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By: stu | Posted: Thursday, January 26th, 2012
Fit your videos into their web player perfectly, every time.
Getting your video to fit perfectly into a web player, without spacing bars (black bars) filling in part of the player is a common stumbling block that has simply become an accepted malady of web video.
UNTIL NOW! Uploading video to your web site shouldn’t be a difficult process. Our collection of dashboard tools are well known in the market place for doing the heavy lifting of common web video tasks, and fitting a custom sized video into a player is no different. The Auto Detect tool found within the PLAYER SETTINGS > EDIT window allows for an automatic handling of each video baesed on its height and width.
Customer Success Manager Stu Marks interviews Company President and Web Video Guru Clint Pollock
Video Notes
- Black bars reduced or eliminated
- Video for any ratio handled—even vertical and exotic custom sizes
- Video sources handled include mobile devices, pro cameras, home cameras
- Various originating codes handled can be Windows, Mac, and virtually all conventional non-proprietary video file extension
- Handles “special” settings as well as standard settings from software and cameras
- Actual control panel demonstration
- Video ratio automatically detected for vertical and landscape orientation
- Height fixed at desired value
- Vertical fixed at desired value
- Optimized bandwidth
- Business and real life applications
- Amazon CloudFront
For more How To tips on Video On Your Web Site, under real business conditions, check these links;
By: rbouchez | Posted: Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
We watch a lot of web video, especially “how to”, so when something jumps out at us we’re quick to recognize! This Tripod Tricks blog post stood out for many of reasons (mostly good), but let’s start what they did in the blog post that’ll get them more love from Google from the time they hit publish.
Include Video Highlights & Take-aways in a bolded bulleted list- Google loves lists! An outline directly written from your video content, with important points in bold, will help search engines “understand” your video content. In addition, it’ll help those folks who are not able to watch the video! For example, folks surfing the web at work or on their phones may not be able to watch your video at that time, but an content outline could motivate them to share it right away or bookmark it for later.
Bonus Web Video Blog tip: Are you keyword savvy? Identify the keywords you’re targeting & include them in your bolded bullet points!
Thanks for stopping by! We’d love it if contributed your Web Video SEO tips & tricks in the comments!
Social Media Specialist for EZWebplayer.com
By: stu | Posted: Thursday, June 23rd, 2011
“More is not better in this case.”
During a recent research session, I was watching some compelling business videos on CNN Money dealing with The Economy in general. Clip after clip, from Boat Building, to an Ice Cream Store featurette, all paraded across my screen in short, to-the-point, segments. The Ice Cream segment was only about two minutes long and the boat video was only 2:26 in length.
Short videos and The Web were made for each other. On many levels, this is a marriage that we won’t see changing much in coming years beyond getting more prolific and ubiquitous.
Here are the top ten reasons to make sure your web video for business or promotion is a short one.
-Customers Want Shorter. An article from a company called Newfangled reports a theater wide average of web views as only 4.6 pages and 4:53 in duration. If you can’t get pertinent info to your viewer within 4 clicks or 4+ minutes, you are gambling with your advertising assets. And, in my experience, the folks figuring those averages failed to throw out the longest hits as they should have because I have found that the best video length to get results in any campaign of mine is closer to three minutes than four.
-Shorter Brings ‘em Back. A shorter video experience will engender return visits from your audience. Since they watched an engaging, pleasantly short and to-the-point video on your site last time, they are way more likely to book mark and revisit your site in the future.
-Shorter Makes Clearer. A video designed to be shorter does a much better job of making an important message clear. Longer videos tend to become wordy and the message becomes murkier instead of clear and concise.
“Setup the problem, solve it, and ask for the call-to-action, all in three minutes or less.”
-Shorter & Faster = Stronger Call to Action. A faster paced video does a better job of setting up the viewer to understand the sense of urgency in your call to action and therefore produces more conversions.
-Shorter Video Allows Space and Time for Other Assets to Work. After watching your longer 20 minute video, what will be the very next action your viewer will most likely take? It will be to rush to the bathroom or into the kitchen for a refill. Instead, they could have clicked on an order form, or read more about a specific product or service, or taken the extra motions to share your video with others who are interested in the same information. Short videos play nice with all of your other assets.
-Short Videos Cost Less to Produce. The resources that go into making the shorter, more concise video are going to be less than that of a longer video. Just scripting alone in the conventional creative industry can be hundreds of dollars of difference between a three minute and a fifteen minute video.
-Shorter=Smaller Bites. One of the best marketing secrets learned by professional advertisers is the fact that consumers are much more likely to act upon small, more powerful pieces of information than longer, more involved story lines. Setup the problem, solve it, and ask for the call-to-action, all in three minutes.
-Shorter Videos Can be Grouped. Try grouping your 20 minute sales video with your 15 minute promotional feature followed by the 5 minute How To video. What do you get? 40 minutes of boredom with short bursts of mere tedium.
“…the more important element in the whole producer/viewer relationship is the viewer’s likes, not the producer’s whims.”
A 4 minute product video showing the product or service in action, coupled with a 3 minute call-to-action video, tagged on the end with a 1 minute special sale video has only gotten 8 minutes of your customer’s time invested and it was accomplished in short steps with two intermissions.
-Short Videos =Better Saturation. Many who follow Tweet statistics know that the optimum video for going after the elusive ReTweet bird is the two minute video. This computes to better market saturation.
