How I Do Videos For My Blog

Thanks John,

i found ur vid 2 b quite informative. I always wondered what would b a good camera, i currently have the Logitech web cam but the quality could b better. The last time i used it was for my BubbleTweet on Twitter, + that turned out ok but could have been better : ).

-steve

John, this is great info! I’ve been dragging my feet on doing a video for my blog, and you’ve taken away every excuse I had. I’m also going to write a blog post and send people over to this article!

~ Kay

Hey John,

Thanks for sharing your setup! It’s always helpful to learn how someone else does things.

I don’t do many “web cam” type videos (mostly screen capture types) but will look into that Nikon camera and that crazy looking tripod!

Great, thanks John,

I have a small question. In regards to hosting with amazon s3. One could just host the videos on our own server can we not? In previous messages you have reference Jing, is that not a service you continue to use? What are the reasons you have chosen to use amazon s3 and external host?

Thanks John,

Jeromy
http://twitter.com/JeromyS

Hi John;

That is pretty slick. I hadn’t considered using a P&S camera. I’ll have to give it a go.

That sure is a cute little guy you are piggybacking there.
I bet he is quite a bit bigger than in that pic now though. They grow sooo fast.

Thanks for sharing your insight,
Don

Thanks John – that Super App is very handy (I’ve got Vegas Pro & Camtasia & Jing – but to have something easy for our outsourced team to use is an excellent idea!)

Minor technical question? Do you convert to mp4 or flv? Your current videos do look great – I saw that blog comment and was also wondering at the time!

Thanks for the update (I’m a ReplaceMyself member – it’s fabulous)

Robert

Thank you so much for this video. I downloaded Jeff Walker case study videos in .flv format, later to find out I couldn’t play them on my laptop.

However, I went over to get the JW FLV player for my desktop and now I can play them.

Thanks John.

Moving Forward,

Kendall Matthews
http://www.twitter.com/KendallMatthews

As long as the audio & video is half way decent, I care less about the high-definition-look of the video, and I am sure most people feel the same.

What bother me most is the STOP AND GO (or worst, stop and never go again) type video…

Most of the videos that come into my in-box are like that, and yours are among them.

Big Thanks John!
I’m going to make sure that all this equipment is on my Christmas wish list.
Once again…I really appreciate you answering my question.

Hey John,

Many thanks for that Video and the resources.

Only last week I was searching around for a Video Format Convertor and came across a few paid ones.

I will be checking out the Super – Thanks

Hamant

What do you do to get your sound quality up. I have found with camcorder videos that the sound is terrible, because it does not have an external mic capability. Can this camera do it, or do you put it just close enough.

Hi John,

Thanks for the informative video. Some great tips in a short time.

One thing I’m wondering though, is why don’t you just upload your videos to YouTube? Don’t you get all the social media benefits too?

If you could tell me the reasons for self-hosting with Amazon S3, or if anyone else can reading this, I’d be grateful.

Thanks

Andy

Hi John!

What are your thoughts on using Viddler or Vimeo versus Amazon S3 to store and stream your videos? What kind of costs have you had with Amazon? I’m planning on doing some video interviews myself and wondering which place would be the best to stream those videos.

@scott – The problem of jumpy video in Firefox plagued me for a while too.
The problem is not the video and it’s not the place it’s streaming from.

I have a couple suggestions:
1. Try a different browser. You’d be surprised.
2. Read the first 3 posts on this page:
http://support.mozilla.com/no/forum/1/437208
and follow the link in the third post.
3. Read this page about it:
http://just-thinkin.net/2008/04/lousy-streaming-video-in-firefox-dont-blame-the-browser/

John

It’s me (scott) again… About the jumpy video problem, I am not using FireFox, my browser is InternetExplorer. Any other suggestions ? sfbay102@gmail.com

Every once in a while, I come across some video that would play smoothly, all the way to the end.

I have the same question as Leon:

Leon @ 12:53 am

What do you do to get your sound quality up? I have found with camcorder videos that the sound is terrible, because it does not have an external mic capability. Can this camera do it, or…what do you do to get good audio?

Jim

@Jim @Leon RE: Sound Quality
This camera doesn’t have the external mic capability. I didn’t buy it for this purpose, but just found that I get such good sound with it, I can use it for the videos I do for my blog.

