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Solving Video-upload Glitches
FotoByFriend
Registered Users Posts: 9 Beginner grinner
Solving Video-upload Glitches
January 2008
DEAR FELLOW SMUGMUGGERS--
I thought it was wonderful that SmugMug had decided to allow videos to be uploaded. I had been using YouTube, but found that process rather cumbersome. I uploaded some videos to SM maybe a couple of weeks ago and had no problems.
But then I uploaded some more, creating a new gallery. The upload process went OK -- slow, but that's the nature of the beast with files of that size. I played one of the videos to make sure it transferred OK -- and that's when I noticed the problem:
I shoot my flix on my Olympus 8.0 MP camera -- in video mode (I don't have a digital movie camera per se). The flix show up on my Desktop as QuickTime movies. I paid Apple to get the ability to EDIT the movies (QuickTime Pro 7). I properly saved the changes -- which had merely entailed cutting out parts of movies.
When I played a movie on my Desktop, I viewed the edited version -- just the way I wanted it. BUT WHEN I PLAYED THE SAME FLICK AT SMUGMUG, NONE OF THE EDITING HAD BEEN SAVED. I at first thought perhaps I had not saved the changes, but then I went back to the original, the one I'd uploaded to SM, and all the changes were there. I found this very odd, because I figured that once I'd saved the changes there was no way to view the original version.
I e-mailed SmugMug Support. They suggested trying to export a movie; this did not work. So I played around with some other ways of saving QuickTime files, and I finally found something I thought might do the trick... and...
HIP-HIP-HOORAY! :barb Bells, whistles, fireworks! It worked! Now a movie, when played on my SmugMug site, has all the editing changes intact. Another "plus" is that, with the cuts, the file becomes a bit smaller, ergo a quicker upload.
:ivar OK, so here is my new bomb-proof method:
If you want your QuickTime Pro editing changes to be saved, you must SAVE each movie as a "self-contained movie":
Bob / aka FOTO BY FRIEND
================================================== ==================================================
How to Combine QuickTime Movies
April 2008
This is a follow-up to my January 2008 memo re "Solving Video-upload Glitches."
Go to the set of QuickTime movies that will by now have been copied into a new folder for editing, saving the originals as back-ups, and...
1. Using the two lower cursors, select the footage from the video you want added to the PREVIOUS Q.T. file; or, if copying the entire movie, just go to "Edit" > "Select All."
2. Click on "Copy."
3. Go back to the beginning movie (the PREVIOUS Q.T. file) and make sure to move the top cursor all the way to the right, i.e., to the end of the first movie (assuming you want the two segments in this order).
4. In that same beginning movie file, go to "Edit" > "Paste"; now you have the second segment added onto the first.
5. IMPORTANT: Click on "Select All" so you will be ready to save the ENTIRE movie -- otherwise you may find that you have saved just one portion (as happened to me!).
6. Go to "File" > "Save" to save the changes made to this now-combined movie.
7. NOTE: Do not delete any original or copied movie segments yet, or you may get an error notice.
8. Make any further additions as per steps 1 ~ 7.
9. Go through the new, combined movie, make any additional editing changes, and SAVE THEM.
10. Now, once again, refer to my January 2008 memo re "Solving Video-upload Glitches" -- especially noting how to "Save as a self-contained movie" in a DIFFERENT folder so as to be ready for upload to SmugMug
(VERY IMPORTANT!)
Regards,
Bob / aka FOTO BY FRIEND :thumb
January 2008
DEAR FELLOW SMUGMUGGERS--
I thought it was wonderful that SmugMug had decided to allow videos to be uploaded. I had been using YouTube, but found that process rather cumbersome. I uploaded some videos to SM maybe a couple of weeks ago and had no problems.
But then I uploaded some more, creating a new gallery. The upload process went OK -- slow, but that's the nature of the beast with files of that size. I played one of the videos to make sure it transferred OK -- and that's when I noticed the problem:
I shoot my flix on my Olympus 8.0 MP camera -- in video mode (I don't have a digital movie camera per se). The flix show up on my Desktop as QuickTime movies. I paid Apple to get the ability to EDIT the movies (QuickTime Pro 7). I properly saved the changes -- which had merely entailed cutting out parts of movies.