-Shorter=More. If shorter videos are easier and more fun to produce, then this means that you can produce more of them. Three short videos that explain the top three most important messages about your business, service or church are going to be way more powerful than the single video that attempts the same information all-in-one. It may seem more efficient, convenient and cost effective to make the longer, all inclusive feature length video, but the more important element in the whole producer/viewer relationship is the viewer’s likes, not the producer’s whims. More is not better in this case.
Time in itself is certainly not the most important element, but as an example of how important it was for Evian when choosing a venue in which to highlight their award winning and industry busting Evian Babies web video, they chose the 1:01 version for the entire European market.
Have a video that you want to share now? Click on the “Sign Up Now“, or “Try it Free” buttons.
Stuart Marks
Executive Creative Director
Business Video Applications
For tips on Video On Your Web Site, under real business conditions, check these links;
- Upload Web Videos With No Black Bars and Auto Upright Vertical Videos
- EZWebPlayer, CES, and the Pawn Stars?
- EZWEBPLAYER Launches Unlimited Video Player at CES
- Why Won’t My Videos Upload Smoothly?
- WEB VIDEO PLAYER ALERT Pacific N.W. Video Viewers Get Big Speed Boost
RESOURCES
Newfangled , CNN Money. Evian Baby Video
By: stu | Posted: Tuesday, June 21st, 2011
You don’t need to step outside of your well designed and smooth running web video player page in order to offer an audio file to your viewers. The EZWebPlayer can very easily play an audio feature. Simply render your audio file as a convenient video file like MP4, and upload it like a standard video.
Either create a single frame of video for the visual, or put some more effort into it and turn your audio file into a Power Point, changing up titles and graphics that support the audio track.
You’ll need to start by importing your audio file into a video editing application like Adobe Premiere CS5. Many audio formats are supported. If your current audio file extension is not supported in your video editing application, simply go online to find a conversion application. These are more often than not either free or very affordable; we’re talking $20 or less.
In the sample player attached to this article I have also enabled the simple URL Page GOTO function so that the player sends the viewer to the URL of my choice in a new window when the audio file is finished playing. Ya, I know; pretty cool, huh?
There’s also advertising options fore and aft of the audio file, just like a video. Which means that I could also insert a video or another audio file at the beginning or end of this feature audio file.
And, if you want the full effect of an audio player, there’s always this.
This player is created by simply changing the player setting to CUSTOM and choosing a 25 pixel height setting. At 25 pixels high, we are simply cutting out everything but the controls.
Have a video that you want to share now? Click on the “Sign Up Now“, or “Try it Free” buttons.
Stuart Marks
Executive Creative Director
Business Video Applications
For tips on Video On Your Web Site, under real business conditions, check these links;
Executive Creative Director
Business Video Applications
By: stu | Posted: Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
When you are managing a video on EZWebplayer’s Video Player, you have two choices for hosting; you can host your video elsewhere and simply enter its address into the URL field, or you can upload the video to the EZWebPlayer servers.
There are many advantages to hosting your video on EZWebPlayer’s Amazon Cloud Front servers, but one of them is the simplicity with which you can manage the thumbnail image.
After uploading a video, you will see this setup window;
This is where you have an opportunity to manage the thumb image. Doing nothing will allow the default settings to engage, thereby selecting a frame from the video which shows up everywhere the video is paused and ready to play from the beginning. If you do not like the default image, there are other choices.
The Player chooses four more images that you can choose from, or you can choose to upload your own custom image, which is a powerful and unique tool for sales and promotion.
Have a video that you want to share now? Click on the “Sign Up Now“, or “Try it Free” buttons.
Stuart Marks
Executive Creative Director
Business Video Applications
By: stu | Posted: Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
Offering several different ways to share, advertise or otherwise proliferate your web video is a best practice element and EZWebPlayer fulfills all of those categories and more with new sharing features. Probably one of the most useful is the Short URL. That’s right, EZWebPlayer now provides a short URL for every video you upload for easier sharing!
Here’s a sample of a standard EZWebPlayer URL generated for the feature demo video.
Or view the feature video below:
To get access to this feature, edit your video and enable Video Sharing.
You’ll notice a new Short Video ID and Short URL.
You can also click the email icon for additional sharing options:
*Reminder – If you every have questions about uploading, sharing, viewing video stats or anything else you can always reach us via Live chat at www.EZWebPlayer.com (upper right hand corner), on Twitter or on Facebook!
By Stu Marks: Chicago Area Media Designer & video consultant.
By: rbouchez | Posted: Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
We are always looking for great tips on shooting video for web and it’s a bonus when we we find a well shot video that gets right to the point! Check out the shooting tips video above and let me know what you think in the comments, have you tried the bungee cord trick? Does it work? I’m skeptical. Here are a couple great how to video tips from the EZWebPlayer team.
Thanks for stopping by!
By: stu | Posted: Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
History Says it All.
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”
George Santayana 1863-1952
Ask any recognized marketing guru. It’s true; the strongest marketing tool is an organization’s record of sales and marketing efforts and the response they actually drew from the target demographic. All that means is that you will learn how to get a strongly favorable response from the public at large by observing how they responded to your marketing efforts in the past.
Marketing communications are a one-way street right up until one gets a response from the target audience. Then, the marketing becomes a function of sales. We want all marketing to turn into sales. Without the sales aspect, marketing is a useless function and a total waste of resources.
The issue is knowing for sure that one’s marketing efforts are generating a positive sales response. Any positive response from a member of the demographic is a sign of a good marketing asset, and a buying signal.
