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I need some video advice.

by John-K.
16 replies
Hey Warriors - I'm hoping somebody can point me in the right direction on some questions about video.

1) I need to do picture-in-picture with the main movie having an inset movie of a cropped closeup of the original clip (I have one camera). Does any know if I can do this in iLife? Or, in the alternative, have suggestions for good Mac video editing software that won't take me a year to learn?

2) What are your suggestions for software to convert my .mov to flash and players?

3) Finally, I need to be able to deliver these videos to thousands of people daily. Can anyone share their Amazon S3 experiences.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to chime in and help me out!

John K.
#advice #video
  • Profile picture of the author Jack Duncan
    John,
    I'll let someone else tackle the first two...

    But, I am using Amazon S3 and it's a fairly simple/elegant process.

    I use Bucket Explorer to get the files to the server. You'll need to signup for S3 first and get your two keys.

    Bucket Explorer allows you to do simultaneous uploads which seems to cut down on the time...but it's still pretty slow.

    I haven't had any issues with the content delivery of videos...these cloud servers are top notch.

    Having said that, I'm actually transitioning away from Amazon S3 to RackSpace Cloud Servers, because you can do super fast uploads with nothing more than an FTP app...which is much easier, for me, than using S3...and the file names just match the same site structure...simple and easy.

    Hope this helps,
    Jack
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    • Profile picture of the author John-K.
      Thanks for the info Jack. Are you able limit viewing access to only your own site with Amazon?

      Thanks again.

      Originally Posted by Jack Duncan View Post

      John,
      I'll let someone else tackle the first two...

      But, I am using Amazon S3 and it's a fairly simple/elegant process.

      I use Bucket Explorer to get the files to the server. You'll need to signup for S3 first and get your two keys.

      Bucket Explorer allows you to do simultaneous uploads which seems to cut down on the time...but it's still pretty slow.

      I haven't had any issues with the content delivery of videos...these cloud servers are top notch.

      Having said that, I'm actually transitioning away from Amazon S3 to RackSpace Cloud Servers, because you can do super fast uploads with nothing more than an FTP app...which is much easier, for me, than using S3...and the file names just match the same site structure...simple and easy.

      Hope this helps,
      Jack
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      • Profile picture of the author Jack Duncan
        John,
        I know you can do that...but I've never personally set that end up.

        I'm sure somebody here can chime in and tell you how that's done.

        I've recently seen a few membership sites offer protected videos using a KEY...but again, not totally sure how they are doing this.

        Cheers,
        Jack
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        • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
          Screenflow will do your picture in picture. It is a very simple editor compared to something like final cut pro. It seems to have a few more options (to me) than imovie.

          You can have multiple layers, and import media - when editing you need to be sure to have the layer you want selected before making adjustments to it.

          It comes with some simple video tutorials.

          For transfer to flash, there are multiple online options - free, but I have found the free versions not to be as effective.

          I've been using a flash video encoder from adobe - it came with the cs3 suite, so I'm not sure if you can buy it stand alone. You may have to do some searching.
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          • Profile picture of the author John-K.
            I'll check out Screenflow. Do you have a video that you've made with it that I might be able to check out?

            Thanks for your help!

            Originally Posted by avenuegirl View Post

            Screenflow will do your picture in picture. It is a very simple editor compared to something like final cut pro. It seems to have a few more options (to me) than imovie.

            You can have multiple layers, and import media - when editing you need to be sure to have the layer you want selected before making adjustments to it.

            It comes with some simple video tutorials.

            For transfer to flash, there are multiple online options - free, but I have found the free versions not to be as effective.

            I've been using a flash video encoder from adobe - it came with the cs3 suite, so I'm not sure if you can buy it stand alone. You may have to do some searching.
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            • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
              Originally Posted by John-K. View Post

              I'll check out Screenflow. Do you have a video that you've made with it that I might be able to check out?

              Thanks for your help!
              Ha ha, do I have video. Hold on, gotta see where I hosted one that is suitable for this site.

