Who uploads video?

marieboyer · October 19, 2006

I am thinking of upgrading to the next level, which provides for the ability to upload video. I am wondering if folks who have this feature can tell me how user-friendly it is and how well it works.

I have a DV camcorder and I would love to upload snippets of my kids for the grandparents. BUt I do not want to go up that level and find that it is not that functional or easy to use.

Anyone do it and can give me your thoughts? If so, much appreciated. Thanks.

Mog · October 19, 2006

I have this feature and have uploaded various videos to my site.. It's a nice feature to have and uploading is as easy as uploading stills.

Rather than use my 'proper' DV camera, I tend to use my Fuji Point and Shoot, the main reason being I can set the resolution to be 320x240, nice small file sizes. The only downside is my fuji produces an AVI file which I then have to convert into an MPEG file before I can upload it.

Feel free to check out some sample clips on my site..

http://mog.smugmug.com/Video

marieboyer · October 19, 2006

Mog wrote:

I have this feature and have uploaded various videos to my site.. It's a nice feature to have and uploading is as easy as uploading stills.

Rather than use my 'proper' DV camera, I tend to use my Fuji Point and Shoot, the main reason being I can set the resolution to be 320x240, nice small file sizes. The only downside is my fuji produces an AVI file which I then have to convert into an MPEG file before I can upload it.

Feel free to check out some sample clips on my site..

http://mog.smugmug.com/Video

Thank you so much for your review! Is it easy to convert from .avi to mpeg? I see the recommendations on the "help" section, but wonder if it is easy. I am not terribly computer savvy, although getting better.

Mog · October 19, 2006

I use a little program called WinMPG

http://www.winmpg.com/

It's very easy to use and the conversion is fairly quick...

marieboyer · October 19, 2006

Thank you Mog. The quality of the video on your site looks very good. Much appreciated!

scwalter · October 20, 2006

marieboyer wrote:

Thank you Mog. The quality of the video on your site looks very good. Much appreciated!

Another option is to use Google Video and embed them in your page. There is no file size limit and google does all the converting for you. Check my site for some vids. Note that I've scaled them up quite a bit, but I think the native resolution is also 320x240.

Here's a private gallery showing the resolution as recommended by google (they give you the HTML to embed the video) and how I scaled the window up.

http://scwalter.smugmug.com/gallery/2027050

-Scott

darryl · October 20, 2006

marieboyer wrote:

I am thinking of upgrading to the next level, which provides for the ability to upload video. I am wondering if folks who have this feature can tell me how user-friendly it is and how well it works.

I have a DV camcorder and I would love to upload snippets of my kids for the grandparents. BUt I do not want to go up that level and find that it is not that functional or easy to use.

Anyone do it and can give me your thoughts? If so, much appreciated. Thanks.

Hi Marie --

I've done it (both upgraded to a Power user and converted and then uploaded DV), and I'm not sure it's worth the extra money. Frankly, video support at Smugmug has been one of my gripes from the beginning, and in another post I'll be complaining about it more thoroughly.

In this day and age of auto-conversion and embedded Flash players at Google Video, YouTube, MySpace, etc., it is ridiculous to force the user to convert the modern native video formats of their cameras (DV, MPEG-4, MJPEG, AVI) into a 14-year old (!) format -- MPEG-1.

OTOH, Smugmug definitely seems more photo-oriented. Maybe this video thing is just a flash in the pan. :-}

--Darryl

marieboyer · October 20, 2006

scwalter wrote:

Another option is to use Google Video and embed them in your page. There is no file size limit and google does all the converting for you. Check my site for some vids. Note that I've scaled them up quite a bit, but I think the native resolution is also 320x240.

Here's a private gallery showing the resolution as recommended by google (they give you the HTML to embed the video) and how I scaled the window up.

http://scwalter.smugmug.com/gallery/2027050

-Scott

Scott:
Thanks so much. I think I prefer the scaled-down version because it is not so fuzzy. I really appreciate you linking me to the test-strip. Are you a power-user or pro user? Can a power user upload from goosle, because I am definitely not going "pro."

