The most important step to creating great NetShow™ content starts before you even start to author NetShow content.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

You should always start with the best possible quality audio and video. The compression algorithms used to take rich high-quality multimedia and convert them to something that will sound acceptable on very low bandwidths operate better with more data than with less.

Less Is More

Video codecs generally look for changes between frames in a video. When there is a lot of change between one frame and another, the next frame is redrawn from scratch (called a Key Frame) instead of just sending the differences between one frame and another (called a P Frame, or Delta Frame). Therefore, the more movement in a clip, the more key frames that will need to be sent to the user's computer. That means less room for additional frames or richer audio or larger frame sizes. Therefore, try to follow these basic guidelines:

• Expect poor results when trying high-movement clips over low bandwidths. Example: high movement clip versus low movement clip
• Mount camera on tripod and minimize camera movement.
• Light your subject well and maximize contrast between objects. If you have subjects wearing colors that are similar to their backgrounds, they will start to wash out relative to someone wearing brighter colors.

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