Tools For Your Video Career
Duncan Riley
44 comments »
Very few would argue with the statement that video is hot right now. From the cultural phenomenon of YouTube, through to the rise of live streaming services, money is pouring into startups from content creators through to service providers. Getting into video isn’t as easy as setting up a blog, so here’s some advice of which direction to head in.
The basics
Obviously you’ll need a camera to get started in video; if you’re a Mac user you might have a cam built in, but if not web cam’s are fairly cheap. Alternatively people like Chris Pirillo stream from a professional video camera, but even a second hand older model can also work, for both live and recorded shows to computer. For camera effects, CamTwist for the Mac is free and fully featured with effects such as text, clocks, image overlays, Picture in Picture, and much more. Fix8 (our coverage here) offers cartoon style overlays if animation or funny faces are more your thing.
Recording
You’ll have two ways of recording a video: local or to the web. Local could directly on to a camcorder through to Quicktime or something in-between. Quicktime Pro (between $30-$45) does the recording and it’s a quick and easy solution. To the web means recording your video directly to a website; the advantages are that you don’t have to upload it and it’s available immediately, however depending on your internet connection the recording quality can be significantly poorer than recording a video locally and uploading it. YouTube offers the direct recording option and is an obvious candidate, but the Live streaming services also allow you to record to their services and even distribute your video out to sites like YouTube later. I’ve also found that the quality of the live stream services can often be higher in recording than YouTube.
Streaming Live
Live in the newest sector in online video with venture capital being spread around a range of services. Live offers some advantages over doing recorded video alone (although they are not mutually exclusive); streaming live means you can interact with and network with your audience while creating archive footage than can be distributed later. Companies in this space include Justin.tv, Ustream.tv, Mogulus, BlogTV, Stickam and others. All of the services have strengths and weaknesses and you should explore each one, but if you haven’t got time for that I’d recommend Justin.tv or Ustream.tv. Ustream.tv is attracting the professional, higher quality streaming shows so if you want to be in that space, you’ll be well positioned. Their tool set including full video conversion makes for a solid product. Justin.tv has a slant towards a younger, Gen Y audience, and if you’re pitching more to that audience it’s the better place to be. I also found when testing both that Justin.tv was more reliable for streaming quality from outside of the United States, and at times Ustream.tv was unusable for me, even on a 14mb down, 1mb up ADSL2 connection; you wouldn’t experience this in the US however. Of the others, Mogulus has a stronger emphasis on professional video and doesn’t have the strong community yet, BlogTV has a lot of potential, and Stickam seems to be dominated by soft porn, at least when I visited it.
Distribution
I asked Chris Pirillo for some tips for this post and one of his key points was simply: “you must understand that (a) It’s all about YouTube, and (b) It’s all about YouTube.” Like it or not YouTube dominates online video today more than Google dominates search in the 
United States. Other video bloggers I’ve spoken to suggest distribution to many sites, but always making sure YouTube is top of the list. TubeMogul is one the oldest of the video distribution sites, and is simple to use and free. You upload your video to their servers, enter you user name and password for a list of sites (first time only) then press the button and off they go. TubeMogul also tracks traffic statistics from each site so you can see which videos are being watched there. An alternative service is Hey!Spread (our review here).
The other consideration in distribution is getting your video onto other devices, like iPods. The key is to provide the correct file type and feed for services such as iTunes. You can do it manually with a WordPress plugin and by making sure the file is available on your server in the correct format, or you can use Blip.tv.
We’ve covered the occasional content deal on Blip.tv but we’ve never seriously looked at their distribution platform, and it’s the reason shows like Rocketboom, Mahalo Daily and Moblogic are using Blip.tv. On top of the obvious video hosting everyone in this space provides, Blip.tv also offers distribution to external blogs (including an automatic option), the Internet Archive, de.licio.us (links), Flickr (pics from the video), Adobe Media Player, MySpace, Twitter (text alerts), Facebook, Yahoo Video, AOL Video, Akimbo, Lycos Mix, MeeVee, MeFeedia, Meebo, Blinkx, Splashcast, Pando and the most important one of all: iTunes. Blip.tv offers an iTunes subscription feed and file conversion service; users do have to manually go to the dashboard within Blip.tv and request the file conversion on a free account, but with a premium account ($8/ mth or $80/ yr) get the conversion done automatically. A premium account also has other benefits, such as priority file transcoding that in my testing made it the quickest service available (that is time from when the video was uploaded until it was ready to view).
