Sometimes you’ll notice that your personalized video tests are streaming too slow. This is when a video takes more than 3 or 5 seconds to start playing.
Slow streaming causes a bad customer experience, which is why it is important to reduce the video loading time as much as possible.
In this article, you’ll learn how to fix personalized video performance issues and what causes these performance issues. The tips shared here are for real rendered personalized videos and do not apply to interactive videos made from generic videos powered by Pirsonal Player.
You'll learn...
Common Reasons Why Your Personalized Videos Take Too Long to Load
These are some of the frequent reasons why the personalized videos you create with your Pirsonal account are too slow when played with Pirsonal Player.
Video Size Is Too Big
One of the most commons reasons for slow personalized video streaming is related to video files being too big. Heavy files take longer to process or render, but also take more time to load on your browser or your audience’s.
At this time, personalized videos hosted by Pirsonal do not use adaptive streaming by default. This is a premium service offered to Enterprise account.
This means that if the video file is too large, it will take more time to be ready.
Ideal or Recommended Personalized Video Size
On average, the video file size we recommend for personalized videos averages 5 to 20 MB. The smaller the file, the better.
How to Optimize Video Size
In order to make smaller video files that are optimized for a better playing experience, double-check the following tips:
Optimize Media Files
Make sure that the media files (images, videos, audios) used to process or render the videos are optimized. The easiest way to do this is by using files the same size as the output rendered video.
If your personalized video template is composed of a background video, make sure that this background video is optimized according to the target output video resolution.
Let’s see this with an example. Let’s say you have a personalized video template that will create personalized videos in video resolution 720p. In this case, it makes more sense to use a template or dynamic media file that is 720p.
Even if the background video clip is 720p, sometimes you’ll notice that the file is still too large. We recommend optimizing the file for online viewing.
Use free video optimization tools like Video Smaller to make your source file smaller.
Optimize Output Video
There are times when, even when your source files are optimized, still the Pirsonal video personalization software creates heavy video files.
When this happens, you still need to optimize the output of personalized videos.
One of the easiest ways to do this is by reducing the output video resolution.
Most organizations want to create videos in full high resolution. Even when the idea sounds amazing, the reality is that maybe your audience can not handle high-resolution videos.
The general recommendation here is the following:
- If your brand, video content, and the details shown in the video don’t require showing high-resolution details, use a lower video resolution so that the output videos are smaller.
- If you need to display sharp content, create high-resolution videos. First, try 720p videos. If this resolution is not satisfactory, then raise the resolution to 1080p.
If you are using Pirsonal’s interactive video player, Pirsonal Player, through Pirsonal Pages, the videos are not shown in fullscreen by default. This means that, even if you process high-resolution videos, the video will still look smaller on a screen.
Update Video Bitrate
Another way to optimize output videos is by updating the video bitrate. This can be done using Pirsonal’s Custom Output Profile tool.
In video streaming, bitrate refers to the number of bits that are conveyed or processed in a given unit of time. It’s commonly measured in bits per second (bit/s or bps) and often includes a prefix, such as ‘kilo’, ‘mega’, ‘giga’, or ‘tera’.
In video, a higher bitrate accommodates higher image quality in video output. This means that a higher bitrate makes videos heavier.
Bitrate for HD video is usually in the range of 5-20 Mbps. Standard-definition is typically 1-6 Mbps and high-quality web video runs at about 2 Mbps.
To reduce the size of your high-resolution videos, try updating the video bitrate to 440000 bps. If the end result is not satisfactory, try increasing this value.
Optimize Video Distribution
If your audience is located in a specific region, it is recommended to host the videos on the nearest servers. This will reduce the data transfer time between these servers and end viewers’ devices.
If you are running a campaign for a global audience, it is better to create optimized videos and serve them through a content delivery network (CDN).
Host Your Videos to Control Streaming
If you have specific distribution challenges and requirements and Pirsonal’s standard service doesn’t fit your needs, feel free to use Pirsonal’s integration with Amazon S3 to have full control over video hosting, or Pirsonal’s API to host the videos where it works best for your needs.