Shooting for Compression

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All videographers have to deal with the reality of compression. Compression is used to reduce the file size of a video image to fit it more easily into an available space. Even the Mini DV format uses a compressed data format that allows an hour or so of digital video to fit on a small tape. DVD video is even more compressed to fit on optical discs. To pass through the small data pipeline, video distributed on the Web has to be compressed to an extreme degree. This is commonly achieved by lowering resolution (image size) and decreasing frame rate (speed) to eliminate significant amounts of data.

Highly compressed video tends to exhibit some common problems. Reducing the number of frames will reduce the file size, but can result in video that jitters and stutters. Reducing the resolution of your video too much causes pixelization when displayed at full-screen (which many viewers prefer).

Perhaps it is easiest to post video that is blocky and jerky and curse the limitations of the Web, but there are ways to improve your results. With careful shooting, you can create videos that compress easier and stream better on the Web. In this article we'll discuss how to shoot video for compr…