platinum is $54 and to Plat. Pro Pack is $75.

Dave,
Yeah, upgrade to Vegas 8 is rather pricey for you.  It is about time for Sony to bring out Vegas 9.  They usually do it this time of year at NAB.  Typically, they drop the price of the upgrade to around $150 for a short while after the software is released.  An alternative is to buy a new copy of VMS9 Plat.  They have upgraded that software until it nearly has the features (and in some cases exceeds the basic Vegas without DVD Architect) of Vegas 7 and below.

The Gallery supports MKV, but in an external player...like MOV or WMV.  Gallery will play Flash or MP4 using the embedded JWPlayer.  If you want to post MKV files, folks will have to find a player and install it before they can view them.  I recommend sticking to MP4.

Dave
Thanks for the 'Stretch' tip - I hadn't spotted this; it will surely solve the problem.  Also see PM

Guy (and Dave)
I haven't tried a full Vegas.  The only additional bit to VMS, as far as I understand, that I would find very useful is the 'envelope' system for eg crop-and-pan on stills.  Sorry if this is going off thread.

granpa

The example settings I posted were for NTSC frames (720x480 in widescreen DV pixels converts to 873x480 square pixels).  NTSC DV widescreen is 1.82:1 which is slightly wider than 16:9 which is 1.78:1.  Probably not enough to notice.  PAL widescreen DV is 720x576 or 1049x576 square pixels and also 1.82:1 aspect ratio.

When you convert a video frame from one frame size to another, it should be done symmetrically.  Usually, I recommend cutting the square pixel DV frame in half for posting in the Gallery.  That creates a 360x240 NTSC frame or a 524x288 PAL frame.  360x288 is 1/2 frame 4:3 DV.  If it looks squashed at 524 but correct 360, then the source video is likely 4:3.  Or, the player is changing the aspect ratio.

Anyway, .MP4 creates good looking video at reduced file sizes.  I would recommend staying with .MP4 versus MOV.  The embedded JWPlayer (Flash and MP4) will play those files correctly and the viewer will have access to all the player controls.

Ok, thanks for the clarification.

I did some additional tests.  I took a widescreen DV AVI file and encoded it using MPEG Streamclip 1.2 to MOV and MP4 using the exact same parameters. Both files are encoded using H.264/AAC.  Basically, the only difference is the MOV file has a MOV (QT) wrapper and the MP4 file does not.  They both play fine locally in the QT player.  (The files are test.mov and test.mp4 in the CCUsers Video Production Album.)

After uploading, the HTML code generated for the 524x300 MOV file is cropped vertically to 200 pixels.  However, horizontally, it is still 524 pixels so the proportions are maintained so there is no distortion of the images in the file.  It just looks like cinemascope in the QT player because the frame is 524x200.  The actual dimensions should be 524x320 pixels.  The extra vertical pixels are supposed to be added to accommodate the player controls, which are cropped out along with 100 pixels of the original video.  The MP4 file plays fine...because it is handled differently by the Gallery software.

I have had conversations with the authors of the Gallery plugin for SMF about this.  They are not inclined to try to fix it.  They blame MOV for being difficult to code for.  I don't know the right answer.  However, I have seen this issue mentioned frequently on the Apple forums, by people using Apple servers and Apple computers.  So, it appears to me to be an Apple problem.

FortVir used a special software player I found around 2005 that modified the original Menalto Gallery source code.  I have lost references to that player and cannot reproduce the code.  It is not supported by the folks who code the Menalto Gallery software.

You can upload your MOV files as you wish.  However, they will all be truncated to 524x200 losing 100 pixels vertically and the player controls.  It is an inconvenience and I apologize for that, but MP4 is the better way to go.  It is exactly the same as your MOV files without the QT wrapper that appears to be the cause of the problem.  IF you have encoded your MOV files using H.264/AAC, you can simply rename the file with an MP4 extension and it will play fine with the embedded player.  This will save you all the re-encoding.