Web Video Experiments

Attempts to make decent web video, using consumer software. Many links to software, tutorials, samples, etc. on this page. Last updated on October 04, 2001

Test Files

Test 1: Real Player files. (Instructions for downloading and installing Real Player)

Test 2: MPEG4 files. (Instructions for downloading and playing this MPEG4 file.)

Camera test - MPEG4

Mind Candy

Possibilities.

'Life is Incredible' Best viewed evenings (US time) and weekends. Site bogs down during regular business hours.
Singlereel.com Site with hundreds of web videos. Especially, check out Highest Rated Clips
Hearts in Atlantis A movie trailer on the Apple QuickTime site. Gorgeous. The standard I'm shooting for. Email me if you know how they did it.
Rocky Mountain Scenery This stunning 360 degree image was made with something called QuickTime VR.
An idea... Maybe have friends and family take a half dozen digital pictures of a place in their neighborhoods. Then you use pictures to create an 360 degree image of each place. Put them all on one web page. (Unfortunately QTVR requires a MAC, and I'm stuck with Windows...)

QuickTime Tutorials

QuickTime 5.02 tutorials Difficult to get started, but detailed and very useful.
QuickTime VR tutorial An good informal description of the QTVR process. From a brief scan of data sheet it looks like QTVR is not available on Windows. Requires an Apple PowerPC (Mac).

Encoders

QuickTime 5.02
Windows Media 8
Warning. I think either this program or Media Player 7.1 has bugs. The encoder is great, but I could only open the resulting file on the computer that did the encoding.
A free GUI for the encoder program. I have not tested it.
Real Networks
Real Producer Documentation
LabDV
A really big list of encoders, decoders, other software.

MPEG Stuff

MPEG produces high quality video. For web delivery, however, the files are much larger than other compression methods.

DivX MPEG4 Free MPEG 4 encoding software. Supported by an enthusiastic group of users. Many tutorials on site. If you can work your way through the 'tech talk' this is powerful and *very* useful software. Also used to 'rip' DVDs and put movies onto standard CDs.
AVI to DivX instructions. How to convert your AVI format videos to MPEG4 DivX movies.
Nicky Page's Digital Solutions Tutorials on DivX. Everything you need to know.
TMPEG 'Tsunami MPEG'. A free MPEG1 and MPEG2 encoder. The TMPEG developer constantly refines and updates the program. Make sure you get the latest version.

Peer to Peer Stuff

A way to get that humungous MPEG file to your friend in Holland.

Grokster.com Peer to peer file sharing. A way to share large movie files over the internet. Looks like best way to exchange files between filmmakers. Download now, before RIAA sues them out of existence.

About Web Video

A rant about the state of web video today.