Expert: R. Ferguson - 11/28/2004

Question
Please bare with me. This is new for me. I was hoping that you could give
me a little advice on how to set up video on my website when you have some time. What is the best easiest way to transfer video from camera to computer. I mean which program? Once there.  What format should the video be in. whats the best way to have it show on a website? AVI, Mpeg, quicktime? Also what are the tags I use to embed it in the website?

Some advice would be great

thank you

Answer
If you have a Mini-DV camera, then get a firewire card and a cable and import the video from the Mini-DV camera.  Most cards will come with software to do this.  If not, look at Pinnacle Studio or something similar.  there are lots of pgms out there.
The video will come in at full TV screen size (about 720x480 pixels). For web, you will want it to be about 320x240.  You can probably change this size in the software once the footage is in.
Video is also shot at 30 frames per second.  For web, you'll probably want to change it to 15, 20, or maybe 25.  This helps reduce file size.  If it will stream over the web at 3fps, then leave it that way.
I'd try to make it an mpeg file 1st and see if that works.  If not, the do a QuickTime file using Sorenson codec.  MPEG's tend to be smaller and that's what you want for web use.
I odn't know how to write tags to imbed it into the web site.  I'e always just uploaded it as a file then made a link to the file.  I'm sure you can boune around the net and find a site that has it imbedded the way you want.  Then just go to VIEW and SOURCE and 'borrow' the html.  That's what everyone else does.

Good luck!