Before you purchase or take your videos to a performance, it is important to make sure that your video settings are appropriate.
Below you will find some settings that are important to take into consideration.
Resolution:
Video resolution determines the definition of the video, generally the higher the number of pixels on the screen, the higher the definition of the image. A video professional needs to know how much capacity their hardware can handle, in many cases, playing a high-resolution video (4K 3840x2160px for example) on a (FullHD 1920x1080px) device will not make a difference in quality, and will unnecessarily use more processor and hard disk space.
Framerate:
Framerate is the number of images that will be displayed in the same period of time. The higher the framerate, the more sequence of images you will see during the same second, and the smoother the animation will be.
Below is a demonstration of animation with the same duration, but with different framerates.
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| 5 Fps | 15 Fps | 30 Fps |
The more FPS, the better for the VJ, if you need to speed up or slow down the video, the file will have more sequences of images to make that change smoother.
Codec:
To create a video file, you need to compress the sequence of images, the compression method is called codec. For VJs to ensure the best quality of live playback, the DXV codec is used in the Resolume program, and HAP, is used in Touchdesigner and VDMX.
The most common video codecs are
| Name | File size | Quality | Transparency | Playback | Softwares | GPU accelerated |
| H.264 | Small Files | Low Good | No | Resonable | All | No |
| Apple Pro Res 444/4444 | Medium to large files | Excellent | Yes | Good | All | No |
| DXV | Medium | Good | Yes | Excellent | Resolume | Yes |
| HAP | Medium to large | Good | Yes | Excellent | VDMX and Touchdesigner | Yes |
It is highly recommended for VJs to use DXV and HAP codec videos for their live performance.
Note: Is not possible to use the DXV cdec in TouchDesigner and VDMX
Container:
The container is what, as the name says, is going to carry this sequence of images that have been processed by the codec, and is also where the audio file is stored.
The most common formats are .AVI .MP4 .MOV
Some containers do not support some codecs, others support multiple codecs. If you have a file with codec H264 in an .MP4 container and rename it to a .MOV, it is possible that it will play without problems, because both containers support the H264 codec.
.ZIP and .RAR
On the website, you will download the packages in .zip or .rar, and you will find the video files inside.
The .ZIP format, very common, can be opened by Windows and OSx
The .RAR format, which can compress the package more, will need a software like WinRar and 7Zip on Windows, and The Unarchiver on Mac
Do you have any further questions? Leave your question in the comments and we will update the article.