If you are uploading video to a TV channel or video library, read this before you upload a lot of it. Getting the settings right once is far easier than re-doing a library later.
Why this matters
Your channel plays files one after another. Every time it moves from one to the next, whatever differs between those two files shows up on screen — the picture jumps size, goes soft, stutters, or the player pauses for a moment while it works out what changed.
Viewers read that as "the stream is broken". It usually is not. It is just two files that were made differently.
The fix is simple to state: make every file match the same specification before you upload it.
This includes your short items
Promos, trailers, bumpers, station idents, sponsor spots, countdown clocks — everything that goes into a playlist or a schedule has to match. A ten-second promo at the wrong resolution is more noticeable than a long programme at the wrong resolution, because it sits between two correct ones and the change happens twice in twenty seconds.
It is easy to prepare a season of programmes carefully and then drop in a promo someone exported from their phone. That one file will be the thing people notice.
The target
Aim for all of these, across everything you upload:
- Video codec: H.264. Universally supported. Not H.265/HEVC, which plays inconsistently across older devices and smart TVs.
- Container: MP4.
- One resolution for your whole library. 1920×1080 if your source material supports it; 1280×720 if it does not. Pick one and stay on it.
- One framerate for your whole library. Whatever most of your material already is — usually 30 or 25.
- A maximum bitrate ceiling. Around 6000 kbps for 1080p, or 3500 kbps for 720p. This matters because encoders otherwise let the bitrate wander, and the spikes are what cause playback to stumble.
- Audio: AAC, 192 kbps, 48 kHz, stereo.
- "Fast start" enabled if your software offers it. It lets playback begin before the whole file has loaded.
One more, worth as much as all of the above: keep the loudness consistent between files. A viewer reaching for the volume control between two programmes is a worse experience than a slightly soft picture, and it is the single most common complaint about automated channels.
Do not upscale
If some of your material is only 720p, converting it to 1080p does not add detail — it just makes a soft picture bigger and the file larger. Either standardise on 720p, or keep the 1080p material at 1080p and accept that older items are softer. Never stretch small pictures up to match.
Keep two folders: Master and Transcode
Before you convert anything, set up two folders on your computer:
- Master — your original files, exactly as they came off the camera or out of your editing software. Never convert these in place and never delete them.
- Transcode — the converted copies, made to the specification above. These are what you upload.
Keep your original (Master) files. Convert (Transcode or edit) into a new folder and upload from there.
The reason is straightforward: if you ever change the specification — a new resolution standard, say — you go back to the Masters and convert again. Converting an already-converted file loses quality a second time, and doing that is visible. Masters are also what you need if you ever want to re-edit something.
Doing it — Shutter Encoder
Shutter Encoder is free, runs on Windows and Mac, and is the tool the platform's own documentation recommends for this. It is a deep piece of software with a great many options, but you only need a handful of them, and you only need to set them once.
Set it up once
This is the part worth knowing, because it turns a fiddly job into a routine one.
Save your settings as a preset. Configure the function and settings the way you want them, then press Ctrl+S (Cmd+S on a Mac) to save them. Saved presets are reached from the star icon. From then on you load your preset instead of re-entering anything — the settings are done, and only the files change.
Or go further and use a Watch folder. Right-click the file list and choose Watch folder. Set your Master folder as the input and your Transcode folder as the output, choose your function and settings, and start it. Shutter Encoder then monitors the Master folder and converts anything that appears in it automatically, writing the result to Transcode.
That is the arrangement most people end up wanting: drop a new file into Master, collect the converted copy from Transcode, upload it. No settings to remember each time.
The settings themselves
Choose H.264 as the output function, then set the resolution, framerate and maximum bitrate to the values in The target above. Shutter Encoder also has a Conform option for bringing mixed framerates onto a single standard, which is worth using if your material came from several different sources or cameras.
Shutter Encoder's layout shifts between releases, so if a control is not where you expect, check its own documentation for your version rather than hunting. If you would rather we simply confirmed your settings before you convert a whole library, open a ticket and send us a screenshot — that is a two-minute job for us and can save you re-doing everything.
Naming your files
Not required, but it will save you real time once you have more than about twenty items. A consistent pattern makes files sort correctly and makes it obvious what something is a year later:
SeriesName_2026_Episode_Title.mp4
Avoid spaces, apostrophes, commas and question marks in filenames. Use underscores. These cause problems in more places than you would expect.
Checking your work
Before converting a whole library, convert two or three files and upload just those. Put them in a playlist back to back and watch the join between them. If the transition is clean, the rest of the batch will be too.
If something still looks wrong, open a ticket and tell us which files. We can look at what the platform received, which is usually faster than guessing.
