LinkedIn is a professional social networking platform used by over 740 million members worldwide. As a platform built around networking and making connections, LinkedIn allows users to share content like articles, images, documents, and videos. However, when it comes to videos, LinkedIn compresses and downscales any videos uploaded to fit within certain file size and dimension restrictions. There are several reasons why LinkedIn does this.
File Size Restrictions
One of the main reasons LinkedIn compresses videos is to adhere to file size restrictions. LinkedIn imposes a file size limit of 250MB per video uploaded to the platform. This restriction is in place to ensure videos can be uploaded and played smoothly without straining servers.
Uncompressed high resolution video files can easily exceed 250MB for even short duration videos. For example, a 3 minute 1080p video at 30fps can be over 500MB in size. By compressing videos, LinkedIn is able to downscale the file size to meet the 250MB restriction. This allows videos to be uploaded by users regardless of their original file size or length.
Dimension Restrictions
In addition to file size limits, LinkedIn also enforces dimension restrictions on uploaded videos. Videos are compressed to a maximum resolution of 720p HD (1280 x 720 pixels). Any videos exceeding 720p will be automatically downscaled during upload to meet this resolution restriction.
This dimension restriction allows LinkedIn to ensure a consistent viewing experience across devices and screen sizes. 720p also strikes a balance between quality and file size that accommodates the bandwidth limitations of many users. Playing back higher resolution uncompressed videos would be impossible for many members, so compressing to 720p improves compatibility.
Optimized Streaming and Playback
Compressing videos also allows for faster, smoother streaming and playback on the LinkedIn platform. High resolution uncompressed videos can have very high bitrates and strain bandwidth during streaming. This can lead to choppy playback or buffering issues for viewers.
By compressing and encoding videos at more optimized lower bitrates, LinkedIn is able to deliver videos in a streamable optimized format. Videos start playback faster and stream smoothly regardless of the viewer’s internet speeds and bandwidth. This leads to a better viewing experience overall for LinkedIn members.
Mobile Compatibility
With over 50% of LinkedIn’s traffic coming from mobile devices, optimizing videos for mobile is crucial. Mobile devices have much lower bandwidth capabilities compared to desktops. Uncompressed high resolution video would be impossible to stream on most mobile connections.
By compressing videos to 720p and lower file sizes, LinkedIn ensures mobile compatibility and smooth playback on smartphones and tablets. This allows members to view shared videos easily even on the go without wifi or broadband connections.
Storage and Hosting Costs
Lastly, compressing uploaded videos also helps LinkedIn manage storage and hosting costs for the enormous amount of content shared daily. By restricting videos to 720p resolution and under 250MB, LinkedIn significantly reduces the storage space and bandwidth capacity needed.
Uncompressed HD video files would fill up storage rapidly. Hosting and streaming such large files would also skyrocket infrastructure and CDN costs. Compression allows LinkedIn to minimize these expenses and still offer video uploads as a free feature to members. The trade off is lower resolution, but the cost savings allow videos to be available to all users.
Common Video Compression Methods Used by LinkedIn
To compress videos, LinkedIn primarily relies on common video encoding standards and compression algorithms before uploading. Here are some of the main techniques used:
H.264 Video Encoding
H.264, also known as MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding, is the most common video compression standard today. It allows high quality video to be compressed significantly by up to 80% with minimal quality loss. H.264 is optimized for low bitrate streaming and provides good visual quality at 720p resolutions. This makes it ideal for meeting LinkedIn’s size and dimension restrictions.
MP3 Audio Encoding
For audio tracks in videos, LinkedIn uses MP3 audio encoding. MP3 compression reduces audio file sizes through perceptual encoding techniques that eliminate inaudible components. At 128kbps bitrate, MP3 audio provides good quality while contributing minimally to the overall file size.
Constant Bitrate Encoding
To meet the 250MB cap, LinkedIn likely uses constant bitrate (CBR) encoding on videos. CBR encoding maintains a fixed bitrate throughout the video stream, allowing predictable file sizes. Though CBR has lower visual quality than variable bitrate (VBR) encoding, it ensures videos fall within LinkedIn’s file size limits.
Two-Pass Encoding
For the best compression quality possible within the size limits, LinkedIn may utilize two-pass video encoding. This encoding technique analyzes the video once to determine optimal compression parameters before applying the compression in a second pass. Two-pass encoding maximizes compression efficiency.
Impact on Video Quality
The video compression utilized by LinkedIn does result in decreased visual quality compared to the original uncompressed videos. Here are some of the impacts:
– Reduced resolution from HD to 720p maximum
– Lower bitrates, especially for audio
– Compression artifacts like blockiness or banding
– Loss of very fine details in the image
– Reduced framerates like 24fps to 30fps conversion
However, for short marketing or personal videos typically shared on LinkedIn, the compression still retains acceptable quality while meeting the platform’s technical limitations. The trade offs allow videos to be smoothly shared among millions of members.
Workarounds to Share Higher Quality Videos
If maintaining original video quality is absolutely necessary, there are a couple potential workarounds:
Split Into Multiple Parts
One option is to split the high resolution video into multiple smaller parts that fit under the 250MB size limit when compressed to 720p. Each part can then be uploaded and shared on LinkedIn sequentially.
Host Externally and Embed
Another workaround is to host the high resolution video on an external service like YouTube or Vimeo. The video can then be embedded into LinkedIn posts and pages using the external service’s embed codes rather than uploading directly. This will bypass LinkedIn’s compression and allow streaming the original file.
However, both workarounds introduce complexity for viewers who must now access the content outside of LinkedIn’s native video player. There are also no guarantees that LinkedIn’s scraping algorithms won’t compress embedded third party videos in the future. But for now, these methods can potentially overcome the platform’s video restrictions.
Benefits of Video Compression for LinkedIn
Despite the reduction in visual quality, LinkedIn’s video compression provides some key benefits:
Improved Upload Speeds
By compressing videos before upload, the time required to upload a video to LinkedIn’s servers is greatly reduced, providing a better experience for users.
Faster Streaming Start Times
Smaller compressed video files can start streaming and playback almost instantly compared to uncompressed videos, which have longer buffering requirements.
Smoother Playback
Choppy lagging video streams become reliable and smooth after compression to meet bandwidth constraints across devices and connections.
Reduced Storage Needs
LinkedIn is able to store more videos using less storage capacity thanks to compression, keeping their infrastructure costs down.
Wider Compatibility
Compression creates videos playable across all devices and internet connections. More members can access and share videos without platform or bandwidth limitations.
Cost Savings
Lower storage, bandwidth, and infrastructure costs from compression add up to significant cost savings for LinkedIn. These savings enable them to offer video sharing capabilities for free.
Conclusion
In summary, LinkedIn compresses user uploaded video content to adhere to file size and resolution restrictions set by the platform. This compression, typically through H.264 and other encoding methods, allows videos to be stored easily, streamed smoothly, played back reliably on mobile devices, and accessed at scale while reducing infrastructure costs significantly.
The result is compressed 720p resolution video files under 250MB in size. While this does sacrifice some visual quality compared to the original video, the trade off provides an acceptable balance between quality and accessibility for LinkedIn’s large member base to share and consume video content seamlessly. With proper planning, there are workarounds like multi-part videos or external hosting that can overcome the limitations for users needing to preserve original video quality. For most use cases however, LinkedIn’s compression delivers good results and enables video posts that align with their platform’s technical capabilities.
