Configuring low data rate adaptive streams

When you configure a group of adaptive streaming files, you produce some files at relatively low data rates. With these files, you have several options to preserve quality, including lowering the resolution, the frame rate or both. Lower resolutions preserve frame quality but can look pixelated when scaled for display. Higher resolutions avoid scaling artifacts, but frame quality can suffer. Dropping the frame rate preserves smoothness, but drops frame quality.

Below you can see the same source video encoded at 5 configurations, all to 300 kbps. These include:

640x480x15 fps

640x480x30 fps

400x300x15 fps

320x240x15 fps

320x240x30 fps

As you can see in the screen grab, they’re all roughly the same size.

allsame.png

Have a look and see which one looks best, and if you have a strong opinion, let us know via a comment.

640x480x15 fps

About Jan Ozer

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I help companies train new technical hires in streaming media-related positions; I also help companies optimize their codec selections and encoding stacks and evaluate new encoders and codecs. I am a contributing editor to Streaming Media Magazine, writing about codecs and encoding tools. I have written multiple authoritative books on video encoding, including Video Encoding by the Numbers: Eliminate the Guesswork from your Streaming Video (https://amzn.to/3kV6R1j) and Learn to Produce Video with FFmpeg: In Thirty Minutes or Less (https://amzn.to/3ZJih7e). I have multiple courses relating to streaming media production, all available at https://bit.ly/slc_courses. I currently work as www.netint.com as a Senior Director in Marketing.

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