Getting My Video Learnin' On.

Hey Folks

I'm just venturing into the video world, and trying to put some clips together for my website - I'm editing in iMovie 9.0, and then exporting pretty much to whatever. That's where I get totally lost. Any pointers on what direction to go for exporting clips at nice enough quality, but small enough size to upload and embed would be great. Also, anyone knowing the best methods for displaying video - I've tried embedding mp4s and .mov files, and also .flv files .. nothing seems to generate valid code.

One question is how do you export to flash files? Older versions of iMovie offered that, but no longer. I have a program called iSkysoft Converter (using a Mac), which is OK, but I don't know if it's the best option, or what settings best optimize displays for the web, etc ... jpegs are WAY easier.

Any video editing gurus around here?

Thanks folks

Cheers

Carl

With iMovie 09 I exported the following way when I used it...

1) Share - export using Quicktime:
2) Click on 'options' in this window:
3) Then click on video settings:
4) Either choose MPEG 4 with these settings:
or h.264 like this
5) Finally go to the size setting and set to the size of your video, either 1280 x 720 or 1920 x 1080
6) Give it a file name and export.

The upload to YouTube or Vimeo and it will convert it all for you. You want to export at high settings so that the quality doesn't suffer too much once it's converted at the hosting services end. Once uploaded you can get the embed code from YouTube or wherever you uploaded and then use that here on the forum to get your video to display.

I've done all my iMovie made videos this way and the quality is fine providing the video footage was good to start with. My Burrowing Owl video was an iMovie creation, you can find it on here or on my blog. I quickly moved on to more advanced software but iMovie got me understanding the basics and I find it a nice little bit of software to get your feet wet with.

Hope that helps

Hey ***** Richard,

Running out the door, but wanted to say thanks. I'll look this over closer and see what I need to do this evening.

Thanks.

Cheers

Carl

You're welcome...but who is Peter?! lol

Hey Richard

Whoops - sorry .. I just caught this as I was leaving, and in my haste, totally screwed that up. Sorry, I should pay closer attention.

I'll see how I do with the video from here - I'm sure the quality of my stupid little cam corder isn't great, but it seems to lose a bit when I convert it to a Flash file. If I'm not uploading to youtube, but directly to my site, is Flash the best format, or another better?

Thanks,

Cheers

Carl

Another quick and dirty method of converting to flash is to install the Ask toolbar (Ask is a search engine) and install it in your browser. It has a video conversion function which will allow you to convert to flash movies from a number of formats. It converts to the same quality as your original, otherwise very little ability to customize.

http://sp.ask.com/toolbar/install/web/ask/download.php

Hey Harold

Just seeing this now - thanks. I checked it out, but it's Windows only.

Still not having a whole lot of luck with converting and keeping decent quality, but it's slowly improving.

Cheers

Carl