Get vlogging
| Get vlogging | |
17 June 2005
First off, you will need a computer, a broadband connection and some means of capturing footage, a standard digital video cam will do nicely. Or even a next generation video phone. Next, record your movie. It could be a quick tour round your company and its products and services, or your trip to the car wash (though, that one’s been done before). Remember your potential audience has a brief attention span; you’re not filming War and Peace, so keep the running time down to a couple of minutes max. Generally, the convention is that files be kept down to around 4MB or so after being compressed. Once you have a wrap as they say in the movie business, you’ll need to hit the editing suite to tidy up your masterpiece. Windows ME to XP includes Windows Movie Maker as standard (Mac users check out iMovies) and contains everything you need to create a presentable end product including titles and credits, sound track and video effects. Save the finished article as an MPEG, MP4, QuickTime or WMV file and you’re ready to roll. All you have to do now is find somewhere to host your movie. This, however, is not a problem even if you have no web space of your own. For people with company or personal web sites using paid for hosting there should be little difficulty. Simply create an HTML page as normal with a link to the file and ftp them both to your web space as normal. If, of course, you don’t have the luxury of purchased web space that runs into hundreds of megs and gigs of bandwidth per month, there are plenty of free solutions around. Many sites offer registered users the ability to upload movies and showcase them for free. Most of the vlog hosting companies support users well and provide tools to make the process as easy as possible including installing RSS to alert your audience to the future releases you post. The foregoing is very much a condensed snapshot (still?) of the vlogmaking process; a far more detailed step-by-step guide that comes highly acclaimed is freevlog.org, the vlog blog of Ryanne Hodson and Michael Verdi. Here you will find a wealth of information on how to create a videoblog for free. Free vlog hosting GNEE (pro. GeeNee) UK service. Hosts 3gp, 3g2 and MP4 files, formats common to mobile phones. Video hosted on the site requires visitors to have the QuickTime media player to view your vlog movies. Files are uploaded into pre-determined categories and must not exceed 500 kilobytes Knowitallvideo.com Hosting vlog directory. Uploaded file size limited to four minutes and four megs. Messaging system and message board for vlog feedback. Frequent contributors are awarded points which, at the moment, are worth only kudos. Mo-blog Free hosting of movies, pics and sounds sent from a phone, pc or camera. Can also be used to update an existing blog site. Free vlog tools mefeedia.com Free video subscription tool. Avid DV Edit and compress QuickTime movies on Windows and Macs for free Free video editing software Google search results for freebie software Vlogging resources Yahoo vlog group Tips and guides on getting started, discussion of technical and practical issues for newbies and veterans alike. Good entry point into vlogging and the vlogging community. | |