Optimise video for the web
When you are uploading a video to Sitebuilder, it's important to remember that visitors might be downloading them on a wide range of devices and from different locations around the world. When your video is ready to upload, you should convert it to a form that's ready for the web.
Note: The details of how to encode video will depend on the software you use, but most applications have their own help articles to assist you with this. Once you have settings you are happy with, you can usually save them as a preset to re-use on future videos.
In the future SiteBuilder may offer to perform some conversions for you when you upload a large video, but you'll always get the best results if you are able to do it manually, as you can fine tune settings for the balance of size and quality that you're happy with.
General rules for all video
Resolution: Up to 1280x720
If you want a video to be displayed full screen at reasonable quality, then 720p (1280x720 pixels) is adequate for most purposes. Not many visitors will notice the difference if a video is in 4K, but the experience for those viewing it on slower connections will be poor and it will also consume a large amount of data for visitors on mobile connections.
If you are displaying the video in a smaller format, such as embedded in the page, you can try smaller sizes such as 854x480.
Quality
Where possible, use variable bit rate (sometimes called constant quality). This allows less data to be used when there is little motion, and more when there's a lot of detail or action, to maintain overall quality across the video.
Each codec has its own quality scale - for h.264, between 20-28 is a good range, so we recommend starting with 25 and adjusting from there based on your requirements.
If for some reason you need to use a constant bit rate, try to keep it below 2mbps.
General encoding settings
These options might appear under different names depending on the software you use:
- Web Optimised: Arranges file data so that the most important information is at the start, meaning your video can start to play straight away.
- Slow/Very Slow: Makes your editing software take more time to achieve the best encoding. This will take longer to generate the file, but generally results in a smaller final file size.
Autoplaying videos
Videos that play automatically (at the top of a home page, for example) are subject to additional size restrictions, because visitors to the site are not given the choice of whether or not to download it.
Files under 10MB
Ideally files should be much smaller than this. If videos do not involve a lot of motion, then variable bit rate (see Quality, above) should help to reduce the file size a lot. If your video involves a lot of motion, reconsider if it's really appropriate to play automatically to users.