What is a buying signal? The buying signal goes way beyond an actual sale and shows up way ahead of the actual shipment of product. Questions from the audience about the product are good buying signals. And beyond that, any audience time spent taking in product information is also strong buying signal stuff.
If one is displaying a marketing or promotion video 120 seconds in length that is only getting 20 seconds of play time from ¾ of the audience, it would be much better to find that out earlier rather than later.
If a poorly performing video only needs minor tweaking instead of total replacement, this can be discovered by looking at when the audience is bailing out of the offending materiel. Are they leaving the video early on? If this is true, then maybe just making the intro more dynamic would fix the problem. Knowing what part of the video that is causing yawns and the killer “NEXT” button to be stroked can be worth thousands of dollars in resource time.
What would happen if you could break your video into three parts; INTRO, BODY, CALL TO ACTION? Can you imagine how much more simple it would be to precisely tweak a marketing video that is already rolled out and online? This isn’t just a new or refreshingly good idea. This is standard marketing procedure that corporate professionals use to release the marketing genius of their high dollar advertising agencies. Team A works on the concept of the attention-getting introduction of the video, Team B works on the informational body of the video, and Team C works on the powerful call to action of the video that gets the target market to take action immediately upon watching the video.
Your video in three parts
Anything less than a three part video design is virtually an unfinished video.
One thing I have found that helps streamline this established business video process is choosing a video player that gives one the opportunity to add an introductory video clip at the beginning and a closing video clip at the end of each video. EZWebPlayer is actually the only web player I could find that offers this as a standard feature. It seems that the guys over there at EZWebPlayer understand a lot about marketing video on the web, not just the technical web part, but the actual marketing science behind all of the techy stuff.
By: rbouchez | Posted: Thursday, November 18th, 2010
This week the web video tips we’re serving up are a little different…
…in fact, I’m turning today’s tip over to Valsartdiary. It won’t take you long to figure out Val has a very successful YouTube channel, her videos are shot well – though not over produced – and she has a knack for the “clever.” If only more branded videos were just a tenth as interesting!
In this video Val shows us how she shot the silhouette video clip she uses as the signature for her video. Hope you enjoy it!
By Richard Bouchez: Social Media Specialist for EZWebplayer.com.
Video Shooting Links worth checking out:
1. Your Custom Video Starter—What Type of Camcorder?
2. Web Video Quick Tips #7: Don’t be a Space Invader
3. Web Video Quick Tips #11: Driveway Dolly
Greycie Loo directs by Elaine with Grey Cats
By: rbouchez | Posted: Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
Agenda:
- What you’ll need
- Audio first
- Shooting tips
- Get the footage onto your computer
- Publishing formats
- Upload video to your website
1.Video equipment needs
A Suitable Video Camera.
Records digitally to tape, DVD or Card.
Good zoom ratio so the camera doesn’t have to be close to the front of the room.
An external audio port so the camera can receive input from the existing sound system. XLR is best and most reliable.
A Good Tripod
Heavier is better, but more expensive.
Good Isolating Headphones
Blocks outside noise from the wearer’s hearing.
Seals around ear.
Editing Software
There is often free video editing software on new computers.
Using a direct capture to the software can save money on recording media by recording directly to the computer hard drive, but does not offer a backup solution if the computer crashes during the recording.
Media Ready Computer
Good sound card.
Fast enough to handle editing video.
Large enough hard drive to handle over an hour of video.
High Speed Internet Connection
Even the slowest high speed connection should be suitable.
Faster is better, speed = time.
Subscription to EZWebPlayer.com
www.EZWebPlayer.com
2. Audio First
A word about the audio-video relationship.
Worship service recording is a unique event. As a video, there is nothing like it in the entire media arena. The genre’ handles a very unique content and therefore has both special limitations as well as a few caveats like no other media event.
For this reason, the video can suffer more on the visual side and get away with it, such as only using one camera, and that being locked down on a medium wide shot. A single camera angle locked down might be preferable to a single camera angle being manually operated by an inexperienced volunteer or novice. Eventually, the video library should show marked improvement approaching professionalism for future viewing generations.
The audio, however, must be near perfect from Day One. Those viewing the video must be able to enjoy the music as well as understand every word and inflection of the important message.
Patch the sound system into the video camera via a cable. No wireless.
- Make sure your camera is receiving the audio signal from an original output source of the sound system, as apposed to taking it from another recording device like the CD, tape or digital audio recorder, or another computer.
Constant monitoring of the camera’s audio via headphones insures quality
- Use headphones that completely cover the ear.
- Make sure the headphones are plugged into the camera.
Make sure the audio source is raw, board out, audio. No extra effects or extra sweetening at all like reverb or inappropriate equalization. The finished video file will be naturally compressed somewhat during rendering.
Don’t allow the camera to be an audio source for any other output. No daisy chaining from the camera. The only output should be to the headphones.
Turn off the camera’s auto audio limiter and record manually.
The audio limiter employs top end compressing that can cause strange phasing effects when recording in an auditorium that generates natural echos and ambiance, and bottom end boosters that can increase background noise and cause his and rumble. It is much better and easier to becom accustomed to properly setting and monitoring the sound manually.
If the camera has manual settings for two channels, check for balance.
Single channel recording is preferred to problematic stereo. Good mono is better than bad stereo.
3. Shooting Tips
Camera movements should be smooth or not attempted at all.
