the Crow Digital Media Blog

There’s a little wizardry coming out of Pittsburgh these days that you should be aware of.

Not yet officially released but available in beta form for downloading (beta means it is still undergoing development and testing but they want you to try it out and provide feedback so that they can make it ready for its official launch) the Wizzard Media Player is attempting to provide something really intriguing to all of us generating online video content.
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I’ll get back to my normal coverage of online video again on Monday but I thought you might enjoy this diversion.

My home base community of Palo Alto, California recently held an Arts Festival that was a huge success. I brought my video camera out with me and recorded a few quick scenes just to give you the flavor of what it was like.

This first video is of our local Kiwanis club who had a small booth next to the music stage where they were offering a selection of wines, champagne, waters and mimosas - clearly they were having a very good time. Notice how my friend Tommy Fehrenbach (wearing the black baseball cap) is trying to hide his face from the camera!

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Next, I had the pleasure of meeting ceramics master Hong Rubenstein who came all the way from Palm Springs to participate in the Arts Festival. Originally from Jilin China, she says coming to America opened up many new artistic horizons for her.

“When I moved to America I felt a great freedom to explore new ideas and forms in my work.”

Hong’s pottery is unique, very beautiful and especially sturdy due to the fact that each piece is fired at over 2,300 degrees. You can learn more about her art at onedreamdesign.com

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

This series of postings is all about finding a free video player to use for presenting videos on your site. Since we are focusing on video players offered by the video sharing sites, I would recommend you check out Blip.tv’s Flash player.

The playback quality is quite good, I think it has much to do with the fact that they accept video up to 640×480 in size and they suggest you encode your video using the highly popular H.264 “codec” known for its superior results.

Although I am not aware of any customization options for their player, their default design is quite nice with all the controls appearing below the video window.

The only small negative I encountered was that the playhead (the slidebar graphic that moves to the right as the video progresses) has no numerical indicator of how long the complete video is, it only shows elapsed time.

Blip.tv follows the standard process and provides an easy to use snippet of “embed” code that you simply copy and paste into your Web site…in that one step you get both the video and their player.

By the way, Blip.tv provides a very nice help center environment they call their Learning Center. Filled with links and helpful advice for those interested in online video it also provides video segments featuring experienced online videographers sharing their extensive “how to” knowledge about producing Internet video.

Vimeo’s niche is that they concentrate on presenting High Definition videos online…so imagine YouTube in high def and you’re pretty close. They call it “true 1280×720, up to 24fps.”

I am going to skip ahead a bit in my review and tell you that I found out something about Vimeo that tells me for-profit business owners will want to think twice before using their player. (Details of that discovery are below!)

They do have an embed option with a player that goes for that minimalist look. That’s a look I like quite a bit but maybe it’s not exactly your cup of tea. Also, you should be aware that both the control bar and the share and embed buttons actually overlay portions of the video window but only for a short time. Move your mouse away from the video and the controls disappear. For me it’s no big deal but some readers may prefer having all control bar functions permanently displayed below the video.

An interesting note from Vimeo about presenting HD content online is that when you go to their site and browse through the videos, they are actually showing them to you at only half-resolution - the videos are so large they won’t fit on Vimeo’s pages. To see them in full HD, you simply click on the full screen button and you can enjoy the video as it was meant to be seen.
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Certainly, from a purely design and look point of view, I think the Brightcove Player is one of the best ones out there and I was eagerly looking forward to telling you all about it.

But there’s been a big change at Brightcove TV, and unfortunately it’s not good. You can no longer upload your own videos to the site.

Now the only videos available are those from Brightcove’s customers who have bought the Brightcove system to publish videos on their site, I don’t have any numbers but I bet that’s not going to be cheap.

So for the person seeking a great free video player to use on their site, Brightcove is no longer an option. Moving on.

As mentioned in the opening post of this series, the video or media player application used to present your videos has a lot of impact on the total user’s experience as they watch videos on your site.

As it turns out, you don’t have to create, buy or install your own player applications, instead you can borrow one provided for free by any of the many popular video sharing sites. It’s called “embedding.”

Embedding is just a fancy term meaning to “build in” the video player into your site - so the video plays without using a pop-up window, all the controls for the video are “built into” your Web page.

The only caveat is that you first have to upload your video to their site, once there it’s simply a matter of copying and pasting a snippet of their embed code into your Web page and, viola!, your site visitors can now enjoy the video from your site using their player.

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The first player to be reviewed is the JW FLV Media Player. According to it’s creator, Jeroen Wijering, this media player is now the most popular on the Internet and I don’t doubt it. Built using Flash, his player is free for non-commercial use and open source (which means other developers can modify it however they wish.)

I currently use this player on my gallery page. The first advantage to the JW FLV Media Player is simply its popularity meaning finding answers to any problems you may encounter is that much easier as so many people have used it. His site provides a very nice forum area where you can post your specific questions.

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Before anyone can watch a video on your Web site (or even on popular video sharing sites like YouTube) a video/media player application must exist somewhere in the mix. The player is what gives you the stop, play, fast forward controls and creates the “window” in which the video plays. Without it, all you have is a video file, kind of like having a VHS tape but no VCR to play it in (an OLD school example I know!)

In this series of upcoming postings, I am going to discuss five such player options and my experiences with them. I initially thought I could cover the material in one exhaustive posting but instead I am going to review each one separately:

• JW FLV Media Player
• Players From Social Media Sites
• Adobe Players
• Quicktime
• Wizzard Media Player

So hang tight and I’ll soon be posting a review of the first player - the JW FLV Media player from Jeroen Wijering.

The history and culture of the Internet is all based around free content. Not many people charge you to visit their Web site for instance. Making money from a podcast is not as straightforward as it might sound, the fact is that most podcasts don’t make money for their hosts directly but they do however contribute to an organization’s bottom line in other ways, like the value of building a loyal audience, the PR and promotional value etc.

But many people are looking for more direct measurements, frankly they want cash not good PR. That’s what the rest of this post is all about.

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While many of us immediately think of sites like YouTube, the term “online video” is actually very broad particularly when one considers how content originally develop for online use can be re-purposed for anything from DVDs to Digital Signage.

This pdf describes 45 such uses and I assume there are still many more that I didn’t think of to include…can you help me improve my list?

If so, click on the headline to this post and enter in your comments.