Animoto, upload from smugmug doesn't use the high resolution available

[carlo pinasco]

When I upload photo from smugmug to animoto, starting the process from animoto or from smugmug doesn't make difference, the photo are uploaded with a resolution below the 1024*768 reccomended for High resolution Video.

This is what Animoto say if you click on the photo uploaded.

If I upload the same photo form my PC Animoto is happy about the dimensions.

In this gallery
http://carlopinasco.smugmug.com/gallery/10415193_5Bx2x#721760573_uyTq6 all the photos are in original 1600*1066 pix.
If I upload from my PC to Smugmug and from smugmug to animoto I've the low resolution message.
I I upload directly from the PC to animoto no problem at all.

So the question is, how can we force Smugmug to upload to animoto the right size?

Carlo

[docwalker]

Carlo,

We had another customer contact us on the help desk about this. I have reported it to the Animoto folks as the photo appears correct on the SmugMug side. I am not sure if we are not handing off the correct size or if they are not pulling the right one. But they are aware of the issue and investigating. I will make sure that they see this post as well.

:thumb

--Doc

[carlo pinasco]

Carlo,

We had another customer contact us on the help desk about this. I have reported it to the Animoto folks as the photo appears correct on the SmugMug side. I am not sure if we are not handing off the correct size or if they are not pulling the right one. But they are aware of the issue and investigating. I will make sure that they see this post as well.

:thumb

--Doc

thanks a lot for your help

[Flyinggina]

I am having the same problem. Animoto is clearly not pulling up the originals.

Am using an unlisted gallery. Don't know why that would make a difference, but maybe???

Virginia

[docwalker]

Gina, I am not sure of the cause. But they should be able to get it fixed soon. Sorry for the trouble.

[r9jackson]

When I upload photo from smugmug to animoto, starting the process from animoto or from smugmug doesn't make difference, the photo are uploaded with a resolution below the 1024*768 reccomended for High resolution Video.

This is what Animoto say if you click on the photo uploaded.

If I upload the same photo form my PC Animoto is happy about the dimensions.

In this gallery
http://carlopinasco.smugmug.com/gallery/10415193_5Bx2x#721760573_uyTq6 all the photos are in original 1600*1066 pix.
If I upload from my PC to Smugmug and from smugmug to animoto I've the low resolution message.
I I upload directly from the PC to animoto no problem at all.

So the question is, how can we force Smugmug to upload to animoto the right size?

Carlo I am seeing the same thing. I have tried setting my galleries to "originals" and it still does not upload a high resolution image I have on my site.
Maybe there is some trick. I seem to remember some high res images getting into Animoto, but not recently. Did anything change on Animoto?

[r9jackson]

I am seeing the same thing. I have tried setting my galleries to "originals" and it still does not upload a high resolution image I have on my site.
Maybe there is some trick. I seem to remember some high res images getting into Animoto, but not recently. Did anything change on Animoto? However, one way around this problem is to use Album Fetcher and then upload your images from the stored photos on your local system. Animoto does limit the size to 5 mb.

[docwalker]

Animoto is aware of the problem and they are working on a fix. That was the last thing I have from their support folks. Hopefully they will get it fixed soon. :thumb

[AnimotoBecky]

Yep, I'll check in and let our TechGuys know this is a concern of SM users. Thanks for letting us know!

Animoto is aware of the problem and they are working on a fix. That was the last thing I have from their support folks. Hopefully they will get it fixed soon. :thumb

[carlo pinasco]

Yep, I'll check in and let our TechGuys know this is a concern of SM users. Thanks for letting us know!

Today 24th dec is not yet solved.....hope they have found the right path to final solution :-)

[r9jackson]

Today 24th dec is not yet solved.....hope they have found the right path to final solution :-)
We were hoping that we would have great HD videos for Christmas.

[AnimotoBecky]

Very sorry for that. We did just hire 2 new developers who start in the New Year. I'll let you know when they get cranking on this.

We were hoping that we would have great HD videos for Christmas.

[sweet caroline]

I probably won't subscribe until this problem is fixed.

