Verdi July 5th, 2007
This is our first screencast for the Show In A Box project. “What’s that,” you ask? Show In A Box is a collection of tools designed to turn WordPress into the “Ultimate Videoblogging Platform.” Now, don’t worry, we’re not dropping Blogger - we love Blogger. Show In A Box (and WordPress) is more powerful than Blogger but that comes at a price - a few dollars for a domain and webhosting and a lot more setup and configuration. So this first screencast just details setting up a mySQL database, installing WordPress, and doing it’s initial configuration. This doesn’t include adding any of the special Show In A Box stuff that we’ve built - it just gets you WordPress installed. The rest will come later.
wordpress, 
screencast
Ryanne May 22nd, 2007
This is the day all you Blogger users have been waiting for! No more header hacking! You can just upload your header image to your layout faster than you can say “img src=”. Hurray! Thanks New Blogger Team!
Verdi March 28th, 2007
I’m so excited about this screencast! Here’s why:
1. It really sucks when your videos don’t play correctly in all browsers - vPIP takes care of that.
2. It’s a major PITA to embed video and give your viewers a choice of formats to pick from - vPIP takes care of that.
3. Having multiple embedded videos on a page is a problem - vPIP takes care of that too.
4. Normally you’d need your own server or hosting account to run vPIP but Enric, the vPIP developer, has taken care of that too.
5. This is an awesome screencast made by our friend Cheryl Colan, founder of NODE101 Phoenix!
So don’t leave a comment here - send your love to Cheryl over here.
Note: You might be wondering why we’re not using vPIP here on Freevlog. Well we thought that the big 640 x 480 videos worked better in a pop-up window that you could move around while you were working. I use on my personal site and Ryanne uses a special version of it on Ryan Is Hungry.
Links in this video:
vPIP
Blogger
blip.tv
Tags:screencast, screencasting, vpip, node101.
Ryanne January 14th, 2007
direct .mov file
Hurray for good compression settings! These settings are sure to give you a lucious, QuickTime, widescreen experience. Not downloadable for the iPod, but great for watching on a bigger screen. In this screencast we’re using the h.264 codec on the multi-pass setting, which, in my opinion is some of the best looking compression with the best size files you can make right now. (BTW-make sure you’ve updated to the newest QuickTime 7). I will always love 3ivx, but honestly h.264 just looks better. If you’re on a PC and using Windows Movie Maker, Adobe Premiere or Avid Xpress- be sure to export as a DV-AVI, open that up in QuickTime Pro and use these same settings (meaning you can skip straight to minute 1:40 in the screencast and go from there!). Enjoy, good luck, keep your chin up and keep compressin’!
runtime: 6:40, size: 640×480, 21.4mb
Technorati Tags: screencast, screencasting, tutorial, howto, h264, codec, quicktime, imovie, finalcutpro, mov, videocompression, compression, freevlog
Ryanne December 13th, 2006
click here to download
Welcome to the crazy dark art of compressing video for the iPod! It’s not that hard if you follow the steps, but Apple seems to always be changing these specifications. This is the most up to date info that we have, so hopefully it will stay current for some time. In this screencast we’re using the h.264 codec on the multi-pass setting, which, in my opinion is some of the best looking compression with the best size files you can make right now. (BTW-make sure you’ve updated to the newest QuickTime 7). I will always love 3ivx, but honestly h.264 just looks better. Enjoy, good luck, keep your chin up and keep vloggin’!
runtime: 5:29, size: 640×480, 26mb
Technorati Tags: screencast, screencasting, tutorial, howto, h264, codec, quicktime, imovie, finalcutpro, ipod, mpeg4, itunes, videocompression, compression, freevlog
Verdi September 15th, 2006
Click here to download
This summer I’ve been working for Outhink, coming up with ways their program SpinXpress can be used in collaborative projects (Disclosure - Outhink has been a sponsor of Freevlog, NODE101 and Vloggercon). Basically, SpinXpress is a program that allows you to create private groups of people that you can share files with. It makes media collaboration over the Internet easier. So for example, I’m taking over some editing duties for Alive In Baghdad. In this case the correspondants in Baghdad mail their tapes to Brian in Boston and Brian does some pre-editing. Then, instead of mailing another tape to me, Brian drops the video into our SpinXpress group and the video transfers directly from his computer to mine.
Ryanne and I used SpinXpress with the Freevlog translators last year. In that case it was really helpful because people could add files to the group (and have them transfer to both of our computers) while we were asleep.
I’ve been documenting how this all works on our wiki and as part of that, I created this screencast to show how to setup SpinXpress, create a group and share files. So if you’re thinking about a long distance collaboration you might give this a try.
