Creating and posting simple video on the Internet

[AlanSmithee]

I've recently bought my first a camcorder (a MiniDV Sony HC44). I'd like to create short (2-3 mins max) video clips and make them available on my website for friends and family. I want to do this in a quick, painless and cheap way (both for me and my audience!) So my two main questions are
1) What is the recommended format and quality (resolution?) for short web videos (that can be generated by consumer editing software such as Ulead VideoStudio)?
2) What is a simple way to make it available via my website (I'd rather not pay money for service - I was thinking more along the lines of a freeware CGI script)

thanks in advance!

[redsox_mark]

Unless your friends/family are Mac users, I'd suggest WMV.

Not sure how the settings work in VideoStudio... In Vegas there are a number of templates, e.g. there is one for 512K video, which is perfect for broadband connections. This uses 320x240 for resolution.

The easiest way to make it accessable is simply stick it up on a web page. Windows Media Player will buffer, simulating streaming.

[senu]

Ill check the precise settings in VS10 ( just tinkering with it) . As stated wmv seems to offer the best quality/ space ratio.

And all PCs have media player which can play it. Saying that , Quicktime™ and Real media™ are other formats which are usable. At any rate there are standalone video conversion software which can turn an AVI, mpeg ect to any of the formats suitable for web streaming.

Some online sites allow you to upload your small video clips for free ( in the same way you can upload stills to an online album) and you could then put a link on your web page pointing to the hosted clip.

Another method is to point the link to a hosting site for downloading and playing on the indiviual Pc instead of streaming online
HTH

[AlanSmithee]

Yup, thank you both - I see now it really is as simple as uploading the file to the website. FWIW I used the 'Movei Maker' in VS 10 Plus (trial verson) - very easy and quick to use; I'm liking this VS10+! I chose 30fps, 352x258, which still made a 2.3MB file for 24 seconds - roll on "broader" band!

Also, on the networking front (which I'm *much* more comfortable with), I'm a FireFox user so used the extension FireFTP to quickly upload the file in question.
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
https://addons.mozilla.org/search.ph...=A&app=firefox

[redsox_mark]

Senu,

Thanks for clarifying that Mac users can also play .wmv... I wasn't sure about that...

AlanSmithee - yes, sharing videos is that easy. The main reason for actually streaming the video (as opposed to letting people download it, or let the PC buffer which looks like streaming) is if you don't want people to be able to download it. With streaming you can let people watch but not download... but this is more complex (and I'm not knowledgable in this area).