Latest Howto Talk Posts at VideoSift.com

Embed from Brightcove for Mortal Souls

neuralnoise (http://howto.videosift.com/member/neuralnoise) — Fri, 23 May 2008 10:51:07 -0700

(5 comments - 332 views)
So, what is the logic behind that not being possible? I read Brightcove was added nearly a year ago, but for diamonds only. Is there a workaround, something to change in the embed code so non-diamonds can also make it work?

i really wanted to post this recipe , and couldn´t find it anywhere else...

- neuralnoise

Make it BIG, baby! (One NSFW video enclosed. Yay!)

kronosposeidon (http://kronosposeidon.videosift.com) — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:08:45 -0700

(17 comments - 435 views)
Did you know that you can submit videos that are up to 540 pixels wide? Okay, some of you knew that already. Now here's the trick question: Did you know that you can change virtually any video to be 540 pixels wide, thus making it bigger and more pleasurable to your viewing audience? Why yes, yes you can. I'm here to show you how, and I'm doing it so that we all can enjoy big videos, because bigger is better. Now that most video hosts have videos in higher resolution these days (even YouTube), we might as well take advantage of it so that we can all experience big video orgasms.

There are two ways to do this: 1. The mathematical way which keeps the video player properly proportioned, or 2. The lazy way which requires no math but makes your video player a big ol' square. More below the fold.

Method 1 - The mathematical way

Okay, let's start with your standard YouTube video, which is almost always 425 pixels wide by 355 pixels high. How do I know this? By looking at the embed code. Take this one, for example (bold for emphasis on the width and height parameters, italics to easily differentiate text from code, and [ ] replace * > so that no video will actually embed):

[object width="425" height="355"][param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zSxoKQ_sWYY&hl=en"][/param][param name="wmode" value="transparent"][/param][embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zSxoKQ_sWYY&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"][/embed][/object]

Notice that YouTube videos specify width and height in two places. Some (but not all) video hosts do the same thing. Remember that, because we'll be coming back to that later.

Now we want to use up as much space as we're allowed, so we're going to increase the width from 425 pixels to 540. Therefore we're going to increase the width by this ratio:

540/425, which equals 1.27

Thus the width has been increased 1.27 times. So to keep the height proportional to the width (or to maintain aspect ratio, for you film geeks), we multiply the height by the ratio we just found:

355 x 1.27 = 450.85, which rounds to 451

Now we take these new width (540) and height (451) dimensions to replace the old values in the original embed code (bold for emphasis, italics for yadda yadda yadda...):

[object width="540" height="451"][param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zSxoKQ_sWYY&hl=en"][/param][param name="wmode" value="transparent"][/param][embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zSxoKQ_sWYY&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="540" height="451"][/embed][/object]

So what does this give you? A video that goes from this size:

To this size:

Note that the same ratios do not apply at different video hosts. For example, Metacafe's embeds normally look like this:

[embed src="http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/1154901/eds_furry_fucking_guide_to_metal.swf" width="400" height="345" wmode="transparent" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"] [/embed][br][font size = 1][a href="http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1154901/eds_furry_fucking_guide_to_metal/"]ED's Furry Fucking Guide To Metal!!![/a] - [a href="http://www.metacafe.com/"]The best bloopers are here[/a][/font]

540 pixels/400pixels = 1.35

Therefore 345 pixels (height) x 1.35 = 465.75, rounding to 466. Also note that Metacafe only uses width and height once in their embed codes. Therefore you would change the new embed code to this:

[embed src="http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/1154901/eds_furry_fucking_guide_to_metal.swf" width="540" height="466" wmode="transparent" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"] [/embed][br][font size = 1][a href="http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1154901/eds_furry_fucking_guide_to_metal/"]ED's Furry Fucking Guide To Metal!!![/a] - [a href="http://www.metacafe.com/"]The best bloopers are here[/a][/font]

This makes the video go from this size:

To this size:

One site, DailyMotion.com, has made all this a little simpler when grabbing their embed codes. As an example, go to this page here. If you look right below the "Embedabble Player" code box you'll see "customize player...". Click that, and you can choose between a small, medium, or large player. The large player has a pixel width of 520, which is pretty darn close to the 540 max width. (Plus you can easily customize your player's color scheme, if you're feeling creative.)

