Video software recommendation, please

[amabaie]

I have already shot my video with my digital camera. I am looking for an easy-to-use software to post the video to a web page, roughly 300-400 px wide.

I don't want the video to start until someone clicks "play",and I want to control what is on the screen when the visitor arrives (either the ending frame or a text or image message/title).

My camera assigned a .AVI extension to the video, and I can play it in Windows Media Player

Any suggestions?

[davebarnes]

iMovie + QuickTime Pro

[charlie]

For editing, there are varying opinions on available software and I'll share mine.

I'm agreeing with David on the choice of iMovie. It's the simplest way to begin editing, hands down. On the Windows side, Premiere Elements isn't a bad starting point, but expect a steeper learning curve. Linux video editing (for beginners) is a bit lackluster right now but Kino's steadily improving.

For getting video on to your site which sounds the greater concern, there are a number of options.

Firstly, you'll likely need to re-encode your video to get it to the correct size. Unless, of course, it's already ~ 300x400 as you wanted.

Quicktime Pro (on Mac or Windows) can do this for you with relative ease (and it's only thirty bucks). Free options abound with a simple Google search and opinions vary.

From here, you can choose any format you want: .avi, .mov, .mp4, .flv, etc.

Again, opinions vary on which is better. For ease of use, I'd go for .mov or .mp4 (Quicktime formats) as most people will have this installed and it works well across most operating systems. Flash video (.flv) is a great choice, albeit a bit more complicated to implement.

After you've chosen your format, it all depends on how you built your site. If you've coded it by hand, you'll likely know how to use embed tags. If you're using Dreamweaver (or another WYSIWYG editor) then there's (likely) an option to embed such media.

I hope this helped. Please get back to us with any other questions and we'll gladly help out!

[darren13]

Hi guys - just some info I found - on youtube.com I've been able to upload my videos, and then either link or embed them in my pages as I wish. Not a solution for the professional touch, but for the purposes I required it for (showing my flat for sale in bournemouth) it allows me to upload some basic video footage (heaving breathing un-edited!) and get it online.

Have had a quick look at Movie Maker on my Win xp machine, but YouTube looked like it would be faster for what I need!

All the best, Darren.

[darren13]

And a PS - also trying the same thing with Google Video to see if the quality is about the same, or if there is any difference with either getting indexed for example,

D

[charlie]

Good call for those who don't mind the YouTube or Google branding. On certain plans it's certainly worth it for the hosting alone.

Thanks for the update!

[darren13]

Back again-
Quick update - have uploaded vids to the point where I have what I want now - I just need to familiarise myself with how to mute the sound when recording, or to edit out the 'Heavy-Breather-Cam' afterwards!

You can check out the quality from YouTube and Google (I have some from both tribes on the page) at fourcornersproperty.co.uk/bournemouth-flats-for-sale.htm if you want a working (but not perfect) example - both will give you code to 'embed' or to link to the video - I've done both on the page, and it's simple enough to resize the window so it suits your page if you're comfortable editing html.

My mate has a Mac, and iMovie, but this is a bit of a rush-job, so not sure if I'll get the time to go use it - if I do, I'll post back and let you know!

Charlie - as you mentioned - the hosting - with my current provider (123-reg) the bandwidth charges would be a nightmare if (BIG 'if') the clips got any moderate viewing. But I've just switched for another site I run, and with Dreamhost we get something like 2Tb of bandwidth, so I would have been okay on that front if I had this! 123 seem a bit tighter on their allocation!

Both YouTube and Google Video seem to stream okay with me (on a 6Mb broadband connection at home) but not sure how they fare with someone on a 56k modem.....any comments let me know, ha!

D

[darren13]

Quick update - Google's thumbnail seems to be much better quality than YouTube's for some reason, and with no 'play' button sat in the middle of it either.

D

[mymusic1234]

If you want to create a really professional touch with video you might want to consider signing up with Helloworld (link below)
You can do a number of things with this service including automatically create the html for the video to play on your website (either within the web page itself or as a popup).
It will also encode your video in several formats and bandwith speeds so everyone, regardless of what platform or bandwidth they have will be able to see it).
I personally have found the service very affordable and easy to use with just a few clicks of the mouse and drag and drop - nice! (Also does away with the need for your own server or changing your web host).