General video encoding guidelines:
Here are some frame size and bitrate guidelines. Bitrate needs vary by content, there’s great info on how to determine the perfect bitrate here.
SD 4:3 format:
- frame size: 640 x 480
- video codec: H.264
- video bitrate: 800 – 1000 kbps
SD 16:9 format:
- frame sizes:
- 853 x 480
- 720 x 404
- 640 x 360
- video codec: H.264
- video bitrate: 1000 – 1200 kbps
HD formats:
540
- frame size: 960 x 540 – this is a nice HD size for MOD Machine delivery – will fit on a small laptop
- video codec: H.264
- video bitrate: 1200 – 1400 kbps
720
- frame size: 1280 x 720
- video codec: H.264
- video bitrate: 1400 – 2200 kbps (NOTE: some older, slower computers will start to have some trouble decoding 1800 kbps+ H.264)
Computer screen capture:
Because computer screen capture doesn’t have many pixels changing from frame to frame, you can usually encode at a much lower bitrate than the guidelines above. Again, use SampleLab in DV Kitchen to be sure. Also, computer capture screen sizes will vary widely. Remember that some of your customers will want to watch on laptops with smaller screens, so capture at the smallest size you can where you are still happy with the screen areas at which you’re capturing.
Audio for all video sizes:
- audio codec: AAC (sometimes called “MPEG-4 audio”)
- audio bitrate:
- 128 -144 kbps mono (speech only)
- 128 -144 kbps stereo (speech and music)
- 224 -256 kbps stereo (music high quality)
- 320 kbps stereo (music ultra high quality)
