Surprising results from Facebook video tests.

FBvideoTesting

For some time now, we’ve wanted to test the limits of uploading video to Facebook.  We’ve learned some really interesting things that we wanted to share with our followers.  The test clip used was pretty challenging for any streaming video site.  It has fast motion, lots of bright spots and plenty of dark, shady areas.  The camera used to record the footage was a Panasonic HVX-200 shooting 1080P DVCPRO50HD Codec (P2, 4:2:2).  The clips were edited in Final Cut Pro in a native HD timeline and two Quicktime files were exported.  One clip was done at the full 1080 pixels wide and it created an enormous 817 meg file.  The other video we exported was only 640 pixels wide and made a much smaller, 143 megs file.  When the individual clips were played back with Quicktime the 1080 file looked really spectacular but when uploaded to Facebook, it was a very different story.  Here are some quick things we learned:

1. When you hover over the FB thumbnail, it shows a really nice still frame that represents the uploaded video size
2. The default playback widow is identical between the two videos when you click the thumbnail preview clip
3. As expected, uploading the larger video takes a lot of time
4. The videos look IDENTICAL after uploading if you click the play arrow that overlays on top of the small thumbnail and there’s zero quality difference.
5. To view the best quality of the video, people must click the blue link text that’s next to the video thumbnail.
Note: This last bit of info is really confusing and we actually discovered it by accident.  We know now it’s important to direct people to the better video preview when quality matters.

Here are links to the videos so you can see the results for yourself: (You may have to login to your FB account to view these.  You can return to this post by hitting the back button in your browser)
Small uploaded video: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Duchin-Productions-Inc/73069796717#!/photo.php?v=2503452908355Big uploaded video: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Duchin-Productions-Inc/73069796717#!/photo.php?v=2502416762452

 

What’s really incredible is that the native video files totaled 1.8 Gigabytes.  The fact we can can squish the clip to  143 megabytes and have it still look good is truly amazing.  Streaming engines and compression algorithms are always improving and changing.  The future continues to look better (clearer and sharper) ever day.  If you have any questions about making video for the web, feel free to contact us with any questions.