Best practices for recording video

Thinking through how you will record your video(s) is the best way to save time and mitigate issues with then uploading your files to the web.

Bigger files will take longer and be more challenging to upload. Both recording time (length of video) and resolution settings (high definition vs. standard definition) contribute to file size. A long video recorded at a high resolution will be a larger file than a short video at the same resolution or even a long video recorded at a lower resolution. For device-specific advice and recording steps, please refer to our general Recording Video help section.

Below are some general tips to follow.

 

Adjusting your resolution and video format settings

While not all devices let you adjust resolution settings, if you have access to camera settings, you may look into lowering the recording resolution to standard definition (720p). Moreover, on Apple devices, we recommend changing the output format from "High efficiency" to "Most compatible" (or something similar).

 

Recording long videos

If you know you will be recording a long video (e.g. 10 or more minutes), you may want to segment your recordings. In other words, if you’re recording for example an hour of video, you may want to stop the recording every 10 minutes and essentially “create” 6 different video clips for that hour. This will make uploading easier instead of uploading one big file at once.

 

Trimming/clipping your videos

If you’re unable to stop and restart the recording process, then we recommend “trimming” your long video into smaller segments once you’ve finished recording. If you are using a smart device (phone or tablet) you most likely have trimming capabilities on the device. Please refer to your device’s manual or documentation to make use of this feature.

If you are using a traditional camera or the webcam on your computer to record, you may then use free online trimming tools or desktop applications on your computer, such as Windows Movie Maker or iMovie for Mac.


Ultimately, adjusting both the recording resolution and optimizing length of recorded video will yield the best results for upload speeds. For more information on uploads, please refer to our Uploading Video help section.

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