I also love your layout in your photo galleries. Your thumbnails are square but your inidvidual photo shows up large in viewing window. It looks terrific! And great shots of your son, Ben!

I notice that as I clicked on your photos, they load MUCH faster than mine do. Is it because of some change you have made? THAT is more interesting to me than adding video (i.e. if a power user's screen has less lag-time between photos).

Thanks again!

marieboyer · October 20, 2006

darryl wrote:

Hi Marie --

I've done it (both upgraded to a Power user and converted and then uploaded DV), and I'm not sure it's worth the extra money. Frankly, video support at Smugmug has been one of my gripes from the beginning, and in another post I'll be complaining about it more thoroughly.

In this day and age of auto-conversion and embedded Flash players at Google Video, YouTube, MySpace, etc., it is ridiculous to force the user to convert the modern native video formats of their cameras (DV, MPEG-4, MJPEG, AVI) into a 14-year old (!) format -- MPEG-1.

OTOH, Smugmug definitely seems more photo-oriented. Maybe this video thing is just a flash in the pan. :-}

--Darryl

Darryl:
Have you tried the google video option described by Scott?

I thought that the reason smugmug wants us to convert it is so that it maximizes the ability of your viewers to be able to play our video on whatever computer they have. That makes sense to me. Are you saying that smugmug should make that conversion for us as we upload the video (like google video apparently does)? Anyway, thanks for the response!

darryl · October 20, 2006

marieboyer wrote:

Darryl:
Have you tried the google video option described by Scott?

I thought that the reason smugmug wants us to convert it is so that it maximizes the ability of your viewers to be able to play our video on whatever computer they have. That makes sense to me. Are you saying that smugmug should make that conversion for us as we upload the video (like google video apparently does)? Anyway, thanks for the response!

Yes Marie, I've tried Google Video, as well as YouTube. They're fine, but I like the idea of having my photos and videos in one place. And I like the idea of paying for it because I have some guarantee of service and control over my content. (w/ YouTube and Google, you grant them the right to run ads alongside your videos.)

Yes, supposedly MPEG-1 can play on more platforms. But sites like Google and YouTube will convert any format to Flash, which a lot of people *can* see. I (and others) just wish that Smugmug would offer that same convenience.

There's a new competitor to Smugmug called Phanfare. They do have a very whizzy client-side application for organizing your albums and uploading them in the background. The options for web albums is nowhere near the variety that Smugmug offers, and there are other rough edges, but the real appeal to me is that they support video in the way that I would like. As embedded Flash, along with downloadable MPEG-4 files.

Have a look:

http://darryl.phanfare.com/

--Darryl

marieboyer · October 20, 2006

Darryl:
Thanks so much for your lengthy explanation and advice. I know about phanfare from "The Digital Photography Show" podcast.

But I am a die-hard, 100% smugmug fan. I cannot imagine ever considering using a different website for my photography. I checked out Phanfare and like smugmug better.

Thanks again, though! Much appreciated!

scwalter · October 21, 2006

marieboyer wrote:

Scott:
Thanks so much. I think I prefer the scaled-down version because it is not so fuzzy. I really appreciate you linking me to the test-strip. Are you a power-user or pro user? Can a power user upload from goosle, because I am definitely not going "pro."

I also love your layout in your photo galleries. Your thumbnails are square but your inidvidual photo shows up large in viewing window. It looks terrific! And great shots of your son, Ben!

I notice that as I clicked on your photos, they load MUCH faster than mine do. Is it because of some change you have made? THAT is more interesting to me than adding video (i.e. if a power user's screen has less lag-time between photos).

Thanks again!

Marie,

I'm a power account. You can add videos from google even as a standard user, however it takes a power account and a bit of CSS to clean up the galleries nicely.

Thanks for the kind words about the galleries. To make the thumbnails square, you can zoom the thumbnails. You can do it one by one, but that is quite tedious, so I use a batch tool that someone on smugmug wrote. Here's the thread:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=26959

I really like the square thumbnails, I think it makes the pages look much cleaner. I don't know about the speed, I think it may just be the time of day.

Regards,
Scott

Who uploads video?

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