When I played a movie on my Desktop, I viewed the edited version -- just the way I wanted it. BUT WHEN I PLAYED THE SAME FLICK AT SMUGMUG, NONE OF THE EDITING HAD BEEN SAVED. I at first thought perhaps I had not saved the changes, but then I went back to the original, the one I'd uploaded to SM, and all the changes were there. I found this very odd, because I figured that once I'd saved the changes there was no way to view the original version.
I e-mailed SmugMug Support. They suggested trying to export a movie; this did not work. So I played around with some other ways of saving QuickTime files, and I finally found something I thought might do the trick... and...
HIP-HIP-HOORAY! :barb Bells, whistles, fireworks! It worked! Now a movie, when played on my SmugMug site, has all the editing changes intact. Another "plus" is that, with the cuts, the file becomes a bit smaller, ergo a quicker upload.
:ivar OK, so here is my new bomb-proof method:
If you want your QuickTime Pro editing changes to be saved, you must SAVE each movie as a "self-contained movie":
- Before starting any editing whatsoever, make copies of all the original movie files exactly as they were transferred to a Desktop file from your camera -- keeping them in a separate folder as back-ups. If you ever really screw something up, you can then retrieve the raw original copies and start over.
- Make your QuickTime Pro changes.
- Save these changes.
- With the movie in ready-to-replay mode, go to "File" > "Save As" > "Save as a self-contained movie." IMPORTANT NOTE HERE: Do not try to save it within the same folder as the edited original! If you try, you will be questioned as to whether you want to replace the edited original with the new file; you may think you could answer "yes" and figure you'd end up with the "self-contained" version in place of the edited original -- NOT SO. The new "self-contained" file MUST be saved in a different folder. The best solution is to create a temporary subfolder called, perhaps, "Saved for SmugMug"; as you save each "self-contained" movie file into this subfolder you'll see a message reading "flattening movie" -- which must be present to indicate that any editing was saved in a way that SmugMug will recognize it.
- Delete each originally-edited movie and replace with this newly saved "self-contained movie" version.
- Upload each new "self-contained movie" version to a SmugMug gallery.
- Voila!
Bob / aka FOTO BY FRIEND
================================================== ==================================================
How to Combine QuickTime Movies
April 2008
This is a follow-up to my January 2008 memo re "Solving Video-upload Glitches."
Go to the set of QuickTime movies that will by now have been copied into a new folder for editing, saving the originals as back-ups, and...
1. Using the two lower cursors, select the footage from the video you want added to the PREVIOUS Q.T. file; or, if copying the entire movie, just go to "Edit" > "Select All."
2. Click on "Copy."
3. Go back to the beginning movie (the PREVIOUS Q.T. file) and make sure to move the top cursor all the way to the right, i.e., to the end of the first movie (assuming you want the two segments in this order).
4. In that same beginning movie file, go to "Edit" > "Paste"; now you have the second segment added onto the first.
5. IMPORTANT: Click on "Select All" so you will be ready to save the ENTIRE movie -- otherwise you may find that you have saved just one portion (as happened to me!).
6. Go to "File" > "Save" to save the changes made to this now-combined movie.
7. NOTE: Do not delete any original or copied movie segments yet, or you may get an error notice.
8. Make any further additions as per steps 1 ~ 7.
9. Go through the new, combined movie, make any additional editing changes, and SAVE THEM.
10. Now, once again, refer to my January 2008 memo re "Solving Video-upload Glitches" -- especially noting how to "Save as a self-contained movie" in a DIFFERENT folder so as to be ready for upload to SmugMug
(VERY IMPORTANT!)
Regards,
Bob / aka FOTO BY FRIEND :thumb
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Something else I discovered yesterday (4-8-10) is that movies shot at different resolutions, e.g., HQ and SHQ, cannot be combined into a single movie. I had combined some SHQ movies, and they displayed just fine at SmugMug. HOWEVER, when I got to the last part of the combined movie, where there were a few HQ clips, the audio kept going BUT THE VIDEO STOPPED. So I split the combined video into Part A and Part B -- with Part A being all the SHQ clips and Part B being all the HQ clips -- but THAT turned out to be a problem, too: Part A uploaded OK, but Part B would not upload to SM after several attempts. So I had to go back to the original three components of Part B and re-combine them; that did the trick. Maybe I need to get a REAL video camera instead of shooting with my regular digital camera in video mode -- my flix would then be not so choppy, methinks.