There was an argument between Ze Frank and Rocketboom a year or two back where Ze Frank disputed Rocketboom’s viewer numbers as they were reporting 10x the traffic of Ze’s The Show. The key to Rocketboom’s success has always been distribution, and for a long time you couldn’t open a media player without seeing Rocketboom pre-loaded. Distribution is key, and combining services like TubeMogul and Blip.tv make it a lot easier.
Content
Chris Pirillo told me that the key is to make sure every video has something different, and that you should use supportive text with each video posted as Google loves text. Ultimately what you decide to create is up to you: it may be something simple like a web cam chat, or you may want to get more creative. We cant tell you what will work for you, but the easiest way to start is to get on YouTube and just see what different people are doing, you’re sure to find something to inspire you.
Sure we will need a camera for that. One can become famous on youtube if have something good to share. I recentaly noticed howcast video on YT.
Good face, good knowledge and good video gets to youtube good’s.
I think that video will be a major part of my platform in the very near future.
I just want to toss in a quick endorsement for the Flip Ultra. Today I organized a video project with about 6 teams shooting films about 8 minutes long. We did it all with one Flip and one Mac. They are just so dead simple to use… it’s pure pleasure.
Duncan,
Finally a very useful article from you!
Agree with you that Ustream.tv is a great service.
Tubemogul is also a tremendous idea!
Man, I haven’t seen a How-to article on TC since 2006!
Quicktime Pro = $30 - has been for umpteen million years. Can’t imagine where you got $45 price.
I would add that Current TV has some excellent online tutorials in terms of basics: lighting, camerawork, story telling techniques … just a thought before everyone stampedes into vlog-style stream of consciousness nonsense.
damn i was hoping this was another article from dan ackerman greenberg
lol
CB
I should have added AUD next to it….that’s where I got it from.
A plug for iMovie 08 (comes with Apple’s Leopard). This video editor is a godsend for people like me whose chosen platform is YouTube. I shot my videos with a so-called “tapeless camera”, and every shot is an mp4 file, which takes up surprisingly very little space on my hard disk.
Some early reviewers criticized iMovie 08 for the lack of time-line display, but that quickly becomes a non-issue after you start to use it and get the hang of its innovative editing layout.
Awesome post Duncan, well done. Pirillo is interesting to watch…. he has a great angle from the side as opposed to the typical straight on, straight in the face look….
Duncan - I’m really surprised you didn’t mention Kyte in your round-up. As published by Erick Schonfeld in a previous post on Justin TV (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/24/justintvs-birthday-stats%e2%80%9457-years-worth-of-video-and-counting/) we lead the category in terms of traffic. Kyte’s focus is on branded content production and viral distribution, and is ideally suited for video bloggers and other media publishers to maximize distribution. Also, content production on the Kyte platform is the easiest and most flexible around - you can produce live stream or recorded video online or via a mobile phone.
Check out the overview video at http://www.kyte.com/demo to learn more.
Thanks.
I discovered TubeMogul about a year ago. Their service is awesome… you can push your video out to all the top sites, AND get statistics back on your viewers. AND IT’S FREE! They’ve added support for a lot of new sites and features too in the past few months. Great work guys! And great article, Duncan!
blip.tv is the distribution choice for serious content creators.
Ustreamtv, Blogtv, Yhoo.live, Stickam, Mogulus in the UGC World, Sports news and Music from around the world. Search for it soon on http://www.NowHound.com. A Live Event Search Engine. “What’s on Now and What’s on Next”. If it’s on later, set an alert, share it with a friend and we will remind you before showtime.
Great to have Duncan being such a pitchman for the Live space!
Hey, what about Selfcast (www.selfcast.com) ? They’ve just re-launched with some great new features on their platform for live broadcasting and chat and it’s quick, easy and free.
Stickam is not dominated by soft porn. It is extremely popular with the YouTube community of vloggers so you should check it out if you want to get familiar with the social networking side of YouTube.
Blip.tv does automatic flv conversions on free account - it just takes a little longer.
