And What You Can Do about It Shoot and edit with the Internet's limitations in mind, and your final product will look better and play more smoothly. The more movement you have from one video frame to the next, the less those frames will compress. To decrease the amount of change between frames, use a tripod and minimize panning and zooming. Video of an actor in a plaid jacket standing before a city skyline is chunkier and fuzzier than video of an actor all in red standing before a blue wall. Large areas of solid color yield better spatial compression.
Dark colors generate more video noise, which compresses poorly.
Light your subject. In editing, think twice about using transitions, even such mainstays as dissolves and wipes. Avoid rapid-fire cutting too. It takes time for video to sharpen up after a change of scene, and the more cuts, the more fuzziness your viewers must endure. The advice above yields relatively sharp, albeit somewhat bland, Web video.