Merging Videos – How To Ensure Same Resolution – Part 1

Like all creative works a web video too has its own share of things to mark its quality. That may be well said but to be true, a good video’s ‘share of things’ is indeed a long list.

What strikes to a lay visitor as a good web video is actually a combination of 2 main factors. There is the conceptual part, or composing a video if you like. This falls in the domain of how you want the story in the video to unfold, carry on, and conclude.

The other factor responsible for a good web video is purely technical. Questions like “Is the audio pitched too high?”, “Does the web video become blurred in patches?”, “Is the size of the video too heavy?”, “Are the transitions appearing haltingly?”, and so on belong here.

In this part-1 of the two-part series we shall look into the aspect of maintaining same resolution of 2 or more videos when planning to merge them into a single end video. As to why it is needed, read this informative article on principles of merging web videos.

Same Dimensions For All Elements

Depending on where you want your video to run, the end dimensions will vary accordingly. In most cases people upload videos to YouTube and then embed it using the YouTube code.

Now, if you look closely, YouTube videos appear hazy in many cases (likely to improve with the acquisition of On2 Technologies), but people prefer it anyway perhaps because they otherwise find it difficult to embed their videos in their websites (find out more video uploading/sharing options).

YouTube recommends video resolution as 1920×1080 or 1280×720 for best results, conforming to the 16:9 aspect ratio. If your computer cannot accommodate 1920×1080 or 1280×720 resolution, then scale down the resolution to say 1200×675 or maybe 1120×630, all the while maintaining the same aspect ratio.

While merging 2 or more types of videos, always start from that type which cannot be changed or rather difficult to change. Say you’ve a webcam movie 640×480 resolution (4:3 aspect ratio). Now, rather than changing this resolution it is better that all other video types like flash, screencast, PowerPoint, etc. be made exactly as per this resolution.

Then again, if the videocam movie is 1280×720 and if your computer cannot accommodate it, scale it down to say 1200×675 resolution and then record all the other video types exactly as 1200×675.

Same Dimensions At Every Stage

There are at least 3 stages of web video making…recording, editing, and producing. During each stage the size/dimension is an important factor to consider.

In the preceding section above, the need for maintaining same dimension has been stressed at the time of recording each type of video. The same logic applies when it is the time to edit the videos together for combining and also while finally producing it.

The following video example shows how black patches appear in the periphery surrounding a video component when its dimensions are less than that of the final video.

Maintaining Aspect Ratio

On many occasions you may want to embed your video in a space that is just not enough to accommodate the original resolution. Suppose, for example, the original resolution of your end video is 640×480 pixels, and you want to embed it at a place where the space on the webpage is no more than 430 pixels wide and 350 pixels in height.

Since the end video has 4:3 aspect ratio, so in this particular case you can alter the embed size to 400×300 resolution maintaining the same aspect ratio.

If you use your own flash video player to control the embedded video, don’t forget to add the height of the player control (say 25 pixels). In that case the embed size will come to 400×325 pixels.

Also remember to make the flash variable, ‘allowfullscreen’, as ‘false’. By default it is rendered ‘true’. Don’t let the visitor see the video full-screen because it will become blurred. There is usually no need for this.

What Else…

Just as the video dimension or resolution is important for good quality end video that combines several video types, of equal importance is the need to convert all the different types to a common format before combining. We’ll look into this in a future article.

Meanwhile if you’re thinking as to how you can record screencast, PowerPoint, flash movie, etc. to exactly same dimensions, consider enrolling with our video production course now.