While I anxiously waited for the new Tweetdeck web app, Seesmic quietly beat them to the Google Buzz-Facebook-Twitter-LinkedIn-4Square punch04:27:19 PM July 28, 2010from Seesmic Web
Making a video web log is fairly simple in WordPress.
1 – Produce a Video
The preferred format is an mp4 container with the AVC/H.264 video codec (mpg with the mpeg2 codec is second choice) and MP3 or AAC (needed for surround sound) audio codec. This minimizes losses in the video conversions that will be done by either your video host or yourself. The preferred resolution is 1920×1080 (1080p) or 1280×720, but not greater than the resolution of the raw footage used to produce the video. Apple TV can display H.264 video, up to 5mbps, 1280×720, 24 fps, Progressive Main Profile. Apple TV supports AAC-LC audio up to 320 Kbps. The gating factors for video are bit rate and frame rate.
We’ll go into frame rates below, but minimize changes from the frame rate of your source video. There is no point (in fact there are losses) in increasing the fps from 15 to 30 if the original footage was at 15 fps. While the bitrate for audio can go as high as 48 kHz, YouTube prefers 44.1 kHz.
Last time we looked at making your HTML5 video degrade to a flash player. This post will look at how to default to the flash player and fall back to links to the HTML5 video for the smaller segment that do not have flash enabled on their browser or are viewing on their iPhone or iPad. All I did was convert my source video to flash (FLV), H.264 (MP4), and Ogg (OGV). I set up my flash player to run as usual, but instead of giving those without flash a link to get flash, I give them two links. One will let the Safari and Chrome crowd, including those with hand-held devices, watch the MP4 file in the HTML5 player (or to download it). The other link lets the Firefox, Opera, and Chrome crowd watch the OGV file in situ (or to download it). Continue reading FLASH FIRST?
Distributing a video product can be very simple. I just shoot a video with my iPhone. Touch the share button. Touch the ‘Send to YouTube’ button and I’m done.
But if one wishes to produce a regular video program or include video elements in one’s web page or blog then distribute it to the general public things start to get a little more tricky. My wife has a Droid Eris which runs on Android. You may have an old version of Internet Explorer. (Please tell me you don’t.) Some of you have Macs which choke on about 75% of the web’s videos because they are in Flash. On top of everything else, like the iPhone, the new iPad won’t be able to handle Flash at all. We could choose to curse the darkness (you fill in who you would blame), but it is dark so we need to light a candle if our web media is going to continue to be relevant into the future.
In addition to the variety of operating systems or hardware one might have, there are many different browsers one might use. Oh, and there is a change in the HTML standard with regard to video coming down the pike as well. In anticipation, HTML5 has already been implemented in some form or another in most contemporary browsers.
Today you have the opportunity to participate in my first ever ONLINE POLL! Check out the various ways of showing video on a WordPress blog and vote for your favorite. (To put this in context, you might want to read my post from a couple of days ago, Working out my blog format)
YouTube in Division Floated Left without a border
Centered Caption
The most challenging formatting comes with floating a video thumbnail to the left and allowing text to wrap down the right side. The embed code one gets from the video host (YouTube for the example on the left) does not allow for such formatting. If there is a slicker way to handle this, please let me know in the comments.
Oops. Time has gotten away from me as I focused on my other blog (and my job). Sorry.
Today’s post is intended for my fellow WordPress bloggers. I hope I can save them the time, sweat, and tears (okay, for me it was fun) of figuring this out on their own.
Media can be presented in a number of ways in one’s blog. A single picture, an album (array) of pictures, a slideshow, a video, or a soundtrack. It quickly becomes more complex when one considers that there are a number of means of hosting and displaying the media. For example, the source picture could be from your own collection on your computer, a Picasa web album, a Flickr set, someone else’s web Continue reading Working out my blog format
About LSS
LSS is a nuts and bolts blog. Written by a geek who loves God, this journal reports my quest for technical perfection, environmental and social justice, and venting whatever else is going through my little pea-pickin' brain at the moment.
If you poke around a little, I'm sure you can find something to tick you off, but you might just find something that helps you, too. The former I consider collateral damage and the latter is my hope.
I'm not afraid of or offended by contrary opionions so I hope you'll use the comments to encourage, challenge, and inform myself and my readers. Thanks for visiting and don't forget to subscribe before you leave.
