by Marc Silverman
HipFlics 1.1.1
Totally Hip Software
Phone: (604) 685-6525
Online: http://www.totallyhip.com
Company Price: $99.95
Technical Requirements: 333MHz Power Mac or faster, Mac OS 8.6 or later, 20Mb of
RAM, QuickTime 4.1.2 (full install) or later
Reviewed by:
Marc Silverman
[email protected]
An Overview of Video File Size
We're all producing videos on our Macs now, or so it seems. iMovie, FinalCut Pro, and that old sawhorse Adobe Premiere are enabling any person with the desire to make a movie to become an independent, walking-talking movie production studio.
But one of the major complications of desktop video is the immense file size necessary to give us full motion video. In order to create what's known as "broadcast quality" video, we need to have each frame 640 pixels wide by 480 pixels tall, and we need 30 of them per second, for every second of the length of our video clip. Simple math provides some staggering results (if you don't want the math, just go ahead and skip to the next paragraph): 640 x 480 = 307,200 pixels; each pixel is in the RGB format with 3 layers: 307,200 x 3 = 921,600; divide that by 1024 to turn it to kilobytes and you get 900k per frame - the same size a color image of these dimensions opens in Photoshop. A 30 second video clip is 900k x 30 (frames per second) x 30 (seconds in length) = 810,000k, or in more understandable terms: 810 Megs(!) for 30 seconds of "broadcast quality" video.
The requirement for video on the computer is to lessen the size of that 810 Meg file as much as possible without sacrificing image quality. When we consider that on the Internet smaller file sizes are of the utmost importance, we can grasp the necessity of outputting smaller sized video files.
How is this done? First, we toss out our "broadcast quality" prerequisite. On the Internet and on our computer screens, a smaller sized image is acceptable. So we can decide that a width and height of perhaps 320 x 240 will be okay, or even 160 x 120. In these two cases we'd lower our file size by half or by three quarters respectively. (to 405 megs or 202 Megs - still rather large).
Second, we lower the number of frames per second for our video. TV's 30 frames per second is simply too much data for our computers to process, so we can cut our frame rate to 15 fps, or even 10 fps, lessening our file size by half or two-thirds more respectively. (to 202 Megs or 67 Megs for the above examples - now we're getting somewhere).
Finally, just like the compression methods in an imaging application like Adobe Photoshop, we can apply compression to the image data itself, much like saving a file in the JPG or GIF format, which lessens the size of the file by applying calculations based on pixels and neighboring pixels. This can lower our final file to 5% to 25% of its original size - I'll use 10% - which results in a file size of about 20 Megs or 7 Megs for our two examples.
We were able to compress our 810 Meg file to about 1% of it's original size in order to use it on the Internet or on our computer screen.
What HipFlics does
This is the essence of HipFlics. It takes your original digital video and performs these three major compression schemes in combination to let you create video files at sizes small enough for a variety of purposes.
HipFlics is an easy to use video enhancement and compression tool. Compressing video using HipFlics will process your movies that were exported from FinalCut Pro, iMovie, or any other popular video editing package and prepare them for Internet or on screen delivery. File Sizes can be reduced over 50 times from a multitude of formats and your video image quality will still be clear and clean.
HipFlics has built in presets for certain levels of compression, both video compression presets and audio compression presets. And you can easily create and save your own as well.
A Basic Overview of Compression
Audio and Video is compressed using Codecs which use specific compression schemes to lower the file size. There are 21 built in video compression Codecs ("COmpression/DECompression" schemes) in HipFlics, as shown in the Compression pull-down menu.
Sticking to the Macintosh for the purposes of this review, two Video Codecs are of utmost importance: Sorenson Video and Sorenson Video 3. Using the Sorenson Video Codec will output video which is viewable by anyone with QuickTime installed on their computer - Macs or PCs - and is compatible with older versions of QuickTime back to version 3. Using the Sorenson Video 3 Codec will create video viewable with Quicktime versions 4 or 5. (All of the examples I've posted on my web site used the Sorenson Video Codec. You can view them at: http://www.silvermarc.com/video)
The Codecs we favor for audio compression are QDesign for Music, and QualComm PureVoice for voice tracks. These provide the high quality results, and are still fully adjustable. Although the purpose of this review is not to go into the details of compression, this brief overview should serve you for a range of purposes.
The HipFlics Application
HipFlics provides video editors with a familiar work environment - the timeline. Just drag and drop a Codec (or multiple codecs) onto the Video and Audio timelines and press the Process button. Double-click the timeline to view the complete Codec settings. When you've determined the right settings for your project, you can create a "Droplet" for Batch Processing. Just drag one or more files onto the Droplet and they'll all be processed.
The HipFlics application also provides these useful features and utilities:
- Full QuickTime 5 support
- Preset and custom video compression
- Preset and custom audio compression
- Support for multiple compressors (Codecs) in a single movie
- Preset and custom filters you can build
- Video cropping and resizing
- Custom video watermarking
- Rotating or flipping your video
- Batch processing of multiple projects
- Result comparison "live" with the Before & After windows
- View filter effects with the 4-up window
- Retains movie processing settings and original video
- Processes and exports QuickTime movies
HipFlics has a built-in watermarking feature that lets you place your logo onto your video. Any Photoshop or other image with an "alpha channel" can be used for the watermark.
QuickTime's Hidden Features
There are quite a number of unexpected features hidden within Apple's QuickTime application that can be utilized by certain applications - Adobe Premiere taps the set of special filters built into QuickTime - and so, of course, does HipFlics.
Filters to adjust Color, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and even some special effects like Lens Flare, Film Scratches, Embossing, Blurring and Sharpening can be accessed with HipFlics directly from QuickTime and used in your video.
Will HipFlics do the trick?
HipFlics compares favorably with Media Cleaner, but at an affordable price. Media Cleaner is a high end professional compression tool not only for QuickTime output but for outputting other formats of video and audio. HipFlics is an easy to use compression tool for those who don't need the power or the complexity of Media Cleaner. Some users, myself included, find that HipFlics can completely replace Media Cleaner for their purposes. You can see for yourself by downloading a demo version to give it a try.
HipFlics has some limitations. If you need to output files in any other format, like Windows Media or Real Media, you'll have to look elsewhere. But QuickTime is as easy an install on the PC as it is on the Mac, and the HipFlics application is available on both platforms. For the purpose of outputting your video for viewing on a computer or a web site, it just can't be beat for what it does at its low price.
Pros: Low price. Plenty of useful features. 4-up compression preview window. Easy to learn.
Cons: Supports only QuickTime-movie output.
Marc Silverman is a Manhattan-based web developer and producer of film and video title sequences and effects. All of the video samples posted on his web site http://www.silvermarc.com/video were compressed with HipFlics.