Tags: Screencast, How to, P2P, File Sharing
Ryanne June 28th, 2006
click here to download
I’ve gotten a couple requests for this one! A favicon is that little icon up in the address bar. You may have noticed people customizing theirs -now you can too! This is the site we use to make the icon: Favicon from Pics. It’s also linked on our sidebar under Del.icio.us. Have fun!
Technorati Tags: screencast, screencasting, tutorial, howto, favicon, freevlog
Ryanne May 8th, 2006
click here to download
Oh Blip.tv how do I love thee? Let me count the ways in this tutorial. We love Blip.tv and one of the big reasons is that you can cross post to your blog and other places like The Internet Archive. This means you can have Blip post your video to your blog for you, no html needed! It’s a huge time saver and a great feature for sharing your videos across the web. If you haven’t already signed up for Blip.tv and need to start with that, check out this longer video tutorial instead.
Technorati Tags: screencast, screencasting, tutorial, howto, bliptv, blip, videoblogging, freevlog
Verdi April 26th, 2006
Click here to download
We get lots of requests for this. It’s actually the first videoblogging tutorial I made back in December 2004 (though this one is updated for QuickTime 7). This isn’t a free deal though - 3ivx costs $20 and QuickTime Pro is $30. The big thing though is that 3ivx creates much nicer looking videos than Apple’s regular mpeg4 codec and unlike H.264 they play well on older computers and work with QuickTime 6. This is a long video (11:30) because I do a lot of explaining as I go along. So you don’t have to sit through it over and over again, I put together a quick reference guide (2 pages .pdf).
Also for reference, here is the test clip that I show in the tutorial:
Compressed with Apple’s mpeg4
Compressed with 3ivx Dual Pass
Technorati Tags: screencast, screencasting, tutorial, howto, 3ivx, codec, videocompression, compression, freevlog
Verdi April 18th, 2006
Click here to download
Here’s a handy tool that will ensure that your Windows Media and QuickTime videos work correctly in Internet Explorer. The Freevlog Video Pop-Up Maker is based (90%) on Josh Kinberg’s great pop-up maker. Over the weekend, with the help of Jen Simmons and Markus Sandy, I gave it some Freevlog styling and made it address the new issue with the way IE handles ActiveX controls. So read more about it and give it a try. By the way, it’s what we’re using here to play our videos in pop-up windows.
[UPDATE: 4.26.06] I just added support for .m4v (.m4v was already in there) and .m4a files (Apple’s video and audio podcast formats - if you’re using them).
[UPDATE: 5.6.06] Josh Kinberg updated the pop-up maker with support for Flash video (both .flv and .swf) and Real video. Thanks Josh! I also zipped up the current version for installation on your own server - popup2go.zip.
Technorati Tags: screencast, screencasting, tutorial, howto, embeddedvideo, freevlog
Ryanne November 3rd, 2005
see the video were we discovered how to do it HERE!
create your visual archive HERE.
Ryanne October 25th, 2005
Use this tutorial to make QuickTime .mov files from Windows Movie Maker using Avid Free DV or if you have QuickTime Pro, you can use a similar process with the same settings!
UPDATE:
If you want to to the opposite and create Windows files from .movs for Movie Maker and such, use MPEG Streamclip to convert to either AVI or DV format. It’s free, it’s easy, you’ll love it!
Verdi October 23rd, 2005
By popular demand, here’s how to use 3ivx to compress for the web! ***Warning*** This is not a completely free process. A 3ivx license for videobloggers costs $20. ***Also, for PC users, you will need QuickTime Pro $30 to do this (I make a mistake in the video and say you don’t need Qt Pro on a PC.)***
3ivx for Windows
3ivx for Mac
In the past I’ve recommended using the 3ivx Dual Pass encoding. You can get better results with dual pass but it’s not fully compatible with QuickTime 7. The single pass settings in this tutorial will create a great quality video at pretty decent bit rate.
Here’s a bonus. If you are using Apple’s Compressor you can just drop this custom preset in your USER > LIBRARY > APPLICATION SUPPORT > COMPRESSOR folder and these settings will be available from the preset pop-up menu.
Download 3ivx Compressor preset.
Ryanne October 20th, 2005
The tutorial you’ve all been waiting for! How to customize your header in Blogger. Take your blog to the next level by adding some graphic elements that are less Blogger generic and more YOU.
Verdi September 19th, 2005
They changed some stuff around over there at Feedburner. It’s much easier now as long as you identify yourself as a podcaster(?).
QuickTime
