Sharing Phone and Camera Video Files

The new rage is sharing the video clips from your still camera or camera phone. With clips, who needs a video camera? Clips and perhaps a video blog is all you need!

Here I explain the simple steps. I've done the hard testing and investigation for you already.

Our Objective

Take the AVI video clip from a camera, edit it, compress it to .MP4 (MPEG-4) or .WMV (Windows Media) format and then share it with others over the Internet.

The two formats are almost the same but there are some small pros and cons to consider as you decide which suits you best. The third option is Flash, discussed in the video blogging section below.

Windows Media (.WMV) File Format

• Windows Movie Maker edits and compresses included in XP.
• Won't play on Firefox or Macs.
• Microsoft has its claws in that format (as simple as it is to use on PCs)

MPEG-4 (.MP4) File Format

• A true recognized standard with cross-platform support.
• It will play on the iPod Video (and a larger range?) of devices.
• Must download 38 mb(?) free Quicktime/iTumes player to play.
• Must register it with serial to change free player to pro, for exporting video.
• Use the free Video editor called Virtual Dub first to edit.

Whether you require your audience to have (newish) Quicktime downloaded is up to you. Dial-up users might have trouble. But it has its advantages if you can handle the added fiddle compared to that of just using Windows Media format

DiVX is in the same category but isn't a standard so really made obsolete (in theory) now that we have the .MP4 standard. That's why I'm leaving it out.

Video Quality Settings and File Sizes

Consider reducing 640 x 480 video to 320 x 240. It's 1/4 of the size and not bad!

Original 640 x 480 .AVI - 34 Mb
Compressed 320 x 240, 500 Kbps - 1.6 Mb (artefacts quite noticeable)
Compressed 320 x 240, 380 Kbps - 1.4 Mb (artefacts real bad now)

Faster moving action will require higher data rates than slow action so experiment. You can get it as high-quality or highly-compressed as you need with trade-offs. The small file sizes above are ideal for sending to blogs, which may be better than using email! (see my prior blog post)


Video Blogs are the Way to Go !

I suggest using the free Textamerica.com service. Here's my video blog on there. You can upload the following file types either via web or via email. It's just so simple and cool!

.jpg, .mov, .3gp, .mpg, .mp4, .avi, .wmv (max file size 25 Mb)

No upload conversion takes place. Whatever file you email to your Textamerica.com video blog, people will require the matching player on their machine. As I suggested, send either MP4 or WMV.

A good alternative here is LifeLogger (with an "L") See my video blog there. They accept the following file types (email or web uploaded)

• Photos: JPEG, TIFF, GIF, BMP, PNG
• Videos: 3GPP, AVI, MPEG
• Audio: AMR, MP3, WAV

The Advantages of LifeLogger are:

Video uploads all converted to flash, which is better compression again!
Macromedia Flash plug-in only 2 Mb compared to 38 Mb Quicktime/iTunes.
Fully cross-platform.
They also accept sound blogs and regular text entries unlike Textamerica.com.

The Disadvantages of LifeLogger are:

People still need to install Macromedia Flash (compared to WMV)
People can't really download and use the video clips very easily outside a browser.
You can only upload AVI etc which are BIG uploads compared to MP4/WMV uploadable on Textamerica .

Please Sir, I Want More

More?! Ok, for $4.95 a month, check out Audioblog.com (host video and better interface?). Or if you want a more flexibile blog layout, for $4.95/mo again, see TypePad. They don't actually host A/V though.