Autodesk 64006-051108-9001 User Guide - Page 23

Shooting Video for Streaming 15 However, blue screen and green screen work is technically challenging and should not be attempted unless you have the experience and equipment to do it correctly. Simply shooting an actor in front of a blue backdrop generally does not work. There are very specific ways you must design the set and lighting to ensure good results. Proper testing is critical, and poorly shot material cannot usually be fixed in post-processing. Using a professional camera is required for good results. Streaming Audio Audio production values are often overlooked when creating streaming media, but are critical to achieving professional results. As with video, the goal is to produce as high-quality and noise-free an audio signal as possible. You should use high-quality audio equipment and remote microphones whenever possible to reduce camera noise. You should also try to minimize any unnecessary noise in the audio signal such as wind or street sounds (for example, cars or construction). Shotgun mics may be useful for minimizing background noise, and lavalier mics often work well for interviews. Use AIFF or WAV with high quality settings for mastering the audio. If you are recording a voice-over in a studio, use professional equipment. The microphones that come with computers cannot match the quality of a professional-grade microphone. If you are recording directly into a computer, beware of hard drive noise. This is often hard to hear when recording, but increases noise in the final audio signal. On many systems, the built-in sound hardware also introduces noise, so it is usually better to record directly through the capture card. Editing for Streaming To improve the encoding, you should avoid elaborate transitions. Hard cuts and simple wipes are usually the easiest transitions to encode because they introduce the least amount of sustained change. Fades are difficult to encode well, but are often unavoidable - in that case, make fades as short as possible. Complex transitions, such as page curls, pinwheel wipes and paint spatters are more difficult to encode and often look pixelated in the final encoded movie. Frequent cuts between scenes make encoding more difficult, which is why many music videos do not compress well. If possible, try to keep the number of cuts in the piece to a minimum. Effects that add lots of minute/random detail to an image, such as film noise and explosions, are especially difficult to encode and should be avoided if possible. Of course, you often have no control over how an existing video has been edited, so these guidelines are frequently hard to follow. When difficult transitions are inevitable, using variable bitrate encoding can often help improve the final quality by giving the transition a temporarily higher bitrate.