Encode video

This guide will help you learn how to encode video to be playable in Second Life. There are many ways to do this, but this is among the simplest.

This guide empowers you to make a single movie file that is:

1. Playable in Second Life at a reasonable balance between filesize and quality.
2. Playable on iPod and similar mobile devices.
3. Playable cross-platform on just about any modern computer with most video players (including VLC and Windows Media Player).
4. Perfectly uploadable to YouTube, Vimeo, and other web video services.
5. AWESOME. (I hope.)

Now then...

1. Download Apple QuickTime and upgrade it to QuickTime Pro. (Unless you already have an app that encodes through QuickTime like Apple Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro.)
2. Open the movie file in QuickTime Player. (In other apps, usually found as an option in the File menu).
3. In QuickTime Player, use File menu > Export.
4. Change the "Export" dropdown to "Movie to MPEG-4".
5. To the right of the dropdown, click Options. Unfortunately, QuickTime doesn't let you make a list of custom presets, but you can use Most Recent Settings. You can always refer back here if you get lost.

Here's the settings you'll want to use, and why. You can tweak any one of these if you know better, but it's a good baseline, one that's been used over 300 times and refined by Torley.

• File Format: MP4
  • NOT "MP4 (ISMA)
• Video tab:
  • Video Format: H.264
    • A popular codec that offers high-quality at small filesizes.
  • Data Rate: 1152 kbits/sec
    • I chose "1152" because along with audio, it's a fine balance. Make this lower (like 200 kbits/sec) if your video is a mostly-static slideshow, or if there's lots of motion, make it higher (like 2000 kbits/sec). Don't go too high above this unless you know everyone watching the video is on a superfast broadband connection. Otherwise, they'll have to wait a long time for the video to buffer, and it'll repeatedly pause as it struggles to keep up — annoying! Remember that we suggest "768 kbps" (audio + video combined) as the minimum for playing audiovisuals in SL. While many broadband connections are faster, err on the side of an enjoyable experience.
  • Optimized for: Download
  • Image Size: 640x480 (or less)
    • Exceeding 640x480 means your video won't play on iPods.
  • UNCHECK Preserve aspect ratio using: Letterbox
  • Frame Rate: Current
  • Key Frame: Automatic
  • Video Options
    • Restrict profile(s) to: Baseline ONLY
    • Encoding Mode: Best quality (Multi-pass)
• Audio tab:
  • Audio Format: AAC-LC (Music)
  • Data Rate: 128 kbps
  • Channels: Stereo
  • Output Sample Rate: 44.100 kHz
  • Encoding Quality: Best
• Streaming tab
  • Simply leave "Enable streaming" unchecked. This is for server-side streaming, and doesn't apply to general SL purposes.

Common problems

"I have to wait for the whole movie to load in SL, why?"

It's likely because the movie isn't optimized for "Fast Start" within-seconds playback. The above guide includes that; re-encode earlier movies as necessary.