A monetization option for video hosted at YouTube and many others. Put hotspots and clickable ads in the video. Viewers see the hotspot in the video as it plays and can click on it to see more information or to make a purchase. Overlays can easily be turned with a click of a button to un-clutter the player.
http://www.overlay.tv
Ustream has more features but selfcast looks much easier to use…
http://www.ustream.com
http://www.selfcast.com
Hey, video creators, here’s something Duncan forgot: AUDIO!
One of the main problems with most internet video content, ESPECIALLY all the tech interview videos posted on TC, is with the audio. The in-camera mic on your camera, no matter how good it is, sucks compared with getting an external lavalier mic, or even waving a handheld in front of somebody’s face.
True, it takes a little bit more learning and a little bit more work… and money… but the results are worth it.
I sold a video to CurrentTV when they first launched, and I don’t think they would have bought it if I hadn’t rented a lavalier mic from the FilmArts Foundation in SF and clipped it on the shirts of the people I interviewed.
Seriously, people - if you’re going to make video content, learn how to get decent audio.
What is the recommendation for hosting higher resolution video, e.g. for screen capture? YouTube’s quality is far too low for that.
Viddyou.com hosts HD video and is in general of higher quality than youtube. Disclosure: They’re my friends.
@ 20 Alex…
Give http://www.ooyala.com/ a try… looks like a great option for hosting high quality screencasts. I have no affiliation with them and I haven’t had the time to beta. Please post here if you try. I have tested a MAC Screencaster called Screenflow and love it. $90.https://www.varasoftware.com/products/screenflow/
I am actually looking for someone/freelancer to work with one of our portfolio companies to product/work on an eLearning program. If anyone is interested please drop me a line.
KAP
Hi Take a look at http://startyourtube.com it is easy and gives you complete ownership of your content and users.
You can choose the ad network you want to monetize content sounds like freedom no?
cheers
jypy
VoltaicHD (http://shedworx.com/) is a very good (and cheap) way of getting HD video off a HD video camera and onto your computer for editing.
A well-organized and insightful article - thanks!
I’ve become a really big fan of TubeMogul — glad you mentioned them. Once you have all your account logins for the various sites (it pays to register in one concentrated burst and get that done), it’s pretty much a snap — altho there’s the inevitable issue of wondering if you can trust them with your login/passwords. Do the research, then make your own best judgment.
TubeMogul not only does batch uploading to multiple sites, it it also has metrics tracking which I haven’t used *extensively* yet, but am finding handy. Also, you can upload a video, then wait before promoting/launching it days or weeks later if you so choose. It takes the guesswork out of “Which site!?” because since it does about a dozen in one fell swoop, you benefit from all of them.
I’ve uploaded numerous Second Life video tutorials via TubeMogul, and the only major problem I’ve had is longer (15+ min.) YouTube uploads failing a few times (most other sites that support such size + length succeeded). Looking forward to uploading more.
As much as I appreciate YouTube for being cheap ‘n’ cheerful, they have some longstanding bugs/problems which I’d advise awareness of, one of them being the crappy video quality:
» http://torley.com/5-youtube-pr.....her-torley
And yes, with YouTube being so venerable and sheerly popular, it’s a shame their quality hasn’t substantially gotten better yet. Flickr’s newly-introduced videos have FANTASTIC quality, but alas, you’re limited to 90 secs.
I discovered Realview TV at http://www.realviewtv.com. The site was referred to me as one of the premiere end-to-end provider of streaming interactive video for corporate websites, competes with feedroom. Backed by venture guys who brought careerbuilder, t mobile and mindspring.
Enjoy the broadcast.
Word to the wise for Mac users — IShowU is a very cheap, effective solution for screencasting, which I believe is pivotal to promoting your business on web-based video.
Also, if you consider yourself an expert at anything, do yourself a HUGE favor and create an account on Howcast. The traffic tends to be much more targeted than Youtube…
Duncan
A great article and good advice for new web video producers.
I believe that video will continue to grow and eventually dominate the web. It will still be about text and images, but video will be the main media.
http://press20.blogspot.com/20.....vised.html
Hi,
I have compiled a list of more than 500 of YouTube-like sites with their niches, and the list is still growing.
Now, I am doing the same with video search engines. The list counts only 30 of them up to now, but it will grow within the next weeks (and hopefully with the help of the visitors). You can check it at http://www.ilikesharingvideos......ngines/en/
So if you are interested in video search engines, publishing your own videos, or even online video marketing, give an eye to this site, it worths it.
Cheers