The New View

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YouTube or Private Hosting? Which One?

Monday, 21 September 2009 20:56

There are many reasons to use YouTube as a way to increase the potential for viral marketing with your video. There are also reasons that hosting video privately has benefits as well.

But regardless...let's look at what YouTube will support.

1) You can upload videos for your organization as long as it is less than 10 minutes in length.
2) When you upload video to YouTube, you can use the embed html code to put the video into your website, blog, and even Facebook.
3) YouTube supports High Quality compressions, so if the video has been produced in High Definition it can be uploaded to YouTube to maintain a High Quality appeal. What does this mean? The video has to be exported for YouTube as an H264 .MP4 format.
4) Also, when you upload the video to YouTube, as part of the membership agreement with YouTube, they (YouTube) retain rights to the video.

What does VIEW Digital Media, LLC ("VIEW") produce? We acquire (video tape), edit, and produce video using a High Definition quality standard known as HDV. After we produce the video, we have to export it as a a Flash Video format (.FLV). This format has a great "curb appeal", yet it is exported so that many different users with many different connections can access the video and play it quickly/smoothly within many types of browsers. VIEW Digital Media, LLC hosts and distributes the video on servers owned and operated by VIEW Digital Media, LLC. What does this mean for the client and the end user?  We can put up video that can range in length from 1 second to 2 hours (and longer if necessary). Length is not a concern for VIEW Digital Media, LLC.

So VIEW Digital Media, LLC can upload videos to YouTube and the projects we produce for our clients. We can do this two ways. We can use the Flash Video file (FLV) we produced to play off of VIEW's servers to YouTube or re-export a higher quality video (H264 .MP4) to upload to YouTube. This Flash Video (FLV) file is located on VIEW's Servers and is readily available for VIEW's clients to download and then upload to YouTube. But here is situation that arises:

1) If one chooses to use the FLV file already produced by VIEW to upload, YouTube will accept it but it will not be in it's highest quality possible. Once a video is compressed from High Definition content to a Flash Video file (FLV), it has lost lots of the information that makes the quality High Definition. It is like taking a pretty picture with a great Digital SLR, then cropping and making web ready. Once it is cropped and made web ready, it is has lost the quality necessary to look good on a full color spread in a magazine. But since it has already been exported as a Flash Video file for a project, it is ready to be uploaded to YouTube.

2) If one chooses to use the Flash Video file (FLV) to upload to YouTube, it must be less than 10 minutes in length. So if it exceeds this requirement, YouTube will allow it to be uploaded; but once it is uploaded and is processed, it will then be discarded.

Here is the value in having VIEW to re-export it as a higher quality video (H264 MP4) for YouTube. You maximize your investment; basically one has hired VIEW to use High Definition Quality Camera's to produce your video content. Why not try to display in the highest quality possible? So here is what has to happen:

1) Let VIEW know that you want us to re-export the video for YouTube taking advantage of the high quality settings of H264 MP4.
2) Know that if your video content exceeds 10 minutes, ask us how we can reduce the length of the video content.
3) Know that it will take a few days for this request, we have to re-open your project then re-export it at a higher quality standard.

If this is something that you as a client would like to consider when VIEW or any other group is producing your content, it is helpful to know this during the beginning stages of developing your video project. This helps your production group plan accordingly for the proper workflow and so we can appropriately meet the expectations all stakeholders involved. This also helps because once the video is completed and approved by the client, it is exported for web display.

Every time we export a Flash Video file (FLV), it takes 4 to 5 times the total length of the video to export the video to be ready to post to the web. Basically, if your final video is 5 minutes in total length; it could take 20 - 25 minutes to have it ready for the web. If your video is 15 minutes in total length, it could take anywhere from 45 minutes to over and hour to have it ready for the web. If we export that same project as an H264 MP4 compression, it takes half that amount of time.

Now, it is compressed and web ready, it has to be uploaded to the web for viewing. For every minute of final video content (of that particular project):
1) Flash Video file size (FLV) is roughly 4 MB (megabytes) of file size per minute of final video (VIEW Digital Media, LLC's compression).
- Example: if your video is 6 minutes long, it is roughly going to be 24 MB in file size.
2) H264 MP4 file size is roughly 40MB (megabytes) of file size per minute of final video (VIEW Digital Media, LLC's compression).
-Example: if your videos is 6 minutes long, it is roughly going to be 240 MB in file size.
Now this has to be uploaded to the server. That can take a while to upload via an Internet connection.

There is value in hosting and distributing in both arenas (private video hosting and social media hosting like YouTube). With private hosting, you can control the compression, protect the publicity of the video, and track the analytics of the video's usage. What do I mean protect the publicity of the video content? Well, sometimes the content is not suited for public display or the video is for public display but you do not want individuals to "hack" the video and download to change the message. Private hosting provides safeguards against these situations. The advantages of hosting in social media outlets is that you can allow the public to search specifically for a video as a piece of content. And if the public finds it and likes the content; they can re-post the video to their site or blog, share it with other social media outlets, and it is another place to put that video in the digital world so more audiences can enjoy the content.

