YouTube som din video base, en rigtig god idé!

Kort om video på nettet

Hvis du har nogle videoer som du ønsker at dele med venner eller kunder så er YouTube bestemt et godt bud på et sted at gøre det. Du opnår mange gratis muligheder, og Google er jo bestemt ikke en dårlig “partner” på det felt!

Her er et par af de features som jeg mener er guld værd – og der er flere som ikke er nævnt!

Man kan se og uploade til YouTube på mange måder

Om du sidder med en iPad, en Windows baseret PC eller en Apple iOS computer så kan du uploade dine videoer til YouTube. Du kan navngive, beskrive, tagge og generelt kontrolere hvordan dine videoer skal fremstå på nettet. Dine videoer bliver søgbare, hvis du giver lov til det!, og de bliver relateret til lignende videoer.

Videoer fra YouTube kan afspilles på næsten alle devices, lige fra mobil, over “pads”, moderne TV’er (i stuen hos folk) eller på computere. Du skal ikke gøre noget for at konvertere til forskellige video formater – det sørger YouTube for. Dine venner kan synes om dem, gemme dem som deres favoritter eller dele dem f.eks. på Facebook.

Du kan få din egen video kanal, geotagge dem og se statistik over hvordan dine videoer er blevet anvendt, set eller delt. Hvilke type brugere og hvor kommer de fra? Hvor mange gange er din video blevet set, og så videre…

Du kan nemt dele dine videoer fra din hjemmeside, du kan e-maile den til venner eller kunder, alt sammen på dit eget sprog.

Jeg vil derfor anbefale at man får sig en konto på YouTube og bruger det til at gemme sine videoer – det er jo også en god måde at have backup i “skyen” af ens videoer. Se disse screenshoots fra min youtube konto (http://www.youtube.com/netsi64).

Screenshoots fra min konto

Når folk ser videoen

Her er et eksempel på en video jeg har lavet ved hjælp af min mobiltelefon og en app som kan optage “time-lapse” video. Time-lapse er hvor man tager et billede med et givet interval (f.eks. 1 sekund) og så afspiller det med 25 billeder i sekundet. Det giver en morsom effekt, her er det f.eks. en køretur til Aarhus fra Løgten – det tager så 0:21 minutter!!

Rediger oplysninger

Det er så simpelt som at klikke “Rediger oplysninger” og man er igang med at kunne redigere de oplysninger som hører til videoen. Det betyder f.eks. at du kan uploade først og tilføje relevante information senere.

Folk kan iøvrigt kommentere og rate dine videoer. Noget som ja, selvfølgelig er gratis.

Statistik/analytics

Der er ret professionelle statistiske oplysninger som kan være ret interessante at se. Google har styr på det og man føler sig rigtig godt dækket ind på det felt.

Mange andre muligheder

YouTube er udbredt og kendt af mange, selv TV-stationer viser klip derfra. Hvis du bruger YouTube professionelt er der også den fordel at mange CMS systemer integrerer godt til det, der er mange webudviklere som kan hjælpe dig og nettet bugner med gode vejledninger og råd til denne state of the art video tjenste.

Så jeg kan kun anbefale at du bruger denne fantastiske gratis service fra YouTube.

Iøvrigt…

Skulle du nu sidde og have fået lyst til at se ovennævnte video eksempel så kan du se den her – for Windows Live Writer, som jeg bruger til at blogge med, kan selvfølgelig indlejre videoer fra YouTube gennem et par klik! Smiley

Min Time-lapse video–indsat nemt og smertefrit via Windows Live Writer…

Relateret indhold

Video for everybody generator
Et rigtig godt gratis video konvertering program: Free Video Converter
Google YouTube player demo – hjælp til udviklere der ønsker at indsætte YouTube videoer i deres HTML.

Time-lapse recording using Android based HTC Legend and app “Tina time-lapse”

Tonight I did a test of the Tina time-lapse free app for Android – an application which will record time-lapse pictures. Here are my comments, which may come handy for you.

