Tutorials & tips
Mobile video is much like all other video but there are things you can do to improve it ..
Video in general
The guys over at Make Internet TV have made some really good guides as to what kind of recording equipment to get depending on your needs. Also they have some tips on shooting video and a really good introduction to editing video no matter if you use a PC, Mac or Linux.
Because there is so much to learn about general video production over at Make Internet TV we will focus on giving you a few tips on things specific for mobile video. This section will grow over time so stop by once in a while if you want to keep learning..
Mobile video - Time
Keep your videos fairly short we recommend less than or max 1 minute, because:
- Not all handsets support long videos, if you want to make sure your video works on all handsets, keep it below 1 minute.
- The longer the video, the bigger the file which means longer download times and bigger data bills for the downloader.
- Mobile screen screen sizes vary between small and tiny and most people don't want to watch long clips on their mobiles.
Mobile video - Movement
If you want the best visual quality and smallest file sizes:
- Avoid shaky camera movements, fast pans, zooms and tilts. Video shot using a tripod looks much better than handheld on mobiles.
- Keep the scene changes as few as possible and don't have more cuts than needed.
Mobile video - Colours, Light and size
- Details in dark areas of the screen often disappears on mobile screens, so try to keep the scenes fairly well lit if possible or at least be aware that any fine details especially in dark areas might not be noticeable on some mobile screens.
- When using text and graphics in your videos remember that it needs to be viewable on a variety of screen sizes from high resolution displays down to 128x96 pixels screens. In this example you can see that text looking big and nice on a 320x240 pixels screen is impossible to read on 128x96.
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