t Windows Media or Silverlight deployment : The Windows Media format is
your safest option, though more recent versions of Silverlight can play H.264
files. If producing H.264 for Silverlight, follow the Flash rules provided earlier,
since Silverlight should play any file produced for Flash.
In general, the Adobe Premiere Pro presets are proven and will work for your
intended purpose. Don’t adjust parameters when encoding for devices or optical
discs, because changes that seem subtle can render the files unplayable. Even with
other presets, resist the urge to tinker unless you know what you’re doing from an
encoding perspective. Most Adobe Premiere Pro presets are conservative and will
deliver very good quality using the default values, so you probably won’t improve
the output by tinkering, and you could even degrade it considerably.
Now let’s work through a specific example of producing a file for a mobile device.
Exporting to mobile devices With the array of mobile devices that support video, it would be nice if there were
a way to see what a video project would look like on various mobile devices. That
is exactly what Adobe Device Central is designed to provide. In this exercise, you
will export your project to Adobe Device Central and see how your video looks on
various mobile devices.
Most mobile devices, such as iPods and 3GPP (third-generation) cell phones, sup-
port video encoded in the H.264 format. Two flavors of H.264 are available in the
Adobe Media Encoder Format menu:
t H.264 : This is an MPEG4–based standard for encoding for a variety of
devices, including high-definition displays, 3GPP cell phones, video iPods,
and PlayStation Portable (PSP) devices.
t H.264 Blu-ray : This is an MPEG4–based standard for encoding in high-
definition for Blu-ray Disc media.
You’ll be using H.264 for this exercise.
