Video and audio techniques

Explanations and tutorials on technical concepts related to video and audio. How to avoid blurry movies, remove the background, reduce shaky footage, improve sound, and how to reduce background noise, etc..

What bitrate for HLS adaptive streaming video?

HLS ideal bitrates

Update 30 July 2022 What bitrate to use for HLS adaptive streaming video is a question many people struggle with. Bitrate (or “Bit rate” in proper English) is the amount of bits needed to produce a second of video footage. In this tutorial we try to give you the ideal bitrate to use per video … Read more

How to fix subtitle problems in foreign languages

Foreign subtitles errors

Subtitles in foreign languages can give strange results.  Here we show how to fix various problems with a French subtitle vtt file as an example, embedded in JW Player. NOTE: JW Player 7.7 and above solved the issue with special characters, while lower versions and various other players give problems. Some languages pose no problems, but as … Read more

Using royalty free stock video and audio

Update 1 June 2016: This was a review of Revostock, which has been killed off by a Patent Troll. Revostock was founded in 2006, a library which offered royalty free stockvideo, stockaudio and sound effects. It was the first to sell Adobe After Effects templates to use in video projects. Like many image libraries it contained professional and … Read more

How to create captions/subtitles for video and audio in WebVTT, SRT, DFXP format

Updated: 15 March 2019. This tutorial shows how easy it is to create captions/subtitles files in WebVTT, SRT and DFXP format for subtitling in videos and audios. Depending on the media player you use, you can even provide subtitles in different languages for the same media. Subtitle files are basically text files you can write … Read more

How to encode a video simultaneously for web, iPhone, iPad, iPod & other handheld devices using HandBrake

Update 30 July 2022 You want to ensure that everyone, or at least most people can watch your video? Then you have to create a video that works on the web and mobile devices such as iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and other handheld devices. This is not evident and you may count on it that … Read more

Converting video to streaming MP4 for S3 Amazon with AVS Video Converter

Some video converters do not get it right when converting video to MP4 to stream on S3 Amazon/CloudFront. Especially the cheaper converters like AVS Video Converter for Windows tend to have problems. Luckily, there is a trick to fix this problem. Here you find a video tutorial on how to get the correct settings from … Read more

TimedText and how to use it

TimedText is a convention to place subtitles in videos without actually embed them in the video itself.  This has huge advantages over embedded (hardcoded) subtitles because you can use the same video while using different languages, depending where you show it.   TimedText can be used in two ways: Closed Captions or Open Captions. Closed … Read more

Broadcast quality audio for video interviews

Regarding audio and video, there is huge difference between broadcasting quality and podcasting or play back from computer. Although computer sound cards are getting better, it lacks way behind in comparison with professional audio equipment. This article shows a couple of pitfalls you have to avoid if there is a chance that you interview is not only watched from the web but also on fairs with professional PA systems.

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Action! How techniques from the film industry can be useful for video

Shooting a video in one go is fine for straightforward interviews or short presentations but when it comes to complicated subjects, we often have to cut a video into pieces. When finished, we assemble everything in post production and glue the parts together. Sometimes, it can be difficult to recognize from the thumbnails in the … Read more