There are 2 convenient ways to brand your videos with a logo watermark. Method 1 is adding a watermark during publishing. Method 2 embeds a watermark in post production before rendering the final video. Both have advantages and disadvantages which are explained here:
Wide screen on YouTube
Wide screen on YouTube is going to change your workflow and it will encourage you to be even more creative. From now on, the player of YouTube is set to 640 x 360 pixels, which is actually equal to the dimensions of a High Definition Video (HDV)
Create your own video channel – part 4/4
The last part of this series: Preparing your video for streaming, uploading and embedding the video, branding your site and the video player. After those steps, you truly will be able to run your own video channel. However, this is the most challenging part of the series. Retrace your steps if things go wrong and … Read more
Brightcove: End of the free ride – revised
Latest news: Brightcove TV is dead Brightcove.tv no longer exists. Brightcove has stepped out of the consumer arena altogether. Their core business is now purely professional and beyond the scope of this site. We will keep previous articles on Brightcove for history sake, though. Alas, it was written in the stars: on 17 December 2008, … Read more
The PowerMate from Griffin Technology – review
Update 30 July 2022 from November 2008 The PowerMate from Griffin Technology is a very useful multimedia device that can be used to scrub video to and fro(fast forward-backward). It’s a cheap solution that doesn’t really compare with professional video editing hardware, but it comes close to being a very affordable surrogate shuttle wheel. It … Read more
Sumo Paint – Online image editor – revised
I just tested an easy to use online image editor to create and adapt images. The application is called Sumo Paint and I’m quite charmed by the way it works, actually. It has layers and blending modes comparable with Adobe Photoshop, but everything is a bit more primitive, which is good because it is not … Read more
Handbrake review – Converting DVD to movies
Converting DVD to movies on Mac was a job for Visual Hub, but Tyles from Techspansion discontinued the application. The new born King is: Handbrake! Mac users were happy to work with Visual Hub for years and many are sorry to see the application go, partly because it could do a lot more then converting … Read more
Creating your own video channel – Part 3/4
In this tutorial we cover installing and FTP application, upload a template and activate a theme in your system, whether it is Joomla or WordPress. But first, we have to find you the right template theme.
How to make your video bigger without resizing
Let’s say you have a 320pixels x 240pixels movie and you want to upload it to a video channel? Then you need to adapt your video so that it will not stretch and look blurry. There is a rather simple trick for that: importing your video into a new one which is 480×360 pixels. That … Read more
Creating your own video channel – Part 2/4
In today’s tutorial we look at the initial emails you get from DreamHost after you signed up and paid for the hosting package. We pick out the stuff you need to write down in your little notebook. If you don’t have that little notebook yet, this is the moment to get it because it is … Read more
WordPress vs Joomla – Review (revised)
Revised on 18 August 2020 – This is not a pro-contra review. In this article I try to give you some pointers to make it easy to chose between the two popular content management systems. The basic difference between WordPress and Joomla is that Joomla is a portal- or community type site while WordPress is … Read more
Creating your own video channel – Part 1/4
This is step 1 of 4 in the process of creating your own independent video channel. As explained in the introduction of this series, this is much cheaper then you might think and getting it up and running is not as complex as it seems. In this step, we concentrate on setting up the web … Read more
Password creator for web accounts
We keep doing it, using the name of our dog or cat as a password and at some point, we are amazed someone breaks into our web space or bank account because it is so easy to guess. Here is an utility that creates safe passwords for you, a courtesy of Raboo Design. The only … Read more
YouTube news: New Captions Feature For Videos
This is really good news. VideoJug.com was, as far as I know, one of the first to implement the idea of transcriptions next to videos for the deaf and the blind (via screen readers) and now YouTube takes this a step further. The technology already exists for some time, but so far not many channels … Read more
Creating your own video channel – Introduction -revised
Setting up your own video channel sounds expensive, a lot of work and really complicated, but it is not as hard as it sounds and it certainly does not cost a lot of money. In fact, it is very cheap if you know where to go and how to do it! Apart from creating your … Read more
BlogtalkRadio: social, free and easy
There is a wonderful social network called BlogTalkRadio. Basically, you can record your own radio talkshow with just a phone and a computer. The service records your talk show through the phone with a number of guests/listeners (max 5) and that show is then automatically published on BlogTalk Radio. Yet, you can also publish the … Read more
Blogs don’t die, they go to sleep
No posts in 14 days, I should feel bad about it, but there are reasons: First, I went on vacation and directly after that, my body explained to me that the vacation wasn’t long enough, so it used a weapon I cannot resist, it went on strike. Hence, I’ve got the flu. That will happen … Read more
Viddix, a revolutionary video channel – Review
One of my students asked me yesterday what I thought of viddix.com. Since I never heard of it, I had a look at it and guess what? I was perplexed at what I saw there. This is a new revolution in video channels. No, let me rephrase this : This is THE REVOLUTION in video … Read more
Embedding video & audio in WordPress – revision 3
This tutorial is outdated. We will update it soon. In the meantime, please have a look at Embed a youtube video on WordPress instead. We keep this post published because it contains comments that have useful links. But the content has been stripped because it is no longer valid.
WordPress: blog & content management into one
It’s obvious that blog owners tend to favor their own system as they grow to like it, but WordPress is an absolute necessity when in comes to user friendliness and SEO. If blogging is your business then you should consider WordPress as it is thé choice of most prominent marketing gurus. The programmers of WP … Read more
Free Flash Video player – Windows
Here you find a free Flash Video player for Windows by the creative folks of Applian technologies: Applian FLV Player 2.0, which you can use to view the videos you create with Vlog It, Camtasia and any other video editors that can produce FLV movies. I use it myself quite often and I’m very happy … Read more
Audacity, free sound editor
Audacity is a little gem under the free sound editors. It has a great noise removal feature which can supress static background noise as if it was never there. (Use it sparingly though, it can create weird effects. See How to reduce static in my audio? for more info about avoiding static.) There are many … Read more
How to reduce environmental sound in audios?
Environmental sounds are often confused with static because, just as static, it produces a disturbing drone in the background. Tthe funny thing is, that we hear those sounds in reality all the time, but we filter them from our minds automatically. If we wouldn’t block out all that irrelevant background noise, we would go totally … Read more
How to reduce static in my audio?
Some sound editors, like Audacity from SoundForge can reduce static noise, but the disadvantage is that it deforms the audio. Therefore, it is best to quelch static before it hits the sound card, so to speak. The most common problem is the microphone (or headset) related to its surroundings. If you are recording sound next … Read more
For video an extra hard drive is no luxury – part II
Since there is still an enormous evolution in external hard drives, information becomes stale while you write it, so here is an update on the subject that starts with a question from one of my pupils: “I didn’t know hard drives can die on me so quickly” Any piece of hardware can die on you … Read more
