Encoding for enterprise streaming

When working with enterprise communications, one faces the challenge of distribution to varying locations with various bandwidth limitations. To effectively reach an entire organization with streaming video, one must encode the video at a rate which all employees can view. In this blog, I’ll discuss the optimal way to encode your video for distribution with the least amount of quality loss.

For this write-up I’ll be using screen shots from Apple’s Compressor. These settings however can easily be translated to Adobe Media Encoder, or any other video encoding software.

To begin, lets look at the compression type, bitrate, frame rate, and encoding settings. First the compression type; there are hundreds of different codecs one can use, I recommend using H.264. You will then want to set the frame rate of the video to no lower than 24fps for fluid playback. You will also want to adjust the bitrate to accommodate for the members of your organization with the slowest network speeds. Typically 350kbps will suffice. Now make sure that your encode is optimized for streaming, and that your compressor is set for a multi-pass encode. These settings will give you the best video quality and stream size for enterprise distribution.

We’ll now cover settings for your audio. Once again there are many different ways to encode your audio, I will however only address the one I feel best fit for low-bandwidth distribution. My codec of choice is AAC, or “Advanced Audio Coding.” I then recommend a target bit rate around 40kbps. All other settings can stay at their defaults.

And finally I would like to address the frame size. I suggest not exceeding 640×480 with the settings previously mentioned. Any larger and your viewers will notice a large amount of pixilation.

If you have any questions pertaining streaming video for enterprise distribution feel free to contact me at, bwilliams@kzoinnovations.com