Tina time-lapse, getting it and how to use

It is no problem getting the application ofcause. You may goto the Market and then search for “Tina time-lapse”. The app is for free and is straight forward to use. You simply enter a name, how often images should be take (say every 7th second), a limit for the number pictures taken may be entered and the resolution of each picture.

Doing the recording

Tonight I decided to place my HTC Legend phone in the front window and let it record the around 15 minuts drive to Aarhus (a city approx. 12 km from where I live). I did some calculating and decided to go for 540 pictures. I pushed record and drove into the night. The problem is ofcause that the phone may tilt as it is not mounted – that I will have to come up with a solution for. Anyone know of a device like which makes it possibel to mount the phone on a standard camera tripod? Please write if you do so.

When I reached my goal in Aarhus and picked up the phone I am not sure, but I think that the app intelligently stopped recording! (smart if so). The reason that I think that it did it automatically is that it only recoreded 173 frames/pictures and not the 540 which I had specified.

Converting the pictures into a movie

Well that part was actually not difficult either. I simply followed the instructions given by the Tina time-lapse developer: Wessel Rossing on his page about this app: http://wesselrossing.nl/blog/view/21 – he has recorded a video in which he describes how you can get your images to your PC and convert them into a video using the free program “avidemux” (see screenshoot below).

I choose to add the audio from Madonna – “Ray of light” which in the original video actually also uses Time-Lapse recordings.

I changed the framerate to 8,5 fps, and I also added some video filters to fix the low light of the evening pictures. Here is how it looks like when you save the video:

The 2nd go at encoding to movie..

Well I had to try again… And this time it went fine! The encoding took almost no time, but strangly enough it ended up with a crash. The video however was okay!

The video is here:

Adobe AIR is so cool

Many times I have been touching the Adobe AIR world, but never really had the time to look into developing my own applications based on this cool framework. This night I stumbled upon it again – a random application “Parleys Desktop 4.0” which turned out to be an desktop Adobe AIR appliation which can playback various medias. I found one – a video – which was about cartoons. As an example of just how cool it was, this post was written at the same time that the video was showing fullscreen in the background of my Windows Live Writer (where I wrote this blog).

I found a button which apparently should let me embed the video, and here it is:

Nice so nice, not only the video above: “Animation Rules!”, but the Adobe Air Desktop application! Well done Adobe! Oh, and a very cool video – here are info and screenshoot from the applicaiton running (here showing information).

Description
Using Traditional Animation Techniques for More Effective User Experiences
Speaker
Chet Haase is a Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) client architect in the Java Desktop Group. He works with the client teams to make Java technology on the desktop more productive, useful, and successful. This means tracking desktop application development in general and making sure that Java software meets and hopefully exceeds developer requirements. His background is in graphics, both 2D and 3D, so he tend to focus more on graphics-specific issues in general, such as performance and graphical effects for GUI toolkits. He writes about Desktop Java issues such as graphics, performance, and Swing effects on blog at http://weblogs.java.net/blog/chet. Romain Guy is a French student currently working as an intern with the Swing Team at Sun Microsystems. He has 7 years of experience in Java development, as an Open Source and freelance developer. He also works as a freelance journalist for a French computing magazine, as a translator for OReilly and taugh Java in a University. Today Romain focuses on UI design and humane interaction.

Dynamicweb video casts – great if you need to improve your Dynamicweb skiils!

Sebastian Dammark is working at Dynamicweb Systems. He has produced some video casts which can help you if you are implementing websites using Dynamicweb CMS. Here is an example:

Find other video casts here

Embedding video on a website – help!!! It started off good at "gotoandlearn.com – Free video tutorials by Lee Brimelow on the Flash Platform"

I simply want to embed video on my website!!!
Okay I maybe naive – though I would prefer to say “hopefull”. Goto-and-learn should be the right site for me as I rather desperat seek a simple free cross browser pattern to follow in my search for video embedded on a website!

