How to Identify and Solve Web Video Production Problems Before They Occur

By Mike Kirsch, Director of DotLot, The Buddy Group

An important trait of any successful video producer is the ability to troubleshoot problems quickly and effectively. To the end client, efficiency and quality of final delivery is just as important as killer front-end creative. For the online space, “quality of delivery” expands to include visual quality of an online video, speed of download or buffer time and smoothness of playback. When problems arise, quick solutions win the day, but in many cases problems can be avoided altogether if they are anticipated before they occur. Recognizing certain “Red Flags” of web video production is the first step towards making sure they never cause problems at all.

Picking the right combination of settings to maximize the playability of a video means juggling a slew of settings while prepping that clip for final export. It’s no accident that the number of visitors to a site is referred to as “traffic”. The internet is not unlike a freeway. The speed at which a given piece of video will play is limited by the bandwidth of a server (the number of lanes) and the total number of current users (the number of cars on the road). There are other factors, too. “Bitrate” refers to the amount of data encoded in a video file for each second of runtime. Higher bitrates mean better image quality, but the higher the bitrate, the more data there is that must stream before the video can play. In the freeway analogy, this might correlate to the steepness of a hill. As hills get steeper (higher bitrate), it takes more power (bandwidth) to climb at a given speed. Without sufficient bandwidth, you’ll either need to reduce the bitrate of the video or risk sliding backwards down the hill, causing an accident, and wrecking your car (client relationship). Believe it or not there are even more factors than those mentioned above! Resolution, length, frame rate and even visual content all factor in, but the freeway analogy gets more complicated from here, so let’s just talk in terms of general considerations.

When planning a project that is going to involve video, the first thing that needs to be determined is the intended audience. Who is going to watch it? What type of connection are they expected to have? How many users will potentially be accessing the site at one time? Understanding the intended use and distribution of a website and its videos will help dictate the parameters that should be used to prepare the final files. Someone with experience producing and encoding videos for the web should always be consulted when planning a video project, but the following list can serve as some basic Red Flags to help identify issues that will require further investigation.

• Bitrates over 400kbps
  • Some videos look fine at bitrates of 400 or less. In instances where there are a lot of smaller textual elements or a lot of quick motion, higher bitrates may be necessary in order to achieve acceptable visual quality. Higher bitrate, though, means longer download times and more bandwidth costs.
• Frame Rates above 15fps
  • Video on television typically plays at either 24 or 30 fps (frames per second). For the web, the standard is to cut the native frame rate in half, which reduces file size and bandwidth needs. Tests have shown that higher frame rates place more load on a user’s CPU than higher bitrates, which means that from a user-end perspective, lower frame rates will increase performance dramatically. The drawback is that video looks choppier as frame rate is reduced. In videos with a lot of fast motion, pans or small details, this can lead to strobing and other issues. If a client requests video at 30fps, take note. This could cause a problem later.
• Resolution
  • 320×240 used to be the industry standard for web video. As broadband connections get more common, the capability for producers to go live with larger videos increases. Be aware that larger videos mean longer load times and higher bandwidth needs. Always compare requested video resolution to the other involved factors to determine if a video will work at a given size.
• Running Time
  • A 10 second video at 900kbps running a 30fps may not pose a huge problem. A 2 minute video with those same parameters will likely not play properly on most computers. If a client is planning a site with a series of videos longer than 15-20 seconds, then length becomes an issue that will have ramifications on video quality.
• Screen Content
  • If the creative call for a lot of on-screen textual information, charts, closed captioning or other small details, then the videos will need to be played larger and at higher bitrates in order to be clear and legible.
• Transparency
  • Interactive videos that are intended to be laid over other web content using alpha channels are always a cause for concern. Even though the alpha channel information is invisible, it still draws bandwidth and CPU power, not to mention the bandwidth required by all the stuff we see through the transparent layer.