Web video – Page 5

This post originally appeared on Larry Kless’ Weblog: Video Replay of Encoding Video for the Web – ReelSEO’s Webinar on May 17, 2010.

Thanks again to everyone who joined us a few weeks back on May 5th for the very first Reel SEO webinar event on titled, “Video Encoding for the Web.” As I previously mentioned, the webinar was very well received with 263 attendees from all over the world. A big thanks to my co-presenter Robert Reinhardt, the @flashfreaker, who shared some fantastic tips on how to compress video using x264, the free library for encoding H264/AVC video streams. An enormous thanks as well to Mark Robertson who not only moderated the session, but did an amazing job working numerous hours with Robert and me to pull together the program. Mark also spent a considerable amount of time editing the video from the webinar to make it available for those who may have missed it or want to review it. An additional thanks to Ian Sneed and the team at vzaar video platform for sponsoring the free webinar. You can see the previous posts with our bios here and the slides here.

Look for more Reel SEO webinar events in the future. Thanks again to everyone for your continued support and interest. We greatly appreciate it!

One of the frequent issues seen with online video is formatting problems in aspect ratio and display resolution. You see a lot of these problems appear on YouTube with video just not looking right. In some cases, widescreen 16:9 video is squished into a standard definition or 4:3 aspect ratio. Or you see 4:3 video stretched into a 16:9 aspect ratio. The standard practice of letterboxing transfers video shot in a widescreen aspect ratio to standard definition video format while preserving the film’s original aspect ratio. Pillarboxing (reversed letterboxing) adds vertical black bars on each side of the video when the player a 16:9 aspect ratio. Windowboxing occurs when the video appears centered in the video player surrounded by a black frame on all four sides of the image.

So how do you fix this problem with new videos or ones you’ve already uploaded to YouTube?

YouTube developed a series of specific tags you can add to your video that let you to alter the appearance and format of your video when played on YouTube or in an embedded player. You can add these tags before you upload your video file to the site, or you can also add the tags to edit an existing video that you’ve uploaded to your account in the past. The video’s altered appearance will display when the video plays on YouTube, and in embedded players.

To use them simply copy and paste the code of the hint tags below into the tags section of the video you want to fix:

yt:crop=16:9 (zooms in on the 16:9 area, removes windowboxing)
yt:stretch=16:9 (fixes anamorphic content by scaling to 16:9)
yt:stretch=4:3 (fixes 720×480 content that is the wrong aspect ratio by scaling to 4:3)
yt:quality=high (default to a high quality stream, depending on availability)

See the detailed instructions on The YouTube Help page Learn More: Formatting tags

Heather Leonard of The Business Insider sat down with Dina Kaplan, Co-Founder of blip.tv, to talk about why old media doesn’t get web video and “isn’t making inroads into even high-quality user-generated video content.”

According Dina, “the issue is twofold: Old media thrived in an economy of scarcity. Video is no longer scarce (as evidenced by this interview). Old media wants viewers to come to their network. New media users want their content to be everywhere; the more dissemination, the better.”

This article originally appeared in The Business Insider on Aug. 20, 2009.

About blip.tv
Blip.tv has been leveling the playing field for independent shows since May 11, 2005. Independent show creators are great at making content. We’re great at technology, business development, distribution, marketing and advertising sales. It’s a match made in heaven.More than 48,000 independently produced Web shows use blip.tv to reach more than 22,000,000 people. We distribute more than 2.4 million episodes from these shows across the entire video Internet and onto television screens across the country. Advertisers like Johnson & Johnson, Warner Brothers and Progressive Insurance advertise with us and we share revenues 50/50 with show creators.

Endavo Media, a leading Internet TV and Social Media Platform, has created a fake Hollywood producer, Kelvin G., as a unique case study and marketing campaign to help online video content producers better understand Internet TV platforms, and how best to monetize their video. “He’s a little offbeat. He’s obsessed with zombies, and addicted to his webcam,” says the Endavo Media blog.

“While Internet TV platform technology has created a world of new money-making opportunities for producers and broadcasters,” said Endavo Media CMO Peter Contardo, “most could still use a little more knowledge to help navigate the space. Our fictitious movie producer, Kelvin G.,is helping educate, entertain and build relationships with our coreclient –the content producer. Kelvin is a fun, educational tool for demonstrating how Internet TV Platforms help grow businesses online with video.”

Launched last month, their online and social media marketing campaign targets a wide range of producers, broadcasters and brand marketers aiming to better leverage their video content online, Contardo added.

Kelvin G. interacts with Endavo clients, prospects and other “fellow producers” through his various Web videos, Twitter page,whitepapers and “personal” email, all supported by his own campy, mock movie that called Zombie Truckers 3, and a whacky microsite at ZombieTruckers3.com.

Endavo Media hopes that with Kelvin G.’s videos and his site, content producers will learn to embrace all the new opportunities to grow their businesses online, and have a little fun while they’re doing it. Check out Kelvin’s Hot Tips for “Making the Money” with Online Video and learn how smart producers and broadcasters monetize their content online:

Monetizing Online Video

View more documents from Kelvin G..

About Endavo Media:
Endavo Media provides a hosted platform for Internet TV, enterprise video, social media and IPTV. This easy-to-use, cost-effective media management and distribution system offers high-quality live and on-demand delivery of video, audio and pictures. Content is delivered through brandable players, web sites and user interfaces, across the social web and to consumer broadband devices, including portable media players, mobile phones and set-top boxes. Music, entertainment and new media businesses, as well as social, cultural and faith-based organizations, get more control to connect and engage directly with their audiences, build their brands and generate revenue from their online video communities. Headquartered in Atlanta, Endavo Media was founded in 2004 and is now privately-held. Visit www.endavomedia.com for more information.

Encoding Video for the Web – Video Replay of ReelSEO Webinar

How To: YouTube Formatting Tags

Business Insider: Old Media Still Doesn’t Get Web Video, Says Blip.TV Founder Kaplan

Sorenson Media on Understanding the FLV and SWF formats

Online Video Publishing [dot] com by Larry Kless

Strategies, tips, how to's and best practices for online video publishers

Online Video Publishing [dot] com by Larry Kless

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