Tutorials, Tips & Tools for Web Video Delivery

Whether you are encoding to QuickTime or Flash Video, it is a best practice to ensure that the width and height of your video is evenly divisible by 16. Although some modern codecs do not require this, it is best to keep it in mind for all your projects to guarantee the best results.

In many codecs if a side is not divisible by 16 evenly, it will then have to keep splitting the macro blocks into smaller and smaller chunks until it finds a common denominator. This can result in lots of tiny little blocks in your video, and horrible encodes, especially for high action and/or animation sequences.

Robert Reinhardt has posted a table listing the optimal frame dimensions for flash video for both 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios. This information is a great resource for every compressionist.

http://www.flashsupport.com/books/fvst/files/tools/video_sizes.html