              Ok, hold on, just made you one and uploaded to youtube. LOL, had to stop cause the cat brough in a dead mouse and the 300 lb man I live with went screaming like school girl.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tsnyder
    I believe Camtasia will do picture in picture... you can download
    a free 30 day trial.

    Tsnyder
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    If you knew what I know you'd be doing what I do...
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    • Profile picture of the author John-K.
      Yeah, Camtasia looks great. I really want to keep everything on my Mac though. Another cool feature I like about Camtasia, is the small, reflected graphic it creates of your video with a play button, then the full sized video pops up with a lightbox type effect. I'd like to find a way to do that without Camtasia too.

      Thanks.


      Originally Posted by Tsnyder View Post

      I believe Camtasia will do picture in picture... you can download
      a free 30 day trial.

      Tsnyder
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      Originally Posted by Tsnyder View Post

      I believe Camtasia will do picture in picture... you can download
      a free 30 day trial.

      Tsnyder
      Camtasia doesn't work on mac.

      Oops, sorry, looks like it might.

      Stick with screenflow. It's ready now and works great.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jack Duncan
    John,
    You may be in luck pretty soon.

    It looks like Camtasia has a 2009 release for Mac.

    TechSmith Mac Development

    Cheers,
    Jack

    (Maybe you could Beta test it. Look at the bottom of that page and complete the survey...)
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  • Profile picture of the author queenbuzzy
    I actually just started learning about video this week, so it's either timely, or I'm still way too green to know what I'm talking about...

    This all really depends on how much money you want to spend on a program, and how much of a learning curve is required...I'm cheap, but like to muck around with technology, (even though I'm not that great) so I've found a few work-around options:

    Cheapest: free if you have a mac
    Create a movie in imac...you can't quite do picture in picture, but you can add in photos and text as the main movie is still playing. For my movie, it was me talking, and then I added images of my program, and text along the bottom to highlight specific points. You can export this as a .mov throw it up on youtube, and it should play just fine.

    Not free, but cheaper: $30
    Camstudio pro...it only works for PCs though...it's mostly screen capture software, but you might be able to do pic in pic. I haven't thoroughly tested it yet, (I just got it for another project I'm working on specifically for my pc) and if I was savvier, I'd post a link to it, but I'm too new to the forum for it to be allowed, so just go to camstudio (dot) com.

    More expensive: Camtasia $299
    I've only seen this through Frank Kern's videos...it's good quality, but I have no idea how it works. Don't know if it's dual platform...

    Even more expensive: Flash $$$$$depends on what version of CS4 you get
    Right now, I'm putting my happy little movie that I made with imovie into flash. I have to use the media decoder so it will read, and then add my own skin, and then export it as a fla/swf. The reason why I'm doing this is because I think quicktime movies look cheesy, and I want something more professional-looking, AND because I want whoever wherever to be able to see the video. I dont' want someone to have to upgrade to the latest version of whatever, so I'm back-publishing in an older version of flash to be sure that everyone can see it.

    Good luck on whatever you choose...
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  • Profile picture of the author Wilson Mattos
    John K & Jack,

    Amazon has a feature that allows you to use authenticated URLs to access content. This is a perfect solution for membership sites that want to protect their content(not just video, but any type of content).

    A piece of PHP code is used to generate a unique authenticated URL on page load. That URL to the content includes an expiration time, so that even if someone looked at the source to try and hijack your content, the URL would expire in a period of time you determine (long enough to watch the video) and would no longer be usable after that.

    I use it wherever I want to protect video content, such as my membership sites. It works extremely well! There are many other features that make S3 a very appealing option for serving video content and I highly recommend their service.

    Wil
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  • Profile picture of the author Wilson Mattos
    Jack,

    I use the S3 PHP Class which can be found here.

    Undesigned: Amazon S3 PHP Class

    If you are comfortable with PHP, it is fairly easy to use. You want to implement the getAuthenticatedURL() function from that class to make it happen.

    For static sites it is pretty simple. In WordPress it is a bit tricker. I am developing a plug-in to make the process easier. Should have it done within a couple of weeks.

    If you need assistance send me a PM.

    Wil
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