FLV use in low-bandwidth situations

Do you use FLV video in your Presentations, Engage interactions, or in any Flash content for that matter, and get feedback from users that either the video plays poorly (is choppy), or takes a significant amount of time to display?

This can happen if you use FLV video that is optimized for high-bandwidth situations, but your users are operating in a low-bandwidth environment, such as dial-up modem, or slow DSL connection. Most of the programs that create FLV video allow you to specify a compression setting for the video, where you can specify the output FLV in terms of the target bandwidth rate of the end viewer. It is a good idea to compress your FLV to a level that matches your target audiences bandwidth (for example, you wouldn't want to create an FLV that is optimized for a high-bandwidth situation if your targeted viewers are all using a 56k modem to view your presentation or interaction).

Some of the popular FLV creation programs are:

Sorenson Squeeze

Sorenson allows you to select any number of predefined compression settings, that are labeled rather intelligently based on target bandwidth rate. For example, they have a 56k_Dial_Up predefined setting that is a good compression settings if your users will be viewing the FLV over a 56k modem.

Below I have created a sample movie that shows you how you can apply a compression setting in Sorenson Squeeze.



















Flash Video Encoder

Flash Video Encoder has options that are similar to Sorenson Squeeze, but they call it "Quality" in Flash Video Encoder. So lower "Quality" video will be more compressed. Unfortunately they only have quality settings that go down to 150 kbps, which is a compression setting that is targeted for a faster connection than a 56k modem.

Flash Video Encorder is included with Flash Professional, but the available options for quality settings are much more limited than Sorenson's options for compression settings.


Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash

The Sothink Video Encoder allows you to specify "Profiles" (shown below) that allow you to target your output FLV for various bandwidth speeds. The available profiles range from 56 Kbps to 2.1 Mbps.




Note: Video compression is "lossy", meaning the more it is compressed, the lower the quality. Click here for more info on video compression.

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