[aerialphoto]

March 10 - still doesn't work, apparently. All (or at least almost all) of the images I'm sending to animoto from the "buy" button are all open to X2-X3 sizes. Animoto reports "This image is smaller than the recommended landscape size of 1024x768 for high-resolution videos."

It also looks like the watermarks are being sent over but I'm trying another video to confirm that.

[Enitsugua]

April 22 - still doesn't work; not really

If you start from the SmugMug side via the Buy button while logged in, it works. It pushes high res images without watermarks.

If you start from the Animoto side, you get low res images and watermarks when pulling over from SmugMug.

Should be the same regardless of where I start the project.

Looks to me as though SmugMug is more interested in seeing this partnership work than Animoto is. I noticed Animoto also now has import options for Flickr, Facebook, Picassa, and Photobucket.

[docwalker]

Guys, I am going to bump this to my folks and animoto. I really want this to work for you. I am not sure what is going on. Hang in there.

[AnimotoBecky]

I just talked to our Project Manager who came on board a few months ago to triage these sorts of issues and get them fixed!

He has 3 or 4 SmugMug-related bugs he wants to fix in one big swoop, but can't give me an ETA for these fixes. E-mail me at rebecca@animoto.com if you'd like months added to your account to recoup months lost when Animoto wasn't working as well as you would have hoped. I'll have you covered until these fixes do (finally) roll out.

Guys, I am going to bump this to my folks and animoto. I really want this to work for you. I am not sure what is going on. Hang in there.

[Robertk]

Are these issues fixed. I was looking a joining but have had problems with the files with the free version.

[AnimotoBecky]

We still don't pull the hi-res files from SmugMug. We did recently allow for image uploads to be as large 10 MB, but again... that will be for manually uploads to animoto.com. I'll certainly let everyone know on the Forum once this is rolled-out. In fact, I'll most likely be singing and dancing along the rest of you once it is released. :ivar

Are these issues fixed. I was looking a joining but have had problems with the files with the free version.

[Robertk]

Any idea on how long? I want to get a pro account but it's a big headache not to be able to pull directly from smug mug.

We still don't pull the hi-res files from SmugMug. We did recently allow for image uploads to be as large 10 MB, but again... that will be for manually uploads to animoto.com. I'll certainly let everyone know on the Forum once this is rolled-out. In fact, I'll most likely be singing and dancing along the rest of you once it is released. :ivar

[liflander]

+1 waiting for this issue to be resolved before joining animoto.

[Robertk]

Guess this won't happen soon?

[ShutterByMe]

I guess this is still an issue with them since my slide show video looks awful? I so love this idea and was so excited about it.....but when you try and view them in big screen they look awful! Blurry and even my downloads are awful...blurry not to mention the whole slide show looks blown out.... it's painful! I have tried every way possible uploading trying to make a difference, but nothing is helping. Is anyone out there having good luck with Animoto? I really would love to have this....so far have only paid the monthly thing for the pro acct to check it out first....ummm I'm not sure I want to buy the $250 worth!

[aerialphoto]

To be fair, are you doing the higher-resolution slide show? The standard one doesn't look all that great and might be considered blurry.

I gave up on the service anyway, it just doesn't meet my needs - but I haven't played with it to see if the problem was ever addressed.

[Camara Photography, LLC]

I was really excited to see that Animoto was now offered as a smugmug partner / feature, so I tried do do a free, 30 second show to test it...

When I select photos to add, I get this: "This image is smaller than the recommended landscape size of 1024x768 for high-resolution videos.", when the originals are WELL over that size. WHY, or how do I fix it?

Also, can a 30 second slideshow be put in a gallery as a "teaser", to sell to clients? If so, can clients purchase it (a full length version) directly from smugmug (as a digital file)?

[Camara Photography, LLC]

I was really excited to see that Animoto was now offered as a smugmug partner / feature, so I tried do do a free, 30 second show to test it...

When I select photos to add, I get this: "This image is smaller than the recommended landscape size of 1024x768 for high-resolution videos.", when the originals are WELL over that size. WHY, or how do I fix it?

