Uploading high quality videos to your Facebook business page is important for engaging your audience and promoting your brand. With more and more users watching videos on Facebook, having compelling video content can help you reach a larger audience and increase engagement.
However, Facebook compresses videos which can reduce the video quality. To maintain high video quality on Facebook, you need to upload videos with the optimal resolution, aspect ratio, and encoding settings. Proper video compression and the right upload method are also key.
In this comprehensive guide, we will cover everything you need to know about uploading high quality videos to Facebook for business.
What video format does Facebook support?
Facebook supports the following video formats:
| Format | Container |
|---|---|
| MP4 | MPEG-4 |
| MOV | QuickTime |
| AVI | Audio Video Interleave |
| WMV | Windows Media Video |
| FLV | Flash Video |
| MPEGPS | MPEG-2 Program Stream |
| 3GPP | 3GPP |
| WebM | WebM |
The most recommended format is MP4 with H.264 video encoding and AAC audio encoding. This provides the best quality and compression for Facebook.
What are the ideal video specs for Facebook?
To maintain quality after Facebook compression, your original video should have:
- Resolution: 1280×720 (HD) or 1920×1080 (Full HD)
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Frame Rate: 30 fps
- Bitrate: 4-5 mbps for HD, 6-8 mbps for Full HD
- Audio Codec: AAC
A resolution of 1080p or 720p is recommended over higher resolutions like 4K because Facebook will compress videos with higher resolutions to HD anyway.
The 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio is ideal for Facebook’s video player. A frame rate of 30 fps provides smooth motion.
For bitrate, between 4-8 mbps provides good quality while keeping file sizes manageable. Lower bitrates may result in compressed, pixelated videos.
AAC audio at 192 kbps provides good sound quality. Make sure to include stereo audio tracks rather than mono.
How to properly compress videos for Facebook
To reduce file size without sacrificing perceptible video quality:
- Use two-pass video encoding. This analyzes the video file during the first pass to optimize compression on the second.
- Set the data/bitrate rate relative to output resolution. Higher resolutions need higher bitrates.
- Use variable bitrate (VBR) over constant bitrate (CBR). VBR allocates more bits to complex scenes and less to simple scenes.
- Adjust encoder settings like GOP length to optimize for streaming over social media.
There are many video compressor tools that make it easy to output videos optimized for Facebook and social media in general. Handbrake and Avidemux for Windows, Mac, and Linux provide a graphical interface for compression and format conversion.
Online converters like Clipchamp, Kapwing, and CloudConvert allow you to customize encoding settings before exporting a Facebook-ready MP4.
When compressing, try to preserve as much quality as possible while reaching the target file size needed for uploading to Facebook.
How to upload high quality videos to Facebook
To upload videos with the highest quality possible to Facebook:
- Upload directly to Facebook rather than sharing a YouTube or Vimeo link. This avoids additional compression from Facebook trying to scrape the video from a third-party player.
- Use the “High Quality” setting under Advanced Settings when uploading. Checking this uploads a higher resolution version to Facebook that gets served to viewers with fast connections.
- Upload from a desktop browser rather than your phone. Desktop uploads are more reliable for large, high quality video files.
- Keep your video under the 1.75GB size limit so it can process in HD. Larger videos may get compressed further.
- When editing your videos, avoid aligning text or logos near the edges. Facebook may slightly crop the edges in its video player.
- Allow plenty of time for processing after uploading, especially for long videos. Optimize the video timeline after processing for maximum quality.
Uploading directly through Facebook’s interface is better than sharing a link to the video from YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Facebook needs to download and reprocess videos from external sites which introduces extra generational loss.
Utilizing the High Quality setting under Advanced Settings is critical for preserving your original video resolution. Otherwise Facebook will default to lower resolutions for streaming even if your source is HD or Full HD.
Try to keep your video file size under the 1.75GB limit to avoid any aggressive transcoding by Facebook to reduce file size after upload.
Best practices for shooting high quality video for Facebook
To get the highest quality results on Facebook, start with recording high quality source footage:
- Shoot interviews and footage in HD using DSLRs, mirrorless or high end cinema cameras.
- Use tripods, stabilizers and other equipment to avoid shaky footage.
- Ensure optimal lighting conditions during shoots.
- Use an external microphone plugged directly into the camera for better sound.
- Record using the best quality camera settings and at the highest resolution possible.
- Maintain proper exposure, white balance and focus for all of your shots.
Having the best source material means less quality loss in subsequent processing and uploading to Facebook.
When editing, avoid practices like speeding up footage which introduces motion artifacts and reduces quality. Remove any letterboxing or pillarboxing to fit the 16:9 aspect ratio.
Render your master files at the target resolution, frame rate, and video settings outlined above. This will provide the version that is ready to upload to Facebook.
How to check video quality on Facebook
To inspect the video quality on Facebook after uploading:
- Navigate to the video post on your Facebook page.
- Click on the video title to open it in the Facebook video player.
- Click on the settings gear icon while the video plays.
- Switch between SD, HD, and HD+ resolutions in the dropdown menu.
- Check that text and images appear crisp across resolutions.
- Watch in full screen mode and check for pixelation, banding and other compression artifacts.
Ideally, videos should play well in HD and HD+ modes without quality degradation compared to the original.
If quality issues are noticed, re-export your source video with slightly higher encoding settings and bitrate. Then re-upload the video for another test until you achieve improved quality on Facebook’s player.
Why you should upload videos instead of sharing links
Uploading videos directly to Facebook is better than just sharing a YouTube or other link for a few reasons:
- Avoids generational quality loss from Facebook scraping and recompressing a video from elsewhere.
- Allows you to customize titles, thumbnails and other metadata.
- Viewers don’t have to leave Facebook to watch the video.
- Easier to track video analytics within Facebook Insights.
- More convenient way to reuse content across posts.
- Provides more upload quality control compared to third parties.
- Looks more professional than just sharing an external link.
While it takes more effort to directly upload, the benefits are worth it for a better viewing experience, more customization options, and tighter integration with your Facebook presence.
Common upload issues and how to troubleshoot
If you encounter issues getting high quality videos onto Facebook, here are some common problems and troubleshooting tips:
Video Uploading Stalls
This is typically from the video file size exceeding the 1.75GB limit or unstable internet connection during upload. Try compressing the video further or uploading from a location with a better connection.
Video Not Processing in HD
Facebook may default to a lower resolution if you did not select High Quality in Advanced Settings. Try reuploading with that option enabled before uploading.
Video Has Compression Artifacts
If you notice blockiness, pixelation or banding, the source video likely needs higher resolution or bitrate settings. Re-export and re-upload the video with increased settings.
Video Cropped Unexpectantly
Avoid aligning text, logos or other elements too close to the edges to prevent minor auto-cropping by Facebook.
Audio Sounds Muffled
Audio bitrate may be too low or incorrectly encoded. Re-export with higher bitrate AAC audio before re-uploading.
Edited Video Not Matching Source
Trim, filter and speed changes can alter the source video in a way Facebook re-compresses incorrectly. Limit edits and re-encode source video at target resolution.
Following the best practices in this guide should help avoid or troubleshoot any of these common Facebook video upload issues.
Conclusion
Uploading high quality video to Facebook requires optimizing your source footage and videos for the platform. This includes shooting in HD, using the ideal resolution, aspect ratio, frame rate and bitrates, compressing properly, and uploading with the right settings.
Following this guide, you can achieve great looking results and deliver an engaging, professional video experience to your audience on Facebook. Just be prepared to test and tweak your video exports and uploads to achieve the quality you desire within Facebook’s processing constraints.