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I use Handbrake sometimes to compress video files, and notice that the "Web Optimized" option is not chosen by default, and cannot be set to the default in Options either.

But I tried both Web Optimized and non-Web-optimized. Turns out both the files turn out to be the same 320MB exact. But if it is web optimized, then even when I use FTP to upload to the web only for about 10MB, then I can already start watching it on the Chrome browser -- versus, if it is not web optimized, then I have to wait and upload all 320MB for it to be playable.

I am guessing web optimized probably means putting some kind of video frame indexes in the front of the file instead of at the end, so that the index is ready and users can view the video even with just 10MB or 20MB. But, (1) why don't we always use web optimized and make it the default? (2) is it at all configurable to make it the default in Handbrake so that if we forgot to set it every time, we actually have to re-encode again?

P.S. the other thing I really don't like for the non-Web-optimized version is, if I upload to my website, and I am traveling and want to access that file, and if the net speed is slow, making the video play and pause all the time, then I can download the file and play it using VLC player. But if I have downloaded 200MB or even 280MB, the video still will not play for even 1 second. It has to be the whole 320MB downloaded before it can play anything at all

nonopolarity
  • 9,886

4 Answers4

11

If the video is going to be streamed, ever, then you should web-optimize it. This places a special block of the video file at the front called an "moov atom", which is sort of like a table-of-contents. Not sure why, but it is not at the beginning by default, and can appear anywhere. For Html streaming, this block has to be read first before the remote user can start viewing the video.

For a great medium-level explanation on this see:
http://rigor.com/blog/2016/01/optimizing-mp4-video-for-fast-streaming

zip zinzel
  • 111
6

This is one of the reasons why not:

If you enable this and convert your video, the iPad will not play the video file! Instead you get the error "The operation could not be completed".

https://stackoverflow.com/q/24042894/1066234

Community
  • 1
Avatar
  • 2,844
3

I guess this comes down to opinion. I always select Web Optimized but that doesn't mean that everyone would want to do that. Handbrake is open source software and I've discovered that it likes to let people pick what they want.

If you don't have a need for the web optimized additions, then why include them in the encode?

tbenz9
  • 7,175
-1

This answer to a similar question on StackOverflow suggests that the motivation might be a slight encoding performance cost. For especially large videos, it can take some time to rearrange all the data to move the moov metadata to the beginning.

Cykelero
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