Video Encoding Guide

Panelicious plays your video file exactly as you upload it. It does not convert or resize videos, so the format of the file decides how well it plays on each type of display. This guide shows the format that works everywhere, what each type of display can handle, and how to convert a video that does not fit.

If you only read one section, read the next one.

The format that works on every display

A video in this format plays smoothly on the Android app, the web display and the Raspberry Pi players. The dashboard calls this the "best format for every display".

A portrait video (1080 x 1920, for a screen turned on its side) counts as 1080p. The size check does not care which way up the video is.

"Faststart" puts the information a player needs at the start of the file, so the video can begin playing before it has fully downloaded. Most converters have it on by default or as one tick box.

What each display type can handle

Each row below is one type of display. "Plays smoothly", "May struggle" and "Won't play smoothly" are the same verdicts the dashboard shows.

Android app

The Panelicious app on Android TVs, Fire TV sticks and Android tablets.

Older TVs and sticks have the most trouble with HEVC, VP9 and AV1, which is why those are marked "May struggle" rather than "Plays smoothly". If you have a recent device they may play fine, so test one if you want to keep the file.

Audio: AAC, MP3, Opus, Vorbis, FLAC, AC-3 and E-AC-3 all play.

Web display

The Panelicious display page in a browser, for example on a smart-TV browser or a computer.

Audio: AAC, MP3, Opus, Vorbis and FLAC play. AC-3 and E-AC-3 do not: the picture still plays, but without sound. The dashboard shows this as a separate note and does not change the video's verdict.

Raspberry Pi players (coming soon)

Panelicious players for Raspberry Pi are not available yet. These are the limits they are being planned around, so you can choose a format now and not convert it twice. The dashboard lists them with an "upcoming" label.

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and Pi 3

Raspberry Pi 4

Bitrate, for every display type

A very high bitrate (how much data each second of video uses) moves the verdict down one step: "Plays smoothly" becomes "May struggle", and "May struggle" becomes "Won't play smoothly".

Staying at 8 Mbps or less keeps you under every limit.

What the dashboard tells you

The dashboard checks each video once, from the information stored in the file, and shows the result in three places: the Assets page, the playlist, and a display's System Info tab. A video that may have trouble gets a May not play smoothly label. Open it to see each display type and the reason.

The warnings are advice. Videos are never blocked or skipped. You can always upload a video, add it to a playlist and save it, and displays always try to play every item, whatever the verdict says. A video that cannot be played smoothly may stutter, show a still frame or not appear, which is why it is worth fixing, but nothing stops you using it.

The checks cover videos you upload and videos you add as a direct link to an .mp4, .webm or .mov file. They do not cover videos inside slides, overlays, or embedded players such as YouTube.

Run time and "Play once"

Once the dashboard has read a video, it knows how long it runs.

• Duration is filled in for you. When you add a video to a playlist, the Duration box is pre-filled with the video's run time, rounded up to the next whole second. You can change it.
• When the video finishes. In the item form, a video has a When the video finishes setting:
  • Loop (the default) repeats the video until the item's duration is up.
  • Play once, then move on plays the video once, holds its last frame, and moves to the next item when the video ends. If the Duration you set is shorter than the video, it moves on at your Duration instead.

If the dashboard could not read the video's length, nothing is filled in and Play once, then move on uses the Duration you set. The form tells you when this is the case.

How to convert a video

Free tools do this in a few clicks.

HandBrake

HandBrake is free and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

1. Open your video in HandBrake.
2. Pick the Fast 1080p30 preset. It produces H.264, 1080p, 30 fps and AAC audio in an MP4 file.
3. On the Summary tab, tick Web Optimized. This is the faststart setting.
4. On the Video tab, set the quality so the bitrate stays at 8 Mbps or less. A constant quality of around 22 to 24 is usually well under that for 1080p. If you want a hard limit, choose Avg Bitrate and enter 8000.
5. Choose where to save the file and press Start Encode.

If your video is smaller than 1080p, there is no need to make it bigger. Check the Dimensions tab and keep the original size.

ffmpeg

ffmpeg is a free command-line tool. This command converts any video to the format at the top of this page:

ffmpeg -i input.mov \
  -c:v libx264 -profile:v high -pix_fmt yuv420p \
  -vf "scale=-2:'min(1080,ih)',fps=30" \
  -crf 23 -maxrate 8M -bufsize 16M \
  -c:a aac -b:a 128k \
  -movflags +faststart \
  output.mp4

What each part does:

This command is written for landscape video. For a video that is taller than it is wide, 1080 x 1920 is also fine: change scale=-2:'min(1080,ih)' to scale='min(1080,iw)':-2.

When it finishes, upload output.mp4 as a new video.