Adobe Media Encoder - H.264 or QT encoding?

Heya guys, I'm new around here and first I'd like to say hello to the awesome community of creators that is pond5!

I have a small newb question that's been bothering me:
Since pond5 absolutely insists on .mov container file format, which option should I use while exporting through Adobe Media Encoder? If I use Format: QT I can choose the H.264 codec and tweak it to max quality, but there is no 2-pass encoding option and the files are of absolutely humongous size (often >500mb for a 20 sec clip). On the other hand, Format: H.264 outputs to .mp4, which i can recontain through Streamclip, and it does offer 2-pass VBR encoding, 1-keyframe and all but is limited to 50mbps...

So, which one should I use? Are 50mbps H.264 clips acceptable to pond5 or should I stick with massive 1-pass basic H.264 offered by QT output module?

p.s. I mainly shoot on Canon650D with its native H.264 which is considerably less than 50mbps.. on the other hand I do CC most of my footage so Pr does do complete recompression.

For Qt with H264 limit data rate acccording to your footage and set keyframe to 1. If you have gradient like surfaces use a greater data rate - the exact rate you get it by trial and error. 50 mb(bit not byte!) may not be sufficient in some cases. If you have details and lots of motion you need an even higher data rate. H264 is a very capable and underestimated codec.


Also, you can use Photojpeg, with around 85% quality.

Hmm, I see you point on the gradients ( for some unfathomable reason a weak spot of all lossy codecs since the beginning of time) On the other hand, since I am shooting at less than 50mbps, I don't think I can degrade the footage any more than what happened at the moment of recording...

Funny you should mention gradients, because atm I do mostly wide sky landscape shots and banding as well as artifacting is THE major problem I have to contend with. I did some experiments with PJPG at 90+ and I wasn't really satisfied with results - artifacting is more pronounced and in such a way that NR software such as NeatVideo is less able to recognize and remove later on. H.264 produces nice blocky artifacts which are much easier to detect and thus remove (as paradoxical as it may sound)...

But I digress, my main question is, in your opinion, is 50mps data rate limitation a worthy price for 2-pass encoding? Or should I stick to basic QT module knowing it isn't really pushing all the bits in their right place? And why doesn't QT Adobe encoder feature a 2-pass option?

Stick with PJPEG, it's accepted everywhere and has been a long time standard. There are dozens of discussions here. Do a simple h264 search in the forum and you will have books of discussion. But yes, expect a 20 second clip to be 300-500 or more Mb.