GH2 Video on Flickr / YouTube

[sprinke]

I'm not a serious filmmaker ... I just take family clips to share on Flickr.

Right now, I have my GH2 set to Motion JPEG, HD for a couple of reasons:

1) Easy to upload right to Flickr.
2) I don't have software to convert the AVCHD format. *

I have been finding that the video files from the GH2 are not being converted well to Flickr. There is a lot of flickering and pixellation of the video. Here is an example:

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="225" data="http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377" classid="clsid27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"> <param name="flashvars" value="intl_lang=en-us&photo_secret=6ddee19ee2&photo_id=5611053817"></param> <param name="movie" value="http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377"></param> <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000"></param> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377" bgcolor="#000000" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="intl_lang=en-us&photo_secret=6ddee19ee2&photo_id=5611053817" height="225" width="400"></embed></object>

I was curious and uploaded the same clips to YouTube. It's slightly better there, especially if you watch it in the 720 HD mode, but still nothing like the original viewed on the PC using Quicktime or VLC.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIhNYik8rig"]YouTube - P1000086.MOV[/ame]

I'm using the 14-140mm lens.

Does anyone else have a similar experience? Is it a problem with the codec being used, maybe?


* Not because I'm too cheap to buy it ... I have an older non-Intel Mac and the majority of the programs available don't run on the PowerPC chipset.

 

[everythingsablur]

I think the good people at Flickr will even tell you that they are not the real place for video, nor do they want to be. Even their descriptions of what a Flickr video should be are a little telling.

That being said, I've found Flickr and YouTube to be a little subpar when it comes to quality video playback. They do have to recompress things, and their settings are probably not optimal for the rolling water you have in the background. Have you tried throwing the same video up on Vimeo? They really are a much better place for HD video.

I still have a couple of old PPC Macs kicking around myself. They just won't die, even if they are getting long in the tooth for many uses. My Mac Mini G4 1.4 Ghz is mostly a torrent server, light browsing, and local media player. iMac G5 is still pretty good at most non-intensive tasks, but you are right... Many things are finally being compiled as Intel-only.

 

[sprinke]

I've been thinking about Vimeo as well, but I'm intimidated. It seems like they are trying to be a place for serious filmmaking and not casual videos?

 

[zpierce]

I haven't shot too much video but when I went to share it I went straight to Vimeo as that seemed to be the place most people in our hobbyist community were going. I've been shooting 1080/24 and 720/60 in avchd. I just grab the mts file buried down the folder tree on the card and upload straight to Vimeo and it's worked great and turned out great and was a piece of cake.

 

[sprinke]

I just signed up for a free Vimeo account and have been playing around with it. The video looks good, about the same or maybe better than the HD setting on YouTube, and much better than Flickr. I just don't want to pay for a Plus account to get unlimited HD ... I've already got a Flickr Pro account and put that to very good use.

Also I just discovered that Flickr can process the AVCHD files. I didn't know that ... back when I got my first Lumix camera that could do AVCHD, video was very new in Flickr and that format was not supported, so I always avoided it.

 

[zpierce]

Yeah, my video uploads are few and far enough between that the free account is plenty for me on Vimeo. Now Flickr pro, that's another story, I'm getting my money's worth out of that

 

[everythingsablur]

I just signed up for a free Vimeo account and have been playing around with it. The video looks good, about the same or maybe better than the HD setting on YouTube, and much better than Flickr. I just don't want to pay for a Plus account to get unlimited HD ... I've already got a Flickr Pro account and put that to very good use.

Unless you really post a lot of video, I've found the free Vimeo account to be fine. 500 MB/week and 1 HD conversion is "enough" for most novices. Obviously if you're going to be putting out a feature-length movie you'll want a pro account, but otherwise, it's not bad in the free flavour.