Also, can a 30 second slideshow be put in a gallery as a "teaser", to sell to clients? If so, can clients purchase it (a full length version) directly from smugmug (as a digital file)?

Oh yeah, why are we limited to 300 files??? I'm sure I'm not the only wedding photographer that would be annoyed by this.?

[docwalker]

Camara Photography,

I am going to leave your other questions for the Animoto folks to answer as I really don't know. But you asked if you could sell your video clips through SmugMug. Not at this time. You could add PayPal or Google Checkout to handle payments. Our shopping cart system is not setup to handle other items that are not part of our catalog at this time. You might want to add your voice to this request here: http://smugmug.uservoice.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/354950-let-us-be-able-to-sell-videos-please-open-up-the?ref=title

--Doc

[Camara Photography, LLC]

Bump... Why would a service be offered to so many customers, be launched with so many bugs (based on this forum)??? Wouldn't it be a better business model to run it through it's paces, and THEN offer it to your customers?

[Camara Photography, LLC]

Ok.. I sound like the squeaky wheel here, but I really want this service to fit my needs. I'm getting frustrated by the lack of answers, and the answers I get from Animoto are not satisfactory due to the limits of their service. For instance, I just found out that even with the full subscription, you ONLY get to use ONE song! Again, I can't be the only wedding photographer that would find this as useless, as the average song is only around 3.5 minutes. At that short length, it would be more of a teaser slideshow for my clients! Common...

[docwalker]

You can cheat and merge 2 songs into one song file and upload that to animoto. I did that a while back in a video I did for my grandparents anniversary. We picked out 4 songs and edited them so that they blended the transitions in Final Cut/Soundtrack. I had to do this to make sure that all of the photos had time to appear in the video.

You might want to give that a try if you want more than one song per slideshow.

[r9jackson]

You can cheat and merge 2 songs into one song file and upload that to animoto. I did that a while back in a video I did for my grandparents anniversary. We picked out 4 songs and edited them so that they blended the transitions in Final Cut/Soundtrack. I had to do this to make sure that all of the photos had time to appear in the video.

You might want to give that a try if you want more than one song per slideshow.
Doc is right, you can merge songs together and that is what I have done. I use Adobe Soundbooth for the task. I would like to point out that you are still limited to 10 minutes in total length. I think that is for the song only, because I added some text that brought my video to about 10:03 in length. So to summarize, you are limited to 300 images and 10 minutes of audio.

I had a recent client that wanted all the pictures of the first year of their son's life made into a video and ran into some of these limits. While it is a little frustrating, Animoto is still a very good product and I don't know of any other service that could fill the needs I have for providing video for my clients. I suppose, if you were a video expert then you could create your videos using Adobe Premiere or Final Cut, but I don't have the expertise to do that. It's enough for me to keep learning my photography skills.

[docwalker]

Just a reminder in response to r9jackson. Videos uploaded to SmugMug are limited to 10 minutes. The song length is not a factor for us. Everything (video and song tracks) has to be under 10 minutes currently for SmugMug. Animoto may be handling it a little differently.

I agree, that Animoto rocks for making these simple. But, you do have to understand that making it simple does require you to give up some control over the limits, etc. If you want more control, you do have to do it yourself.

As our release notes indicate this week, we did fix a problem on our end related to Animoto video uploads. Hopefully that did help some of you.

[aerialphoto]

I agree, that Animoto rocks for making these simple. But, you do have to understand that making it simple does require you to give up some control over the limits, etc. If you want more control, you do have to do it yourself.


Or, in many cases (including mine) if you want it done at all you have to do it yourself because Animoto just doesn't work.

Smugmug Rocks. Animoto fails.

[liflander]

I decided to give animoto pro a try despite the issues raised in this forum. I have to say I'm happy with the process, the product and the service. Yes I would like to have certain features added, but my videos using pics from smugmug look good at all video sizes, the process is quick and easy for me, and I'm already selling videos.

I look forward to animoto just getting better from an already good starting point.

