Better than YouTube?

Okay, not to beat a dead horse, but I just tried something by uploading a video on Photobucket. I was originally going to use it to host an image, but to my surprise they allowed for video hosting, as well.

And I think it does a better job than YouTube, personally.

Currently, here are the video formats that PhotoBucket accepts:

Supported video file types are 3g2, 3gp, 3gp2, 3gpp, 3p, asf, avi, divx, dv, dvx, flv, moov, mov, mp4, mpeg4, mpg4, mpe, mpeg, mpg, qt, wmv, xvid.

Photobucket does recompress the video into a Flash (flv) video, so there may be some advantage to compressing to this format on the front end, then uploading (but I'm not 100% sure). But, it does give you all the standard links you're used to, such as "embed" and "direct link" that you can copy and paste into a blog.

This file is my 2007-2008 Demo Reel (I used it because it was available, and because a little shameless self-promotion never hurt anyone, right?). The original file (used for upload) was rendered with the following settings:

Quicktime (mov) format, Photo-JPEG compression
360x240 pixels, Millions of Colors
44.1 kHz 16 bit Stereo
File size: 70.3 MB

I used these settings for two reasons. One, because I needed something smaller than 100MB. Two, most web players re-size the video to dimensions similar to these, so it's best not to let them re-size and re-compress at the same time. The artifacting can get pretty severe if you take a full-size video (NTSC/PAL) and have the uploader (Photobucket, etc.) stuff it into a player for you.

After uploading to the various places, here are the results. You can choose for yourself!

PHOTOBUCKET UPLOAD



YOUTUBE UPLOAD


FACEBOOK UPLOAD (link only)

I am working on using the MySpace uploader to post my video as well, and will post the findings here.

What are you looking for?

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure where this site will end up going in the future, if anywhere. I simply felt like there should be a place where a highly-specialized market of animators could swap tips & tricks, frustrations & opportunities.

I have started a forum at http://videoboardgraphics.2ksite.com/ with various topics that relate to designing for large-format videoboards. Check it out and register to take part in the forums. I would love to have input from all levels - beginner to expert. Let me know what you think!

YouTube Uploading

From time to time, we may wish to upload videos to YouTube. It may be that we just want to share our media with the world. On the other hand, it could be used for displaying video to clients so they do not have to come on-site to approve or comment on them before they run in-game (or wherever you design for).

There are several different ideas when uploading to YouTube. First, here are the recommended settings for uploading videos according to their help pages:

Best Formats for Uploading

YouTube can accept almost any video format for upload, but for most users we have found the following settings give the best results.

* Video Format: MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid)
* Resolution: 640x480 pixels
* Audio Format: MP3
* Frames per second: 30
* Maximum length: 10 minutes (we recommend 2-3 minutes)
* Maximum file size: 1 GB

Note, however, that your video will be re-compressed from whatever format you have when you upload it.

Aharon Rabinowitz has a great DVD on compressing video for the web called Internet Killed the Video Star. You can grab one from the Creative Cow site, or save on shipping at Amazon.

I'm sure many of you already have your YouTube compression settings down cold. However, I wanted to make sure that anyone who hasn't considered this option, or just thought that YouTube was more of a "BoobTube", this is a good place to start.

Coming Soon

Welcome to Videoboard Graphics. My hope is to have tips, techniques and discussions about the opportunities and challenges of designing for large-scale videoboard media. Be it in an arena or stadium or wherever. Check back often to see what's going on!