Tutorial: Shooting Top-Quality Streaming Video Part II: Designing Your Set

Finally, the HP way. HP shot a number of highly creative case studies available in its newsroom (www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/). They’re all published at 270Kbps, which is certainly very accessible to its target corporate or well- heeled consumer viewer. As mentioned above, they’re all shot on location, so HP had to produce good backgrounds using what was available at the client site.

One of my favorites is a Warner Bros. clip in which the president of the company is shot against what appears to be an empty theater (maybe not such a good visual metaphor). You really can’t be sure, however, since the background is dark and blurry—in short, the perfect background to highlight the subject. Again, that’s because the subject is far enough from the background that by controlling the aperture settings, the shooter can dial the background out of focus.

Overall, the quality of this 480x320 video is very impressive. Sure, the easily compressible black bars at the top and bottom make the other video easier to compress (and they enhance the widescreen look), but through effective lighting and adept camera work, HP produced dramatic, great-looking video at a very accessible bandwidth.

HP duplicated the feat, albeit at a smaller resolution, shooting the Clark County District Attorney in his Laqs Vegas office or library. Here, with the background noticeably closer, but still slightly out of focus, it’s safe to assume that they didn’t shoot with a single-chip consumer camcorder. To produce this kind of depth of field in such a limited space, you’d probably need a 1/2" or larger CCD.

The sharp-eyed reader will also note that HP used (gulp) traditional three-point lighting, with dramatic shadows on the faces of both subjects. While this technique is beyond mere mortals serving 150Kbps streams, it’s nice to see someone pushing the design envelope. More on this in "Shooting for Top-Quality Streaming Video, Part III: Lighting Your Set."

Background Summary
Where are we at this point? For streaming at low bit rates, simple is better, and nobody ever got fired for using a blue background, wall, or drapery. In my personal experience, black is slightly better for hiding artifacts than blue is, but it does look impersonal. Dark gray or brown is acceptable, but lighter colors, though used occasionally in TV programs deployed on the internet, can blend in with Caucasian talking heads, potentially causing problems at lower bit rates.

Significantly, in 12 of 14 videos produced for the web, the subject’s face was the brightest large object on the screen. One exception was a Flash clip where the video had been shot against a green screen and superimposed over white; the other was a RealNetworks training video with what I think was an ill-advised streak of very white light in the background.

My take is that the face is the most important object on the screen, and when it’s the lightest large object, it’s easiest to get the exposure where you want it. With a very light background, for example, you might have to increase the aperture to avoid blowing out the background, risking darkening the face below acceptable levels.

For African-American, Indian, or Asian subjects, the only relevant example I encountered is a Bloomberg video that used a lighter background to contrast an African-American anchor’s skin tone. The exposure and detail in the face is quite good, so this should at least provide a starting point for your efforts.

In terms of background lighting, my preference is for flat lighting to minimize banding, but Deloitte, Real, and Sports Illustrated used graduated lighting with no noticeable artifacts. I would be especially concerned with this problem when encoding with Flash or Windows Media codecs, with Real seemingly the most resistant to background artifacts.