Section 13.1. Make the Big Screen Tiny

13.1. Make the Big Screen Tiny

All of the techniques described in this chapter assume that you've exported your iMovie production as a QuickTime movie (see Chapter 12).

Now, you could post your 24- frames -per-second, 640 x 480, stereo-CD-quality sound motion picture on your Web page. But you'd have to include instructions that say, "Please download my movie! It's only 2 GBabout five days of continuous downloading with a 56 K modem. But trust me, it's worth the wait!"

A vast audience still connects to the Internet using an ordinary telephone-line modem, such as a 28.8 K or 56 K model. These modems receive data very slowly, so they're not very well equipped for receiving video from the Internet.

If you expect anyone to actually watch your movies, therefore, you, like thousands of Internet moviemakers before you, will have to make your Web-based movies tiny. To make your movie watchable by people with telephone-line modems, use the Expert settings described on page 295 to specify:

• A frame size of 160 x 120

• The H.263 or Sorenson 3 codec

• A frame rate of no more than 12 frames per second

• A monaural soundtrack, not stereo

If the need to downsize your movie like this doesn't crush your artistic pride , the worst is over. Here, then, is how you can make your videos available to the universe.