With this camera I don’t need to do anything to get the sound quality up, but here’s how I do it with other videos:

1. strip just the audio from the video using SUPER
2. drop the audio into Audacity
3. Use Audacity “Noise Removal” feature to remove the noise from the video to make it sound much cleaner
4. Export the audio from Audacity
5. Drop the new, clean audio into the video editing software (windows movie maker) and put it at the beginning of the video
6. Mute the audio that’s attached to the video.

Pretty simple.

Hi John,

Love your videos. But I have the same question as a few others – why not use YouTube or Vimeo, rather than S3? (Or why not host it yourself?)

YouTube, for example, will automatically make low-res and HD versions for you, and you can link to whichever you want. Wordpress also lets you just link to a YouTube video and it makes the video appear in your blog. What are the advantages to using S3?

Thanks,
Brandon

Cool thanks for the info. I need to get that tripod, the old ones are hard to set up.
I will look into that camera as well.

It's great to see a different perspective on things like this every now and then. Up until recently I have mainly been using s3 for hosting other media and YouTube but I recently got hold of Easy Video Player after hearing great things about it. I'm starting to publish new videos with that and s3 now.

In terms of recording I'll either use my Panasonic Lumix camera if I'm outdoors or I'll use my laptops webcame when I'm indoors.

Hi John…

Thanks for the great post… it is nice to hear about someone else's setup or 'rig', as I like to call it… I have just started recording videos myself, so I appreciate your perspective. I am doing more screen capture stuff…. I didn't see a specific mic that you recommend, though.

I like the snowball. It is plug and play with a usb, and reasonably priced. If anyone wants to learn more, just google 'blue snowball usb microphone'. Do you have any suggestions?

Keep up the great work with this blog and your outsourcing strategies…

Regards,

James

John ~ Thanks again for your practical solutions. I love your blog…I just signed up for Replace Myself and am excited to bring on my first VA. I have been having a hard time getting them nailed down for an interview, any recommendations?

@Rae – Yes, try someone else. Or, try something else.
If they're not responsive for an interview, it's probably because they're embarrassed to talk with you on the phone. They don't think they're worthy, they don't think you'll understand their english (only ONE time could I not understand their english!). Just keep trying, or try someone else.
But, if you think you have found a really great candidate, keep trying.

John, Do you know how to split Videos into 10-minute vidoes or shorters, so that I can easily upload them to Youtube. I think Super does not allow me to split a long video into smaller bits.

Thanks for sharing this info with us John, Super looks interesting!

Jeromy… Only use your own server if you've got a dedicated server, or if your video is small in size & you're not going to have it viewed often… If you're on a shared server (cheap/month) you may have unlimited bandwidth but it'll (probably) be really slow. S3 is really good as it allows you to pay as you go, it fast, & it's mega cheap.

If you're using wordpress, a really awesome workaround is using "flowplayer" here:http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/fv-wordpress-...

Just give it your file/video location & you're done.

Another good work around is the "paid" version of vimeo. It's slightly more expensive than Amazon, but way easier to get your videos online as it functions like youtube. You can stop others embedding your videos as well as create passwords etc.

Hope this helps… Cheers Dave

Thank you, that was very helpful and easy to understand. Do you use the same set up to capture your screen and mouse activity too? Or is there another step involved? I figure if you can make video capture easy to understand, you can make screen and mouse capture easy to understand too. Thanks again for taking the time to help.

Super can be easily downloaded from: http://majorgeeks.com/Super_d5117.html

What a bad webdesign those guys have… yikes

Be aware though that even the paid version of Vimeo has commercial use restrictions, and that WP plugin has a modified version of Flowplayer that also usually requires a commercial license (to remove the Flowplayer references). So use at own risk

Good point on the shared-hosting though, and fefinitely a great idea using Amazon S3 – though ideally by adding some easy bandwidth protection to your videos too (with S3's 'expiring links' ability) in order to help maintain the 'mega-cheap' aspect.

Best,
Adam, Viddymatic

I'm working on using this system. It seems that in order to use Amazon S3, you need 3rd-party software (Cloudberry Explorer is what I found) to upload the files, unless you're a programmer. What do others use?

I was wondering why you are using Flash, Apple seams to be doing a good job trying to get rid of flash. I was using my ipad when I first hit your site but I had to get on my mac to see the video. I have also heard that search engines cannot read flash therefore not good for SEO.

Not saying I have the answer, mostly just wondering what you think?

Mike

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