Creating video content is not an easy task. You first need to prepare your environment (pre-production), record all the videos (production), and make the final composition (post-production). Every step has its challenges, and mastering all of them requires time (a lot of time).

Fortunately, you don't need to take all of them at once. You can start creating and uploading your videos to get practice and improve on each of them. I'm still a newbie, trying to understand how to get the best quality from my current setup.

Today, I was post-producing a video to showcase the new version of a project. I recorded everything and started to edit it in Shotcut. After merging multiple shots and applying video / audio filters, it's time to export the video. At this point, you need to decice between a huge list of options. Again, it takes time to find the right configuration for your videos, platform and environment.

However, I may give you some things I learned today about video encoding:

  • You may increase audio and video quality, however some options may drastically increase the processing time and the file size.
  • The best source of information about encoding options is the platform you plan to upload your video:
  • There are no magic rules. The right bitrate, fps (frames per second) and other parameters depend on your content, source video, and other factors.
  • After applying the recommended configuration, tweak and play with the other parameters:
    • Create a separate video project
    • Crop your current production to 2 minutes
    • Export using the recommended configuration and see how much time it takes and the quality you get
    • Tweak one parameter and export the video
    • How does it affect the quality? What about enconding time?
    • Read or watch some videos about the topic. Some of them may be complex, so be sure you first get an introduction.
    • Repeat with a different parameter

Bonus tip

If you use Shotcut on MacOS, don't forget to enable "parallel processing" when exporting a video! I read in some forums this option may cause the video encoding to be slower, but it saved me a lot of time today 😊