Codecs

H.264 / AAC

A codec is the format in which your video will be encoded. Different codecs have different features and varying quality. For best results, we recommend using H.264 (sometimes referred to as MP4) for the video codec and AAC (short for Advanced Audio Codec) for the audio codec. If you're on a Windows machine, WMV3 is a good choice for video codec.
Frame rate

30 FPS

If there is an option that says "current," it is best to just go with that. Otherwise, this is usually 30 fps (frames per second) for USA, Canada, and Japan, while in Europe and rest of the world it's usually 25 fps. If there is an option for keyframes, use the same value you used for framerate.
Data rate

2000 kbits/sec (SD) / 5000 kbits/sec (HD)

This setting controls both the visual quality of the video and how big the file will be. In most video editors, this is done in terms of kilobits per second (kbits/sec or kbps). Use 2000 kbits/sec for standard definition 4:3 video, 3000 kbits/sec for widescreen DV, or 5000 kbits/sec for high definition footage.
Resolution

640x480 (SD) / 1280x720 (HD)

640x480 for standard definition 4:3 video, 853x480 for widescreen DV, and 1280x720 or 1920x1080 for high definition. If you have the option to control the pixel aspect ratio (not display aspect ratio) make sure it's set to "1:1" or "1.00", also sometimes called "square pixels."
Deinterlacing

YES

If you have this option, enable it. If you shoot in DV format, this is an especially important. If you do not deinterlace, you will often get weird-looking horizontal lines in your video.
Audio

320 kbps / 44.100 kHz

Choose AAC for the audio codec. You'll want to set the bit rate to 320 kbps and the sample rate to 44.100 kHz.
Format

MP4

While we like MP4 the best, we will generally accept any of the following formats: 3g2, 3gp, 3gp2, 3gpp, asf, asx, avi, divx, mts, m2t, m2ts, m2v, m4v, mkv, mov, mp4, mpe, mpeg, mpg, ogg, wmv.

Those are the basic principles that will apply to almost all of the video programs out there. Eugenia, an active member in the Vimeo community, has made some tutorials for specific programs that you can view:

General compression guidelines

Okay, we're going to be honest with you: there's no way we can make exporting/compression guides for every kind of video software on the market. It's just overwhelming! However, we do want to give you some guidelines for compressing your videos for Vimeo, so look over these tips, find the corresponding settings in your software, and you should be able to make it work for you.

Note: Sometimes these settings are in "Advanced" or "Options" when exporting.

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