Codecs

H.264 / AAC

A codec is the format in which your video will be encoded. Different codecs have different features and varying quality. For best results, we recommend using H.264 (sometimes referred to as MP4) for the video codec and AAC (short for Advanced Audio Codec) for the audio codec. If you're on a Windows machine, WMV3 is a good choice for video codec.

Frame rate

25 FPS

If there is an option that says "current," it is best to just go with that. Otherwise, this is usually 25 fps (frames per second) for Europe, while in USA, Canada, and Japan it is 30 fps. If there is an option for keyframes, use the same value you used for framerate.

Data rate

2000 kbits/sec (SD) / 5000 kbits/sec (HD)

This setting controls both the visual quality of the video and how big the file will be. In most video editors, this is done in terms of kilobits per second (kbits/sec or kbps). Use 2000 kbits/sec for standard definition 4:3 video, 3000 kbits/sec for widescreen DV, or 5000 kbits/sec for high definition footage.

Resolution

640x480 (SD) / 1280x720 (HD)

640x480 for standard definition 4:3 video, 853x480 for widescreen DV, and 1280x720 or 1920x1080 for high definition. If you have the option to control the pixel aspect ratio (not display aspect ratio) make sure it's set to "1:1" or "1.00", also sometimes called "square pixels."

Deinterlacing

YES

If you have this option, enable it. If you shoot in DV format, this is an especially important. If you do not deinterlace, you will often get weird-looking horizontal lines in your video.

Audio

320 kbps / 44.100 kHz

Choose AAC for the audio codec. You'll want to set the bit rate to 320 kbps and the sample rate to 44.100 kHz.

Format

MP4

While we like MP4 the best, we will generally accept any of the following formats: 3g2, 3gp, 3gp2, 3gpp, asf, asx, avi, divx, mts, m2t, m2ts, m2v, m4v, mkv, mov, mp4, mpe, mpeg, mpg, ogg, wmv.