Mark

LiflanderPhotography.com

[liflander]

Here's a couple of my animoto videos featured on my smugmug galleries page:
www.liflanderphotography.com/galleries

I burned hires dvd's from the iso files using the free software animoto recommends and they play and look great.

I got good answers on a couple of tech questions that I sent to their help desk.

LiflanderPhotography.com

[aerialphoto]

Mark - I'm glad it worked for you. I just went back and used my free hi-res upgrade on the project that I tried, and tried, and tried, and tried...and yet tried again to accept my full-res images on. It went right through this time so I assume whatever problems were there have been fixed.

Animoto is what it is: a simple and quick way to make a quick-and-dirty slideshow. Sometimes the results are great, sometimes they're not - you can always regenerate the project and see what happens.

My complaint was that the stupid thing simply DID NOT WORK and nobody really seemed to give a darn. Complaints to Animoto resulted in nothing. Complaints here resulted in nothing. Multiple comments and complaints from others resulted in...nothing. Smugmug service is absolutely terrific but Animoto's service was non-existent and that lack of customer service totally obliterated whatever attraction the slideshows had...at least for me.

Having said all that though, it seems to be fixed. If that's the case and you like the results then it's a decent service, but based on the lack of support I can't eagerly recommend it.

[liflander]

I must have subscribed after the problem was fixed, so I've been lucky. I can certainly understand the feelings of others on this thread based on their experience. I hope for all of us that animoto quickly improves their service.

[aerialphoto]

FWIW that project from several months ago that wouldn't work did render into a higher-res "DVD" quality video with no problems at all. It still shows my watermarks (which I thought it wasn't supposed to do), but the way Animoto crops and moves things that's not a big issue.

I stand by what I said but I think it's only fair to report it does seem to be working now.

[AnimotoBecky]

We fixed the weirdness that was occurring to users who didn't have a Pro/Power account and now we export the hi-res video file to SmugMug. Can you let us know how the dealing of image files is for you currently?

Any idea on how long? I want to get a pro account but it's a big headache not to be able to pull directly from smug mug.

[photoemagery]

We fixed the weirdness that was occurring to users who didn't have a Pro/Power account and now we export the hi-res video file to SmugMug. Can you let us know how the dealing of image files is for you currently?
This error seems to have resurfaced.

Image dimensions: 510x768
This image may not be optimal quality.

[MSkaffari]

Did Anomoto process the video for you and give this warning or the video was never processed?

Animotos hi-res video is 720p which translates to 1280 * 720 image area. The error or warning seems to suggest that the image you used has smaller dimensions.

I created video from basic Smugmug account with bigger images and didn't have any issues.

Let me know if you need further help with this.

[photoemagery]

Did Anomoto process the video for you and give this warning or the video was never processed?

Animotos hi-res video is 720p which translates to 1280 * 720 image area. The error or warning seems to suggest that the image you used has smaller dimensions.

I created video from basic Smugmug account with bigger images and didn't have any issues.

Let me know if you need further help with this.

Hopefully last nights bug fix did the trick, but at the time I was just importing images direct into Animoto. I hadn't gotten to creating the video yet. I have pro accounts on both sides. I ended up working around it by uploading the images direct from my computer.

Also, unless you're seeing an extra spiffy feature I haven't managed to find, Animoto's Hi-res export is 480p.

[photoemagery]

Hopefully last nights bug fix did the trick, but at the time I was just importing images direct into Animoto. I hadn't gotten to creating the video yet. I have pro accounts on both sides. I ended up working around it by uploading the images direct from my computer.

Also, unless you're seeing an extra spiffy feature I haven't managed to find, Animoto's Hi-res export is 480p.

now that I investigate further, it seems to be related to the specific album I'm importing. I tried with a different album and it was able to bring images over though their sizes were inconsistent. My original attempted album still reports as:
Image dimensions: 510x768
This image may not be optimal quality

[MSkaffari]

Could I get link to the gallery that you are having issues with? Thanks

[photoemagery]

Could I get link to the gallery that you are having issues with? Thanks

http://gallery.emagery.net/Portraits/Faircloths/17185953_LK74mJ#1303108809_X5pXGk9