Bottom-line...there is tremendous value in hosting the video privately then posting to YouTube and other social media outlets. Ultimately it is about reaching your target audience!

Interested in learning how to compress for YouTube? Click this link to learn about the export settings for YouTube!

Looking for Links to Maximize Twitter: HERE YA GO!

Wednesday, 29 April 2009 20:26

Obviously here is the the link to Twitter which allows you to set-up a new account:
http://twitter.com

Here is the link to search keywords, concepts, and user names so that you can monitor what is being said out there in the big world of Twitter
http://search.twitter.com/

Here is where you can upload pictures allowing you to "Tweet" a picture through your twitter account. It is cool because if you are at an event...you can use this via a smart phone (Blackberry or iPhone) to Tweet images as the event is happening.
http://twitpic.com/

This is a one stop shop online to help you manage your Twitter campaign. It allows you to set-up Tweets and release them at a later time. It also allows you to set up RSS feeds to Tweet out through your Twitter account. My favorite is that you can manage multiple Twitter accounts and look at the stats: who is clicking the links. LOVE IT!
http://hootsuite.com/

This is a cool site where I search names, places, and other info when looking for specific people who are tweeting. Example, when we searched "healthcare SC",  it gave us the names of those who had those keywords in their bios.
http://www.tweepsearch.com/

This is a piece of free software that I use to manage my Twitter Accounty. It is fun and easy to use. It also allows you to update your Facebook status at the same time. LOVE IT!
http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/

This is another piece of free Twitter software like TweetDeck...still trying to work through this one.
http://www.nambu.com/

This is a link to all the other Twitter Applications...some are interesting.
http://twitter.com/downloads

This is the Twitter application I use on my iPhone..LOVE IT!
http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-iphone/

Here is a link to one of the Twitter applications for the Blackberry.
http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry/

Here is a link that shows a basic "How-To" video for setting-up Twitter!
http://viewdm.com/view-blog/74-it-is-just-plain-easy-to-set-up-twitter-.html

Online Video Audiences Growing: What Is Your Message?

Many companies are looking in so many different arenas to invest their marketing, training, and operational dollars...especially when trying to reach so many different audiences. VIEW Digital Media, LLC is obviously going to find ways to sell our services when it comes to delivering rich media online (whether public or private), but consider this statement:

"The number of U.S. consumers who frequent online video destinations has climbed 339% since 2003, while time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000% over the same period. In the last year alone, unique viewers of online video grew 10%, while the number of streams grew 41%, the streams per user grew 27%, and the total minutes engaged with online video grew 71%."

- Gavin O'Malley of MediaPost.com (4/24/09)

WOW...that is all I have to say is WOW. Consumers of information are looking to rich media like video and the multitude of messages it provides when surfing, researching, and/or goofing off...but bottomline, consumers are watching video.

So what does that mean for those trying to reach those audiences...video may be one of the solutions but not the complete package. It doesn't mean that you should go out and overload your online properties with video, but identify your audiences and provide the rich media that makes sense.

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Exporting HD Video from Avid for YouTube HQ

Tuesday, 28 April 2009 03:16

So I searched all around for the best possible settings for exporting HD Video Content out of Avid Media Composer to upload to YouTube.com. One of my clients (SpartX.com) is launching a new product and wants the video to go viral using a high quality medium. I did not find many places with information, so I pieced this together for me to remember and for anyone who is interested.

In this video project for SpartX.com, there were only small portions of the video actually captured using a camera. What was captured was done so by using a Sony HVR-Z1U in 1080i. So the project was edited in 1080i with some animations created in After Effects and exported into Avid Media Composer as an Apple ProRes 422 (HQ).

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Ever thought about using online video for your marketing needs?

Thursday, 19 March 2009 03:31

Ever thought about using online video to promote, raise awareness, or distribute a message that is important to a target audience? Well, the experts think you should embrace online video as a professional means to spread your targeted message to your targeted audience. Check out what they are saying below:

Video Sharing Market
The market is huge and continually growing. 14.3 billion videos were viewed online in December, 2008 and increased by 13% in February 2009.

"For both startups and Fortune 100 companies, getting on board with online and mobile video is increasingly key to attracting and engaging a fickle audience. The next generation of big-time consumers (those under 18) are already more likely to be watching video on a computer or mobile phone than they are on a traditional television set."

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Driving traffic to your site: some thoughts...

Monday, 09 March 2009 03:21

Frustrated with a lack of traffic...I have put together some ideas that might make some sense:

1) SEO - Search Engine Optimization
2) Use Social Media to promote
3) Cross Promotion with other Websites
4) Blog, Blog, Blog....
5) Update Your Site Regularly!!!!
6) Consider Updating Your Site - Give it an overhaul

Below are the explanations of all six points. I hope these find you well and would love to discuss with you more if interested. Thanks for your time and I hope this helps.

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