In my last tutorial on Streaming Basics: Shooting Video for Streaming I took a look at simple techniques you can use to improve the quality of the video you shoot for streaming.

Now that you have some basics approaches down for gathering your video, it is time to focus on editing tips for improving your streaming. As with my set of tips for shooting video, these editing suggestions are mostly common sense. Use them as guides to make choices that enhance the quality of your streaming productions.

Tip #1: High Quality Capture
There is an old video saying that says "you can't fix it in post." What is meant is that if you have bad video to start with, no amount of post-production magic can make it better. Even with the wizardry that computers offer, the "garbage-in, garbage-out" maxim still holds.

Capture your source material at the highest quality video and audio settings you can afford. That means you will be using up lots of hard-drive storage. But it is better to start with a high quality source and scale down the quality than start with a low quality source and try to get by. It is best to let your compression software make as many choices about throwing data away as possible.