Criteria for Choosing the Best Video Settings

The key factors you need to consider when recording video are: image quality and file size. Unfortunately, these two factors tend to oppose each other, so that the best image quality tends to result in the worst (i.e., highest) file sizes. However, some codecs are more efficient than others, so is possible to make some general recommendations.

• By default, CrystalMaker uses the Animation compressor. This is a good, safe choice. It is designed to work well with images that contain lots of sharp edges: the type of "synthetic" images used in programs such as CrystalMaker. The downside is that this compressor isn't particularly efficient.

• If you need more compression, then the best combination of output quality and file size is currently provided by the JPEG 2000 compressor, set to display Millions of Colours and using a Low or Least quality output.

• Please avoid using the ubiquitous H.264 codec, as well as the DV compressors. These don't work at all well with CrystalMaker images. They are designed for natural images - movies of real objects, where there are softer transitions, and where things don't change very much from frame to frame. The results with CrystalMaker will be diabolical!

Update: April 2010. Once you have recorded your movie, you may find that re-compressing it with H.264, using the latest version of QuickTime Player on Mac OS X "Snow Leopard", gives good results. The H.264 compressor can scan the complete sequence of frames and take advantage of frame-to-frame compression, in a way that "live" recording can't manage.