Virtually anyone can learn to smoothly operate a tripod-mounted video camera. Practice makes perfect. Until a practiced hand is available to operate the camera to follow the movements of a lecturer who does not stay behind the podium, a static shot is preferable.
A standard tripod has friction settings that effect the pan and tilt of the head. These settings should be such that the start and end of each movement executed without an initial jump or ending stop-jerk.
Zooming in and out a lot is not a good idea. If multiple cameras are being used, it is better to already have the chosen zoom set before coming to that camera.
Operator fatigue is a real issue.
Use a larger view finder instead of the eye piece.
Having more than one camera operator might be a useful way to keep production value high while training more camera operators.
Wearing comfortable shoes is a must.
Wearing dark, plain clothing helps the camera operator be less of a distraction to those seated in the auditorium.
4. Getting the footage onto your computer
Before editing or posting to the web site, the footage must first be transferred from the camera or its media, to the computer’s hard drive. Which video editing software you own may effect the way your footage gets from camera to computer hard drive, but mostly they are the same.
If your camera is so equipped, you can simply plug it into an available USB2 or Firewire port on your computer, and execute a standard file transfer through your computer’s operating system like Windows or Mac, if the camera outputs to an editable file format recognized by your editing software. This is not common, but as technology changes it may become common.
The standard operating procedure for conventional video editing environments is to execute a “capture”. In Adobe Premiere, the command path would be FILE > CAPTURE.
Remember that you get what you pay for, but three of the more common free programs are;
Windows Movie Maker. This program came free on some bundles installed with Windows XP.
Apple iMovie
Avid FreeDV
Also, it has been common practice in the past for companies like Sony and Canon to include fairly decent editing software bundles with some of their consumer cameras.
5. Publishing formats
Publishing your video makes reference to rendering or developing your video for a Web Ready state, just like developing an old style film for viewing in a theater. In this case, you need to make sure that your video is assembled the way you intend your viewers to watch it.
Cuts, edits, transitions, graphics and audio video matching might be something you did not intend on manipulating: hoping that your camera would spit out a watchable product virtually direct from camera to web. In some cases, this might be possible. But, just in case you would like to change or add something, now is the time.
Most publishing software packages allow for various levels of video editing.
This is a sample of Adobe’s Premiere Pro CS4 timeline. All of the simplest editing environments will have some characteristics of this sample. Visual clip manipulation, audio control as well as transition effects and titling are all here.
When finished editing, you will most likely be faced with a list of choices no matter what editing software available to you.
Since publishing to the web is your goal, many of the overall technical decisions are already made on a higher level. You want a small file size with a premium quality. Fortunately, you have the luxury of trial and error in case web pixel values and the rendering thereof is not your strong suite. Don’t worry, it’s not mine either, and I’m a business video producer with a degree from an Art School.
Rendering video is an art form in itself and many institutions have full timers devoted to doing just that; rendering videos for web.
So, do what I did, and simply try some of the default file types suggested by your web video publishing software. The one that was defaulted for me in Camtasia for the previous video clip in this PowerPoint presentation was MP4. And sure enough there was no tweaking needed in either Camtasia or PowerPoint. It worked smoothly the first time, so I stayed with that.
6. Uploading your video to your website
We recommend www.EZWebPlayer.com.
Upload your first video.
Follow the instructions for installing the one time code set on your web page.
We hope you found this tutorial helpful! Thanks for visiting!
By Stu Marks: Chicago Area Media Designer & specialist in Church Video Consultant, Chicago.
Reposted 11/3/10, originally posted to blog.EZWebplayer.com & *updated 7/2/10
Flickr image by Jim the Photographer
Agenda:
- What you’ll need
- Audio first
- Shooting tips
- Get the footage onto your computer
- Publishing formats
- Upload video to your website
1.Video equipment needs
A Suitable Video Camera.
Records digitally to tape, DVD or Card.
Good zoom ratio so the camera doesn’t have to be close to the front of the room.
An external audio port so the camera can receive input from the existing sound system. XLR is best and most reliable.
A Good Tripod
Heavier is better, but more expensive.
Good Isolating Headphones
Blocks outside noise from the wearer’s hearing.
Seals around ear.
Editing Software
There is often free video editing software on new computers.
Using a direct capture to the software can save money on recording media by recording directly to the computer hard drive, but does not offer a backup solution if the computer crashes during the recording.
Media Ready Computer
Good sound card.
Fast enough to handle editing video.
Large enough hard drive to handle over an hour of video.
High Speed Internet Connection
Even the slowest high speed connection should be suitable.
Faster is better, speed = time.
Subscription to EZWebPlayer.com
www.EZWebPlayer.com
2. Audio First
A word about the audio-video relationship.
Worship service recording is a unique event. As a video, there is nothing like it in the entire media arena. The genre’ handles a very unique content and therefore has both special limitations as well as a few caveats like no other media event.
For this reason, the video can suffer more on the visual side and get away with it, such as only using one camera, and that being locked down on a medium wide shot. A single camera angle locked down might be preferable to a single camera angle being manually operated by an inexperienced volunteer or novice. Eventually, the video library should show marked improvement approaching professionalism for future viewing generations.
The audio, however, must be near perfect from Day One. Those viewing the video must be able to enjoy the music as well as understand every word and inflection of the important message.
Patch the sound system into the video camera via a cable. No wireless.
- Make sure your camera is receiving the audio signal from an original output source of the sound system, as apposed to taking it from another recording device like the CD, tape or digital audio recorder, or another computer.
