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iMovie Assistance Please (1 Viewer)

Ronald Epstein

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Dave,

I think I see your predicament.

Your video needs to load fully before playing. Ours load as the video
becomes available.

You did the exact same procedure as I had. You did EXPORT and
save as STREAMING video. I simply dragged the video to the template.

WE both did the same thing but with different results.

In fact, if I had to do it over again, I would not have gone that route.
Initially, we put ALL the videos on one page but they all started loading
at the same time which caused a problem.

Ideally, I think what would work best for you and I is this....

Somehow be able to save and upload videos so that they don't
load until you click on that one particular video window. This way you
can place multiple video files on one page and not have to worry
about them all loading up at the same time, and thus, causing huge
loads on the server.

We are covering CEDIA in 3 weeks and will be doing video podcasts.

I was wondering what the difference would be if I selected save as
WEB FILE (instead of streaming). Perhaps that would stop the file from
loading on its own. If you have the opportunity to try this, Dave, let me
know the results, please?
 

DaveF

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Ron,
I'll give the WEB FILE export a go in the next few days. I'm baffled as to why our similar approaches gave such different results :confused: But I'm definitely after the same result as you.
 

Ronald Epstein

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Actually, I would think saving it as a WEB file is better.

Downloading does not begin until the person actually clicks
on the PLAY button, thus reducing page load time. At least,
this is how I picture it working.

Am I wrong about this? I'd like to know before we do our
CEDIA coverage.
 

DaveF

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Yes, you want to use "Web Streaming" as iMovie notes it will "have 'hints' added to it to improve streaming performance."

However, for streaming to work at all the hosting service must support it. Mine does not and all the web-streaming exports in the world won't give me streaming video. HTF's host apparently does support streaming, so as you note, you want to use the video parameters best suited for that.

Hope that makes clarifies things :)
 

Ken Chan

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Do you want "streaming" or "progressive download"? With streaming, you need server support; it works for live events; play starts immediately; if the event is not live, you can jump to anywhere in the stream at any time; there's no progress indicator, because there's nothing to save. With progressive download you can start playing the file before it has finished; you can only jump to the parts that you have downloaded so far; you can save it after it has finished downloading (although you may have to jump through hoops if you don't have QuickTime Pro).

Streaming is what Apple uses for the Steve-notes. Progressive download is what they use for the movie trailers. I'm guessing you actually want progressive download.

Neither Dave's nor Ron's movies are streaming; they were both downloads. Dave's was not progressive because the structure of the .mov file was incorrect:although I can't say after the fact why that happened. (You can use the Dumpster tool to see the structure of the file.) If I had to guess, don't Export for Streaming -- in fact, that might include hints for streaming that are not needed, making the file a little bigger.

At the moment I'm not on my Mac, so I don't have any hints for what does work.

As for how to structure your CEDIA coverage, notice how the .Mac galleries have thumbnails for all the movies on one page, and clicking on each thumbnail takes you to a separate page that plays that particular movie. Even simpler would be to just have links (with or without thumbnails) to the .mov files, and clicking on that link should play the movie on a new blank page with the embedded player.
 

DaveF

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Ken, thanks for the info (though I'm thoroughly baffled now :) ). You're right, we do want Progressive download. So I've got some more research to do, and try some more movie export options.

Update: I used iMovie's Export as Web (not Web Streaming), and I got a progressive download video this time. You can see it at the link I gave earlier.

Ron, my understanding now is to Export as Web (not Web Streaming). From the link Ken gave, the Web Streaming adds extra data that's not needed for what you're doing. I expect to have some more experience in the next couple days.
 

Ronald Epstein

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Dave

I think you pages were removed. As of this morning those links
take me elsewhere.

Ken

Thanks so much for the assistance. I'll use SAVE AS WEB FILE
from now on.

Where are the .MAC galleries you speak of that show examples
of thumbnails? Is this within the iWeb program? Sorry for the
question, but I don't have the program open right now as I am
scrambling to complete this message to get to work.
 

DaveF

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Ron,
I was uploading a new version this morning :). Ken's help was great, and saving as Web File consistently provides Progressive Download.

My demo is back online with three videos: []
 

Ronald Epstein

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Dave,

I like, I like! I think you have provided me with the results I need.

If saved as a web file that clip does not start playing until you press
the PLAY button.

Question....

What template do you use to automatically create a thumbnail
of the clip that you need to click into to reach the actual clip?

Does iWeb do this automatically? What are the necessary steps?

I like your example very much and will probably duplicate it for
our CEDIA coverage.

Nice job, Dave!
 

DaveF

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Producing the Thumbnail gallery is still "by-hand"; I use a screenshot program and manually grab a shot of the video in iMovie. I then drag-n-drop the screenshot file into iWeb and then make it a link to the movie page.

I'm using the generic (blank) page template and manually creating my index. With iWeb's guides, it's easy to align images to make a nice table.

My whole process is still less efficient than I'd like, but I'm glad to have found a successful process. I can refine from here. Glad this helps you. Look forward to seeing what you put together for CEDIA.
 

Ronald Epstein

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Dave,

That's brilliant! I have Snapz Pro X that can take a screenshot
of the video clip.

One last question....how do you make a photo a link? Thus far,
at least with the '06 version, I could make text links but had no idea
how to make a photo a link.
 

Ronald Epstein

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Dave,

Hoping you will be able to answer the question above if you see this.
 

Aaron Reynolds

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Ron, add the photo in iWeb. Then select it so that it has the white outline around it and click on the Inspector (the blue I at the bottom of the iWeb window). The second-last tab in the Inspector is the Hyperlink tab -- it looks like an arrow on a curve inside a blue ball. From there you can turn the photo into a link.

Let me know if you need screenshots.
 

DaveF

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Ron (and others), I think this may knock your socks off. First, thanks to Parker Clack and Ken Chan for pointing me to example code.

QuickTime Movie Gallery via iWeb and a bit of manual FTP.

It's done with a bit of HTML, some Javascript support files, the HTML Snippet tool in iWeb 08, and a manual upload of the scripts and video files. This demo page gives the details. i can clarify later (if needed) when I've got some more time.

In some ways this specific task is easier with regular HTML editing and FTP tools. But I wanted to stay within iWeb as it simplifies the general website creation task.
 

Ronald Epstein

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Dave,

I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at. Some numbers tumbling
into infinity. There's also some "dude" giving a presentation of sorts.

I see coding beneath it. Not sure what that does.
 

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