How to Produce Video for the Web

December 21st, 2007

&&As I wrote in my previous entry, there is a huge shift in how video is published. During the past several months, I have been using my iPhone more and more to watch videos. This is true for video podcasts, news, television shows and much more.

Reels in Motion has been producing these types of videos for clients for quite some time and we’ve learned what works and what doesn’t. Here are some things we’d like to share:

Keep it Short
Our audio-only podcasts have been averaging around one hour. This is a happy medium for several reasons. However, when producing content that will be delivered as video, the best time we’ve found is around 3 to 5 minutes. And even 5 minutes is pushing it a bit too long.
People (myself included) can listen to longer form audio only forms while driving, jogging, biking, etc. These activities lend themselves to longer blocks of time. This is why talk radio and long form radio shows like NPR work.

Video is a different beast. We watch video in short pauses in our day. While waiting in lines, quick breaks at lunch at work, etc. This is why most popular YouTube videos are in this shorter time frame. Anything longer takes much more commitment of time and we begin to ask, “is this video worth my time?” At three minutes long, we don’t think about it. We watch it.

So when you decide to make a video, keep the show to around 3 minutes.

Flash Me!
I entirely Mac based. I edit all my videos in Final Cut Studio and everything is in the Quicktime format. It is a great format. However, not everyone has the H.264 “flavor” of Quicktime on their machine. They can download it for free, but that’s an extra step.

So I post my videos as Flash videos so anyone can watch them on the website. However, I also advocate encoding the videos as H.264 Quicktime files. These files end in .m4v and can be played on portable players like iPods and iPhones.

And the bonus? With Flash’s newest player (version 9), you can play H.264 Quicktime files INSIDE a Flash player. What does this mean?

From a web visitor’s point of view, they appear to be watching a Flash video. 99% of all machines will play it. On the backend, you’ve got one Quicktime file (H.264) that can be fed into that Flash video and also be fed into an RSS feed for iTunes, iPhones and other players.

So you get twice the market penetration. You are now catering to the PC world and the Mac world.

Conclusion
These are just a few suggestions from what we have learned when producing video for the Internet. Broadcasting video online can be tricky to do correctly.

We’ll be posting more tips in this series as well as launching our new show, “Angie’s Phalangies” in the coming weeks. Stay tuned! In the meantime, please have a very Merry Christmas!

Scott

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