Constant monitoring of the camera’s audio via headphones insures quality
- Use headphones that completely cover the ear.
- Make sure the headphones are plugged into the camera.
Make sure the audio source is raw, board out, audio. No extra effects or extra sweetening at all like reverb or inappropriate equalization. The finished video file will be naturally compressed somewhat during rendering.
Don’t allow the camera to be an audio source for any other output. No daisy chaining from the camera. The only output should be to the headphones.
Turn off the camera’s auto audio limiter and record manually.
The audio limiter employs top end compressing that can cause strange phasing effects when recording in an auditorium that generates natural echos and ambiance, and bottom end boosters that can increase background noise and cause his and rumble. It is much better and easier to becom accustomed to properly setting and monitoring the sound manually.
If the camera has manual settings for two channels, check for balance.
Single channel recording is preferred to problematic stereo. Good mono is better than bad stereo.
3. Shooting Tips
Camera movements should be smooth or not attempted at all.
Virtually anyone can learn to smoothly operate a tripod-mounted video camera. Practice makes perfect. Until a practiced hand is available to operate the camera to follow the movements of a lecturer who does not stay behind the podium, a static shot is preferable.
A standard tripod has friction settings that effect the pan and tilt of the head. These settings should be such that the start and end of each movement executed without an initial jump or ending stop-jerk.
Zooming in and out a lot is not a good idea. If multiple cameras are being used, it is better to already have the chosen zoom set before coming to that camera.
Operator fatigue is a real issue.
Use a larger view finder instead of the eye piece.
Having more than one camera operator might be a useful way to keep production value high while training more camera operators.
Wearing comfortable shoes is a must.
Wearing dark, plain clothing helps the camera operator be less of a distraction to those seated in the auditorium.
4. Getting the footage onto your computer
Before editing or posting to the web site, the footage must first be transferred from the camera or its media, to the computer’s hard drive. Which video editing software you own may effect the way your footage gets from camera to computer hard drive, but mostly they are the same.
If your camera is so equipped, you can simply plug it into an available USB2 or Firewire port on your computer, and execute a standard file transfer through your computer’s operating system like Windows or Mac, if the camera outputs to an editable file format recognized by your editing software. This is not common, but as technology changes it may become common.
The standard operating procedure for conventional video editing environments is to execute a “capture”. In Adobe Premiere, the command path would be FILE > CAPTURE.
Remember that you get what you pay for, but three of the more common free programs are;
Windows Movie Maker. This program came free on some bundles installed with Windows XP.
Apple iMovie
Avid FreeDV
Also, it has been common practice in the past for companies like Sony and Canon to include fairly decent editing software bundles with some of their consumer cameras.
5. Publishing formats
Publishing your video makes reference to rendering or developing your video for a Web Ready state, just like developing an old style film for viewing in a theater. In this case, you need to make sure that your video is assembled the way you intend your viewers to watch it.
Cuts, edits, transitions, graphics and audio video matching might be something you did not intend on manipulating: hoping that your camera would spit out a watchable product virtually direct from camera to web. In some cases, this might be possible. But, just in case you would like to change or add something, now is the time.
Most publishing software packages allow for various levels of video editing.
This is a sample of Adobe’s Premiere Pro CS4 timeline. All of the simplest editing environments will have some characteristics of this sample. Visual clip manipulation, audio control as well as transition effects and titling are all here.
When finished editing, you will most likely be faced with a list of choices no matter what editing software available to you.
Since publishing to the web is your goal, many of the overall technical decisions are already made on a higher level. You want a small file size with a premium quality. Fortunately, you have the luxury of trial and error in case web pixel values and the rendering thereof is not your strong suite. Don’t worry, it’s not mine either, and I’m a business video producer with a degree from an Art School.
Rendering video is an art form in itself and many institutions have full timers devoted to doing just that; rendering videos for web.
So, do what I did, and simply try some of the default file types suggested by your web video publishing software. The one that was defaulted for me in Camtasia for the previous video clip in this PowerPoint presentation was MP4. And sure enough there was no tweaking needed in either Camtasia or PowerPoint. It worked smoothly the first time, so I stayed with that.
6. Uploading your video to your website
We recommend www.EZWebPlayer.com.
Upload your first video.
Follow the instructions for installing the one time code set on your web page.
We hope you found this tutorial helpful! Thanks for visiting!
By Stu Marks: Chicago Area Media Designer & specialist in Church Video Consultant, Chicago.
Reposted 11/3/10, originally posted to blog.EZWebplayer.com & *updated 7/2/10
Flickr image by Jim the Photographer
By: admin | Posted: Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
You’ve already been told by several trusted individuals that you need a video on your website, or you have several videos that belong on the web, and you need a quick and efficient way to start posting them.
Now what?
FORMAT FOR WEB VIEWING
Your video needs to be converted to a web friendly format that is small in size but rich in both visual and audio delivery. There are literally dozens of video formats in the world but only a handful that are web friendly. I suggest the following formats; MP4, FLV, FV4, h.264 and Quicktime.
Since your video may not have started out as one of these, you need a converter. Free or inexpensive converters are available on the web. Conducting a search for “VIDEO CONVERTER” should result in many hits from which to choose. Download, install and start converting.
CHOOSING YOUR PLAYER
This is a little like shopping for your Converter, only more important. The Player you choose will be presenting your video content either as an integral part of your web site or as a portal for all web videos and your web videos are only being temporarily featured therein. The other content is an unknown and not under your control. Not good.
