Editing Video
We don't always have the option of recording our own source material. Sometimes we must use pre-existing video material that may be less than desirable in terms of a stable video image.
Video editing software allows you to crop the video image, and this is a good way of removing excess motion from your streaming video. The video should also be edited to remove excessively active scenes whenever possible.
Most video editing software allows you to add extra sound-tracks. A music soundtrack can really give your video a professional polish. Try adding music or special sound effects at key points, such as scene transitions and during the opening and closing credits.
Delivery Options
Video streaming works by delivering a steady flow of data, so obviously, people with faster Internet connections can receive larger amounts of data (in this case, video). Faster data streams allow you to provide a larger video image, or a less compressed video with more motion.
When you create online streaming video you may not know how your viewers are going to be connecting to the Internet (either with broadband or a dial-up Internet connection). Therefore, it is best to produce different versions of your streaming video to accommodate a variety of connection speeds.
This way you can create a small dimension video for dial-up connections, and a larger dimension video with more motion for broadband connections.
Keyframes and Compression
There are four factors that affect the level of video compression: movement, dimensions, framerate and keyframes. More movement in a video clip results in a larger sized video file, and video clips of larger dimensions also require more space. Frame rate is the number of frames per second in the video. Higher frame rates (i.e. 24 fps) create larger video files.
Keyframes are uncompressed images which are spaced evenly throughout the video file. The frequency of keyframes is the key frame rate, so if you have a frame rate of 10 fps and a key frame rate of once/5 frames, your keyframes are coming at a rate of two per second.
A high key frame rate (such as once every 5 frames) will give you a larger file size than a low key frame rate (such as once every 50 frames). Videos with a lot of motion require a high key frame rate or else they will look too choppy. The larger file requirements of high key frame rates are better suited for broadband streaming video, so when you create online streaming video for dial-up connections, try to keep the frame rate as low as possible while maintaining a smooth video image.
Encoding
Your video editing software probably gives you several choices of streaming video formats. Besides the choice of format, you can set the encoding options for image quality, video dimensions, audio quality, frame rate, and key frame rate.
Try saving your video in different formats and with different settings to see what gives you the best combination of image quality and file size.
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