Time:
14:57 I enter the site.. A Flash related site
14:59 I try the video tutorial: “ActionScript 3 Video Basics”.. Oh dear, there goes the “free” part of my goal: Speaker: “..have flash CS3 open”, “…there is ofcause the The flv playback component…”, hmm… I will skip this tutorial (15:04) and google for “flv playback component”

15:10 Hmm… No hits, I will try to go for a NON-adobe (read: flash) soloution… But still it should be free and cross browser..

Sliverlight?
Perhaps Silverlight? Hmm… Is that a good idea? or will people visiting my site with embedded silverlight simply drop-out as they probertly not have silverlight installed? I am afraid so.. So for now I will not use silverlight…

15:17 Close to giving up… Ah, I try my network on MSN… Asking a friend… away… Try another… away… This is really a sunday blues 3rd person… away… Wow! Someone was alive, he knew a friend who knows about how to embed video for free… Otherwise he says that JAVA applets could be a path… I mention silverlight… He says that sliverlight hits around 0.1% of the users and suggests SVG. I note that SVG is primarely Firefox. He says that for the next couple of year flash will probertly be the answer to video on web. He promises to talk to his friend the next day, but this has become a challange for me – so I will continue the search!
He ends with suggesting that I look at “javafx” – wooomm off I am to a new Google search on that!

15:32 Google search for “javafx”… Oh dear, the three letters “JavaFX SDK is available now” scares my (= a heavy path). (15:34) The first friend appears, I ask him the same question: “Embed video cross browser without it involving non-free software! Any experience?“. Wating for his reply I try to read about javaFX. (15:42) Hmm… Well, I used to use Java some years back, and I admit it is a serious piece of tool – but, it is not 1-2-3 for me, so I will drop the “JavaFX” path…

15:44 I hold on to the Java Applet path, perhaps I can find a “free Applet video player” – here is what Google search returned: “YouTube Video Applet” was the first hit, but oh dear: “Buy it for $5 – or – Try it for FREE!”… God! I hate that definition of “free”: Free for a limited period! Seriously – that is obuse of the word “Free”… I try one of the other hits: “Inline MPEG – 1 – player in JAVA“, that sounds basic! And it was… I do not have a way to create MPEG 1. My digital video file is is WMV – so I guess I sould make that a part of the search!

15:50 Search for “embed wmv cross browser free”… I am desperate and think that I will perhaps have to choose to dump the ~~cross browser~~ part of my mission… I try a website saying: “Embedding a Windows movie (.wmv) in a page“. Oh dear, even before I start to read the article… I look to the right in my Windows Live Writer which I use for writing this article.. Here is what I see:

Even if you do not understand danish I think that you understand my drift: My live writer says that it will allow me to embed a video clip!!! I will try it now! (16:00) Oh dear, oh dear – it will not let me point to a file, and if I point to an URL it will not allow just any URL. Only special video sites are allowed, and no need to mention: Microsoft Soapbox is one of them..

16:03 Okay! I will NOT give up! I go back to the “embedding a windows movie…” mentioned above… 16:06 working 16:10 Done! Well the final soloution was to use a method which I have previously used on the site! It is almost the same as on the “embed…” site, but, well better!

Conclusion after 1 hour and 15 minutes
Not everything is easy to locate and solve simply by googling the net. If you go for mainstream soloutions you probertly will find it, but if you have special needs, like not wanting to invest $$ in for instance Adobe Flash CSxxx then you are probertly on your own!

I am however not without hope for the future! Free, easy and flexible embeding of video will appear in near future as the net is driven by users – and even Google cannot make everybody use the YouTube path to embed video on the net. Things like Silverlight, Java Applets and other future technologies will offer such tools, should Adobe FLV and Google get to be too big on the net, that I am in no doubt about!

And finally – my code
It would be a shame not to show you the actual code which solved the task for me. First of all you can see the running video here. And the code is here:

The sites I came across (usefull or not for me!)

www.netsi.dk

"The internet is just a layer on the real world" (don't forget that!)

Tag Archives: video