This thread is to supply information on how to upload videos to the internet and post them within Trainboard. This is a very brief tutorial (and my first) so please post any questions. There are various websites that host video for free however I only recommend using either YouTube or Vimeo. These two sites are (in my opinion) the most secure and professional sites for hosting your videos. For those new to online video I highly recommend Vimeo over YouTube. Vimeo is far superior in user interface. Creating an account and uploading video is so easy with Vimeo that even the least experienced computer user can accomplish this with ease. Vimeo , unlike YouTube, will display real time statistics of your video during upload. This way you know how much of your video is uploaded, and how much time is left for the upload process. YouTube does have a progress bar, but it only displayed as a graphic, and has no actual relation to the upload statistics, it is just an approximation. Preparing your video file: Most of the time, your raw video file will be a very high file size. We want to get the file size as small as possible before we upload it so that we don’t spend hours waiting for the upload to finish. The majority of you will only have standard DV size video recorders, so below are settings you should use. If you do have an HD recorder, you probably know the settings you need already. Ok, you should already know how to import your video to your computer. Let’s say we have a 2 minute video. Yikes, the computer says 250 megabytes! What do we do?! First, open up Windows Movie Maker or iMovie for the mac. Import the video file and place it in the timeline/storyboard of the program. You should see some tools to allow you to trim/cut the video. It’s best to trim any unnecessary content such as the 35 seconds we waited for the train to get into frame, and the 5 seconds of dizzy camera shake after the train has passed. You can add titles/text if you desire and the tools should be fairly easy to find under the menu structure. Ok, now we have the video as we like. Now we want to export or publish the video to our computer. In Windows Movie Maker on the left side in the middle it says Publish to--- Choose”This Computer” Name the video, and select the destination for the file output. Click Next. This is the most important to getting our file size down. Check “More Settings” and from there, select “Windows Media Portable Device (1.0mbps)” Hit Publish and we’re done preparing the video. On the Mac, I cant tell you exactly how to publish the video (I don’t have one here) but the settings you should choose are: 1.0 mbps bitrate, 640x480px frame size, 4:3 aspect ratio, 30 frames per second, and (if it asks) Key frame every 30 frames. Now we have a 1 minute 20 second video because we trimmed 40 seconds of bad footages off. At 1 megabyte per second, our file should now be approximately 80 megabytes. That is a good size for an upload. OK, we’ve prepped the video, now its time to upload. I’ll leave this one up to Vimeo and YouTube as their video tutorials will put it better than I can. Uploading with Vimeo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w-gQAwS2uc - How to Upload A Video to YouTube. Finally, we need to post it into TrainBoard. With YouTube (as you can see above), all you must do is copy the URL of your video from YouTube and paste it into your post, nothing more, and the video will automatically embed itself within your post. With Vimeo, again, copy the URL of your video from Vimeo and paste it into your post, nothing more. Unlike YouTube, the Vimeo file will not embed itself in your post, however your URL will automatically change to the Video title and a simple click will open up your video. Ok, I’m sure someone has questions from my long, probably confusing tutorial. Please do not hesitate to ask.
Another note on using Vimeo. Sometimes after you upload your video it will say "Due to a high number of uploads right now, your video will be converted in XX minutes." This is usually less than about 5-10 minutes, however during peak online times can reach up to 2 hours or more. Now, even if your video has NOT began/finished converting yet, the URL of that page will be the same URL for the video when it is finished converting. Go ahead and post that URL as soon as your video is done uploading, no need to wait until it's done converting. As long as your video is UPLOADED and posted onto trainboard, the submission will be accepted. If it takes 2 hours after that, as long as the URL is the same, we'll wait. But if you post a link that is invalid, we will not accept the valid version after the deadline.
We're running two more video contest for the month of August, so I'm just bumping this thread in case anyone needs some help working with video. If you're having any other difficulties, just post your troubles/question here and I'll try to answer it as soon and best as I can.
In recent months, YouTube has stepped up it's game 10 fold. I now believe both YouTube and Vimeo offer equally user friendly options. However, YouTube has the clear advantage in getting your video published to a huge audience. I now default to YouTube once again when uploading my videos.
