Encoding for klickTab and Open Television Network

Technically, klickTab and Open Television Network don't care what format you encode your video. However, in the "podcasting" and RSS aggregator world, Apple dominates with the vast majority of this growing market. How dominant they are depends on whether you're measuring iTunes (software) market share, iPod market share or iTunes Store market share.

Therefore, at this point, we strongly recommend iPod/Apple TV compatible files. These can play on Mac and PC computers using QuickTime Player, Miro Player or iTunes; can be synchronized with any video-capable iPod (including the iPhone) and also played through an Apple TV to a compatible Television. (As of mid 2007, about 70% of "podcasts" were played on the computer without iPod or Apple TV.) These same files will also play in Adobe's Flash Player 9 (Release 3 or later) and the Adobe Media Player.

What about Flash?

There's no doubt that Adobe's Flash format is ever present on the web. It is the most dominant format for video playback within a browser window, and will likely remain dominant for browser playback in the future. However, the podcast-like RSS feeds used by klickTab and Open Television Network do not display in a browser. They display in aggregator software like Apple's iTunes, Participatory Culture Foundation's Miro, or other media-capable RSS software. Fortunately, when Adobe added H.264 playback in Release 3 of Flash Player 9, they added playback support for the same files as Apple's iPod and Apple TV. One file will feed to either Apple's iTunes/iPod/Apple TV ecosystem, Miro or into Adobe Media Player (when released from Beta), which supports RSS feeds like those from Open Television Network.

For those not comfortable with encoding their own material, we recommend 10Flicks.com who offer encoding, hosting and metadata entry services for content owners. 10Flicks.com is an independent corporation from Open Television Network and Open Television Network disclaims responsibility for any action of 10Flicks.com.

The Simple way to encode for klickTab and Open Television Network

Although Apple publishes specifications for iPod and Apple TV, simply following those guidelines does not make the files truly iPod and Apple TV compatible. Therefore, regardless of the software you use, always start with a setting that explicitly states "iPod Compatible" or "Apple TV" compatible.

Note: When fed a standard definition sized image, the Apple TV setting will give the same results as the iPod setting. Apple TV settings give higher definition results from higher definition signals but these are not iPod playable because the iPod is hardware limited to a maximum of 640 x 480 when using H.264.

HD encodes for Apple TV will not synchronize with, or play on, 5G "video" iPods or the Apple iPhone. They will play through an Apple TV or on the Windows or Mac computer screen.

Our recommendation is to only use HD source and the Apple TV export when you know for sure your content will appeal to those who have an Apple TV or will view their content on their computer screen, or with a computer-to-TV cable. That means that the other 99% will encode to 640 x 480 maximum.

The simplest way to create content that is iPod and Apple TV compatible is to install Apple's free QuickTime software (included with iTunes on Windows and as a QuickTime installer for OS X). Then pruchase the US$29.95 upgrade from Apple to "QuickTime Pro" to unlock the export functions in QuickTime Player. (Owners of Apple Professional video products will have the Pro features of the QuickTime Player unlocked and do not need to purchase the QuickTime Pro upgrade.)

These instructions apply to QuickTime Player 7.1 or later. QuickTime 7.1 is required for the Apple TV export feature.

That's it. The QuickTime Exporter will handle all the conversion required. It will create 4:3 output from 4:3 input and 16:9 output from 16:9 input.

For 720P HD source, the file will be encoded at 720p24. For 1080i source the file will be encoded at 960 x 540. The result from 1080i is half the theoretical horizontal resolution, and one field of the interlaced video, which is why it is not necessary to de-interlace, as it is for the SD output. De-interlacing provides a much nicer image for computer playback and for iPod/Apple TV playback.

The only disadvantages of this very simple method is that there is no batch processing and the data rate will be somewhat higher than it absolutely needs to be. This can have an affect on profitability depending on the relationship between your file size and the cost-per-purchase.

For standard definition sources, the default "Export for iPod" will create a file that averages about 40% larger than it needs to be (depending on the visual content of your source footage). Although this method also uses a little higher bit rate for HD source than is absolutely necessary, the difference really isn't enough to justify the work involved.

Slightly more complex methods

There are some applications that allow more control over data rate and make iPod compatible movies. We recommend Episode Pro on Mac OS X and ProCoder on Windows. Sorenson Squeeze (Windows and Mac OS X) also exports iPod and Apple TV compatible files.

With these applications you will need to spend more time experimenting with the optimal settings for encoding as they each have different methods of de-interlacing.

With these applications we recommend pre-processing:

We do not recommend cropping for HD source.

We do recommend using Two Pass VBR encoding so that bits are allocated where they are needed. Because the file is downloaded before playing, peaks in the bit rate are easily accommodated.

For SD source, encoded to iPod compatible video, we recommend a data rate (for video) of around 768 Kbits/sec average with peaks allowed to 1000 Kbit/sec. This is well below the default of 1200 Kbit/sec for video.

Tip: You can use the pre-processing tips in Simple Encoding recipes for the Web instead of experimenting on your own (for Apple Compressor, Episode Pro and for Sorenson Squeeze).