Unless it is your intention to create a global web video portal, it’s better to pick and choose the content to which your viewers will be exposed. EZWebPlayer is just such a player. Feel free to conduct a search like you did for your converter, but take it from one who has been there and done that, EZWebPlayer has the features you need and then some.
Go to www.EZWebPlayer.com, click on the FREE TRIAL button and get started. The install procedure to your site is a revolutionarily simple process. For each page upon which you’ll be playing videos (yes, it supports multiple sites for no extra charge) simply fill out the data fields with your connection info, and start uploading your videos. It’s so simple, you’ll actually enjoy this part of your web video configuring.
Viewers can either be presented with that one important video, or choose from a drop down menu. Videos can start playing automatically or wait for the play button click. Title, description and even views count are completely customizable.
And what about advertising? Woo hoo! You’ve hit the jackpot. For no extra charge, you have at your fingertips the ability to insert images and videos over or in between your video features; WITH LINKS. Yeah, really.
For more info and to also see the new Word Press Plugins, go to www.EZWebPlayer.com. There are samples and other videos to see.
There is only one, uncomplicated video player for your web site that is both simple to install and simple to operate and doesn’t require one to learn a new coding language. And that would be EZWebPlayer. A Player for beginners and beyond.
By Stu Marks: Chicago Area Media Designer & video consultant.
Follow the instructions for installing the one time code set on your web page.
Upload your first video.
We hope you found this tutorial helpful! Thanks for visiting!
By: clintpollock | Posted: Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
Mike Pudlo, video producer for IncreaseSalesWithVideo.com discussing how to get your videos streaming online in a flash. Whether you are filming in HD or still using that NTSC camcorder this series will help with your rendering settings, server options and overall a better understand of rendering HD and NTSC videos.
How to export High Definition video files to upload and stream on your website.
So what is HD?
HD stands for High definition, a 16:9 aspect ratio, providing a wider screen then the Standard 4:3 (SD) And this is where size does matter, similar to how the higher a digital photo’s DPI setting are related to the quality of print, the more the dots the better the picture, or in video more lines better the video.
720p, 1080i and 1080p are all HD settings – the number stands for the vertical lines that create the image and the letter describes the type of scan used to display the picture. P for progressive, one whole frame per capture, or I for interlace which captures the top ½ of a frame which merges with the bottom of the next frame to complete the picture.
Today, I’ll be using Adobe’s Media Encoder from CS5 to demonstrate this process.
Before we get to deep into the render settings, we’ll have to select what file format we want our video exported as. For HD there are primarily two container types, Flash Video (FLV/F4V) or H264 (mp4). The file format I want to use is a flash file using the h.264 video codec, creating a F4V.
While you can export a full 1080 HD video, good luck getting anyone to truly appreciate the full quality video unless they have a 20+” monitor, live in Amazon Cloud’s server room and operate a very high-end processing pc. Not to say that a great looking picture isn’t achievable it just won’t be true HD as many proclaim to stream.
It’s important to adjust the width and height dimension of your video accordingly. Theoretically you can use any width and height but non optimal dimensions can cause poor image quality and even reduced frame rate. Use a multiple of 16 for the best looking video to upload to your website.
I’ll be using 1280×720 for my video dimensions which is also many of the mainstream video hosts accepted ratio for playback.
The overall goal for your exported file is to have a high quality looking and sounding video that can be easily streamed and viewed by anyone with a highspeed internet connection. Highspeed is the key. HD video requires a lot more bandwidth then the standard SD video.
I’d recommend using at least 1.5MB per second and up to 4MBps for your bandwidth. If you are using the 1280×720 dimensions I mentioned earlier then I’d stick with at least 2.5MBps data rate.
For audio, I have found that 44.1megahertz and at 96kbps with the AAC codec provides a rich audio through the majority of the web video players.
Once you confirm the frame rate is the same as the source and you are ready to export.
It’s always a good idea to save your preset and name it accordingly.
There are a handful of video editing software programs but not all of them will export HD file into the best streaming format. A useful free program to convert your HD video files into a
streaming format is Prism Video Converter, some other pay to use programs to research are VirtualDub and AVS converter.
I hope this helps get your video uploaded to your website.
Mike Pudlo
Video Producer
www.IncreaseSalesWithVideo.com
www.EZWebPlayer.com
By: clintpollock | Posted: Sunday, July 25th, 2010
Let us assume for a moment that you want or need everyone that you can grab to watch the video on your website. If you are in business, or are responsible for promoting your church videos, this is an easy assumption.
Then, here are some simple guidelines to not only grab viewers, but to keep folks coming back as well as exponentially grow your list of followers.
Information Content is King
Content is King!
In your video collection provide a service if possible. Providing a service creates in your archive real value to the viewer. This can be done in every video, or just one video a week or month. Short, informative videos a resample to write, assemble and publish. You can use PowerPoint to create slides that bullet point and feature your information.
Giving back to your community is a real asset to your business, to you, your employees, those who watch your videos, and of course, your community at large.
“What service can I provide?” you might ask.
Realtors can publish seasonal landscaping tips, tips on selling homes, making property more valuable, etc. Churches can publish holiday celebration events around the community, specific community safety information, time change reminders, recycling locations, leaf removal services, the list is endless.
Your Geographic Uniqueness
If you want to benefit from a growing list of followers, you are in competition with tens of thousands of other video sources. But, this does not mean that your videos have to run higher and jump further, with ever more expensive special effects, new camera techniques and custom jingles such that you find yourself spending thousands on outsourcing and gear. No, the strength of your content is in your unique information or location, not your abilities as a video producer.
