Tip #3: Simplify the Background
Simplifying the background of your subject can greatly improve your streaming video. Why? If the compressor can ignore your background and concentrate resources on your subject, you end up with better streaming of your subject.

Here is a high-action frame of an eagle compressed at the same settings as the tiger on the previous page. A tripod and a simplified background raise the quality significantly.

Obviously, if you can put your talent in front of a very blank wall you will be ahead of the game. But that is not always possible. Look for other options. Perhaps you should look down on the subject and get more uniform grass than chaotic trees in the background. Or maybe you should go the opposite direction and lose ground objects by shooting up toward the sky. Anything do to cut down on the background clutter will make the codec happier.

Portrait of Success
Consumer camcorders often come with a portrait mode. This feature takes advantage of a physical reality of lenses called depth-of-field. Depth-of-field is the range in the scene before you at which the lens is in focus. Things that are outside of the depth-of-field are out of focus. All lenses let light into the camera through a hole. The wider the hole, the shorter range or depth-of-field that the camera can show in the scene. The smaller the hole, the greater the depth-of-field the camera can show.

Since the goal of a portrait is to focus on the subject at the expense of the background, a portrait mode on a camcorder is to make the subject sharp while the background is out of focus. It does this by raising the camera shutter speed. That in turn balances the exposure by widening the hole (aperture) and letting more light in. Professional camcorders don’t always have a convenient portrait mode to choose from. In that case, just raise the shutter and open the aperture manually.

If you have had trouble following the two previous paragraphs, let’s stop and catch up. You know you want to simplify the background for the compressor. So, by using a portrait mode, we blur the background. Not only will that make your subject more pleasing to look at, but that smudgy soft background is now easier for the codec to mathematically crunch aggressively.