Become an Internet TV star

Posted on 3 Oct 2007 at 16:47

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One of the oldest names in online video, which straddles the gap between the user-generated content sites and these more professionally orientated options, is Atom Films (www.atomfilms.com). This trailblazing site is the host of such internet hits as Star Wars Gangsta Rap, viewed by over six million people. You can upload videos up to 100MB in size, or Flash animations up to 20MB. However, your videos are vetted by human beings and put on the site only if they make the grade. Hence, the content on Atom tends to be the cream of the crop, and the site claims to pay successful video-makers, too.

Editing software

A number of editing applications are making online video distribution easier by building in direct support. Ulead was one of the first with Video Studio (£35 inc VAT from www.play.com). Since version 8, Ulead Video Studio has been able to upload video directly to Neptune Media Share. With PowerDirector 6, CyberLink has upped the ante. This program (£69 inc VAT from www.softwareparadise.com) connects to YouTube and Streamload's MediaMax service.

At the more professional end of the market, Adobe's Premiere CS3 (£1,488 inc VAT from www.zomp.net) includes encoding presets for Google Video, MySpace and YouTube. The application leaves you to do the uploading, but at least you don't have to mess around with encoding settings. Even Windows Movie Maker, which comes preinstalled on every Windows XP and Vista system, can upload video directly to the web. Supported services included Neptune Media Share and Mydeo.

If you don't use any of these for your editing, however, a very useful new utility for online video is Roxio Buzz, which is free to download from www.roxio.com/enu/solutions/roxiolabs/products/buzz/default.html (it was also included on the Shopper August 2007 cover disc). The basic version can import WMV, AVI, MPEG1, QuickTime and DivX formats. The decoder pack costs $11.99 (around £6) and adds the ability to import MPEG2, MPEG4, 3GP and H.264. Buzz offers some video-editing capabilities that are limited mostly to trimming down clips. As Buzz accepts only one file at a time, it's best used with clips you have prepared in other software, or simple footage such as a video blog. It can also take still images plus a music file and make a slideshow out of them, adding mild motion and transitions between the pictures.

The clever part of Buzz is that it can upload simultaneously to YouTube, GoFish and Microsoft's Silverlight, handling the appropriate encoding for you. Roxio also claims it will add more services as plug-ins in the near future. Buzz provides a wizard to fill in all the necessary tags and login information for YouTube and GoFish, then transcodes as necessary. Once your file is ready, it guides you through signing up to the three services it currently supports and lets you fill in your login details. Your video is then uploaded to your chosen sites. With Silverlight, Buzz uploads an entire application, then generates the code you need to add to your webpage's HTML to embed the video.

Be your own host

Although most of the services we have described are primarily self-contained video-based communities, many also offer everything you need to embed the video stream into your own website. YouTube provides Embed HTML code under the Edit Video Info page. Simply add this to your website design to embed the video, although it will still be streamed from YouTube.