If folks see your video, but are too far away to take advantage of your geographically based business or church event, then don’t worry about marketing to them. Market to Your Crowd. Your crowd is that group of folks who can best benefit from your message or product.
If you are a real estate agent, then you can hardly spend time marketing to the whole world, when your properties are right there in your tri-county area. You may market broad enough that folks moving to your area will catch your message, but most of your market lives close enough to shop at the same stores you do. You’re really marketing tom
Target your marketing to your crowd.
you neighbors.
Include information that locals, or those who want to become locals will be looking for. Schools, churches, shopping, recreation, lower tax base (where is that, by the way?) etc.
Any national parks nearby? Shoot a welcome segment in front of your local claim to fame.
Break it up.
Using the same format for every video can become boring unless the content is so good that it is always looked forward to. If your content is not killer, like hang gliding or underwater scuba diving, then make sure to use interesting visuals to break up your boring talking head shots.
One week, shoot from your church or business parking lot with your building in the background. The next week, shoot from a local venue. While you are at an away event, shoot a segment there for future use, etc.
Interview employees, customers and trusted vendors. Children are great video sources. Just make sure that Mom and Dad are involved in the agreement to put little Mildred and her cat Fluffy on screen.
Realtors have an endless supply of materiel in the form of new properties.
Feature your;
- best
- least expensive
- most potential
- largest
- easiest to move into
- closest to town
- best from out in the country
- in the neighborhood voted most colorful or economical, or friendliest.
The list is endless.
Also, you can use the Press Release Format. Cover related but varied topics. Talk about events or programs that are in your industry but not about you. Car dealers are known for donating their cars for dignitaries to ride in during parades. That’s a great PR move. Realtors can host business mixers at their office or a large hotel suite. Video your happy clients at one of these mixers and get their permission to place the video on your web site. Most happy customers are glad to help.
If your church has an Easter egg hunt, or a summer picnic, the pastor can interview some kids, adults and families having a good time.
Smiling, happy positive faces and comments from the heart are what grab folks and keep them coming back.
Smiling, happy positive faces and comments from the heart are what grab folks and keep them coming back.
Be Direct, Clear and to the Point in Your Message
Communications 101 always deals with this one, important fact: you are dealing with the general public when you publish a video. Dealing with the public can be both simple and complex, depending on what you’re used to doing, and what you’re trying to get across in a short video.
This is not the time for vague innuendoes, half truths, talking down to folks or complaining about a competitor, or the government. Strong, narrow messages, if they are necessary at all, are for smaller venues behind closed doors, not for the public venue. Unless your goal is to purposely alienate a segment of your market, and thereby drive them away, be inclusive.
Find positive and beneficial ways to tell your story and make your offer. Feature the obviously positive benefits that pretty much everyone would agree is a good thing. Example: Some churches use busses to bring children to Sunday School. What many folks don’t understand is that this is not a money making venture for any church, but an increasing financial liability. Also, most churches don’t transport children to church whose parents attend elsewhere. These two facts are important to share with the community. A) Your church is not out there stealing kids from other churches, and B) Your church is not in this for the money, but simply sharing the Gospel.
If you have a difficult or complex issue that needs explaining, you might consider only touching the high points that need less educating. But, if your product or service is visual, then here is your moment to shine, because video was obviously meant for this element.
Keep it Short
All video consultants agree that web videos designed to increase interest in a product or service work best when they are short. The powerful, short web video is probably the best returning asset in the marketing arsenal today.
Obviously, if you are publishing your 50 minute church service, the short video part is out. Long programs work best archived and then pointed to using short teaser videos. You can create a short teaser of any long event that includes high-lights and important statements, with the full video only a click away; especially if you choose the right player venue on which to post your videos. For example, EZWebPlayer.com includes simple, one-click advertising links where you can insert web links into videos at customized locations around your video.
Realtors can benefit from producing a monthly testimonial video that is short. Testimonials of real people bragging about the benefits of your product or message are the most powerful content available. And, testimonials are always short.
This concludes Part I of Care and Feeding of Your Web Video Archive
In Part II, we explore;
Archiving; a Momentum unto Itself
Frequent Additions Build Core Viewers
Socialize Your Archive
Networking 101
and Nurturing takes Commitment
By Stu Marks: Chicago Area Media Designer & specialist in Church Video Consultant, Chicago.
LINKS:
Chess piece photo by Daniel Y. Go
Crowd photo by Steve Crane
Smiling Happy Faces By Swamibu
www.EZWebPlayer.com
www.techmynd.com
www.digitalbuzzblog.com
By: clintpollock | Posted: Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
One of the most important parts of putting video on the web is to ensure it has been rendered properly. We would like to lend some best practices that we have learned during our tenure of creating web video. File size, quality, bit rate and more, all come into play. There is no all inclusive guide out there that has all of the answers. Testing is the primary way you can get your render settings just right.
Video on website is a balance between quality and file size. Yes, the majority of people have good connections. However, something like DSL can stutter even a well rendered file.
In this document we will outline video rendering best practices that will help you avoid issues with file buffering and more.
Video Editing Software
There are many desktop video editing suites and packages out there. Most are capable of creating video that will work with Flash (Our players are created with Flash). We use Adobe Premiere to edit video. Information and screen shots provided below will be based off of Adobe Premiere CS4 but, the values mentioned are industry standard terms that usually apply cross platform.
Working with Web Video – Exporting from Your Video Program.
When working with web videos there are several properties that need to be addressed for a streaming file to play correctly. I recommend using FLV or H.264 (MP4) formats to create your streaming web videos. MOV does work but we have seen issues with those files. FLV and MP4 videos are smaller in file size and offer the same if not better quality then the MOV files.
The ‘pixel aspect ratio’ of your video is important to maintain when encoding your timeline.
1920×1080 (High Definition)
720×480 (NTSC, 4:3 and 16:9)
- Our flash player plays videos best at 720×480 for NTSC and 800×450 for HD
- You can render your video any size you want as long as you keep it the same ratio.
The bitrate setting can vary depending on the overall production requirements.
- Our bitrate settings range from 500 – 1229kbps.
The audio settings are stereo, 32 – 128kbps. For longer videos, reducing this setting will help reduce file size. Changing this value usually can be done without noticeable quality loss unless one is working with extremely high fidelity gear, which would be seriously hampered by most Internet connections any way.
When working on an NTSC timeline, I’ve found that Premiere creates black bars on the right/left sides of the outputted FLV to accommodate for ratio differences. To eliminate this, render out a full quality .mpeg2 and use the Adobe flash encoder or embed the new mpeg into a timeline and then proceed to export the FLV/MP4.
High Definition
We find that MP4 files typically work best for High Definition. This term is thrown around in the web world, but the truth is the only way you can really get high definition is by having a 24in monitor. The files you play through the SinglePlayer or MultiPlayer that are labeled High Definition will be much better quality than your standard render, but there is no possible way to render a 1920X1080 file and send it to users unless you are using the Google or Yahoo vehicles . File size becomes a real problem here – a 5 minute video can become hundreds of MB’s. If you plan to offer a High Definition render be sure you offer an alternate option for users who have trouble. Ensure your web host is capable of sending these files to the viewer fast enough. Don’t forget to watch your bandwidth and storage usage with your web host – these files will eat it up. In our opinion we are not yet ready for the regular person/business to display HD web video. 50MBps home lines are coming so it won’t be long. I expect that in the next 1 or 2 years HD video will become more prevalent.
The other thing to keep in mind – FLV/MP4, etc are all rendered and compressed. The viewers computer must decode the video. If people have a slow computer, they are low on RAM, and have a lot of programs running, it can cause the computer to hiccup. This is no fault of the flash player, but the fact that the person’s computer is unable to handle that high quality of video.
Video Size & Long Videos
From the above example you can see that video file size starts to add up quickly. For this reason you want to have the right kind of render to fit your web hosting provider and your visitor’s Internet connections.
30-50Mb for a 5 minute file is typically ideal. It is also a good idea to split up videos. In other words, running a 30 minute video may not be the best idea if you are using HTTP download (which most use). The reason why – each time the user clicks play the entire file starts downloading. If they only watch 5 minutes there would have been a lot of unnecessary file transfer.
You can easily use the SinglePlayer or the MultiPlayer to split up files into “chapters” and allow the viewer an easy way to see the parts of the video they desire. 5-10 minutes is your standard Internet Video Length.
Making videos short can ensure your viewers run into less viewing problems.
Buffering
In order for the user to watch the video, it must download to their computer. There has to be a little bit of a buffer for the video to play smoothly. If your video can’t buffer as fast as you can watch it, your video will stop until the buffer catches up, only to stop again. You can see the SinglePlayer buffer below. Since this is a long video I feel confident it will buffer fine for most. I have tested these videos from DSL connections in rural locations and it has a hard time keeping up. There is still a LOT of people living in remote areas with slow DSL or Satellite connections. You don’t want to forget about them.
Clear your cache
Once the video fully downloads to your computer, it may store that and not try to download your new version next time. Be sure to empty your Browser cache each time you upload a new video. This forces your computer to go through the download process again.
Hosting your Video Files
It is important to use a fast web hosting provider. You will need at least 100KB bandwidth to send people video files. The easiest way to find out how fast your host is – upload a file that is larger than 10 MB to your host. Then download it through your FTP or HTTP and see how fast it is. This shows my web host is sending me 275KB/Second which is fast enough to handle several downloads at a time.
I have my web content on one host, and my video content on another. I use http://www.streamhoster.com/ but there are many out there.
Flash Streaming
Do you have large and lengthy video files? Your next step will be using a Flash Media Server host. Flash Media Server will stream web video in real time. This is different than HTTP download – instead of sending the user the entire file, a Flash Media Server streams it to the user as they view it. In addition, you can have multiple render settings within one file. It is possible to have an HD file, a standard render and, a small render all in one file. The Flash Media Server determines which stream it can send them and handles it automatically. This is of course more complicated to setup, render, and use but may be necessarily if you have large files or lengthy content. Click here to get an easy to use RTMP Video Player.
Adobe CS4 Example Render Settings:
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H.264, Wide Screen. |
H.264 4:3 |
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We hope you found this tutorial helpful! Thanks for visiting!
Clint Pollock
President | EZWebPlayer.com
The Non-Tech solution to putting videos online
www.EZWebPlayer.com
Connect with me !
More Web Video articles you might like…
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How to export High Definition video files to upload and stream on your website.
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WordPress and EZWebPlayer: Uploading Web Video to Your Blog is Better than Ever!
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Camtasia Tip: Create a High Quality Web Video Without Black Bars