Method 2 - The lazy way

It's simple: Change both width and height codes on all your videos to 540 pixels. Example:

Change this:

[embed src="http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/1154901/eds_furry_fucking_guide_to_metal.swf" width="400" height="345" wmode="transparent" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"] [/embed][br][font size = 1][a href="http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1154901/eds_furry_fucking_guide_to_metal/"]ED's Furry Fucking Guide To Metal!!![/a] - [a href="http://www.metacafe.com/"]The best bloopers are here[/a][/font]

To this:

[embed src="http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/1154901/eds_furry_fucking_guide_to_metal.swf" width="540" height="540" wmode="transparent" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"] [/embed][br][font size = 1][a href="http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1154901/eds_furry_fucking_guide_to_metal/"]ED's Furry Fucking Guide To Metal!!![/a] - [a href="http://www.metacafe.com/"]The best bloopers are here[/a][/font]

The results will change from this:

To this:

(Note: YouTube apparently auto-adjusts video height when width is modified (I think), but obviously not all sites do this.)
So if you're happy with a big-ass ugly box on the screen, then go for it, you lazy turd. However if you wish to bow to peer pressure, then make your 6th grade teacher proud and do a little math, for crying out loud. Just for ONCE, do something right in your otherwise wasted, Godforsaken life.*

Okay, I'm done. Now let's see some big videos, dammit!

*I'm talking to myself, of course. My shrink told me that a savage moral inventory would be right for this stage of therapy.

- kronosposeidon

personal comments on bookmarks and/or playlist vids

Kreegath (http://howto.videosift.com/member/Kreegath) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:56:50 -0700

(2 comments - 246 views)
I was wondering if it'd be a good idea to add something in the lines of personal bookmark and/or playlist item comments?
Usually, I bookmark videos I don't have time to comment or watch at that moment, but when I get home the black hole in my head oftentimes eats the original thought behind the bookmark and I end up removing it without posting the comment. In that particular case, a short line written by- and visible to myself would be immensely useful.
Does this sound useful to any of you guys, or is it simply not a good idea?

- Kreegath

How to post YouTube videos marked "do not embed"

wazant (http://howto.videosift.com/member/wazant) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 04:25:07 -0700

(7 comments - 558 views)
If you want to post a YouTube video marked "Embedding disabled by request", then do this:
1. Create a playlist with the video(s)
2. Make a "custom player" for that playlist, which provides its own embed code.

You can then embed your custom player on VideoSift!

I suppose they will eventually find that bug, but who knows. I just now got this to work for my post that had died: http://www.videosift.com/video/King-Crimson-Easy-Money-live-1973

- wazant

Converting to Linux ....Please

swampgirl (http://swampgirl.videosift.com) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 08:13:33 -0700

(26 comments - 454 views)
Alright, I'm officially fed up with Vista. I bought this notebook a year ago and I bet I've had over 1000 browser crashes during that time.

Not all of us are technically savvy. I was member of VS over a month before I found out how to find an embed. I've heard for years that Linux is better, that it barely crashes and its less vulnerable to attacks.

Can a few of our ubergeeks help set me onto the path to freedom??

I'm ready.

- swampgirl

Regarding Tags and Tagging

schmawy (http://schmawy.videosift.com) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:12:30 -0700

(9 comments - 239 views)
I don't want to be unnecessarily pedantic, but there seems to be little consistency in the way we tag. I'm not even sure I understand how it all works. If you have "Fred Flintstone" in your title, do you need to put "Fred, Flintstone" in your tags? I've seen a lot of folks tagging with "you, have, to, see, this, to, believe, it," Which is cute and all, but doesn't that just all a lot of noise? Who would ever want to see all the videos with "to" in the tags? We do get a lot of dupes because of poor tagging.

Someone once imagined VS becoming the "wikipedia of web videos". If that's in fact an aspiration, shouldn't we clean up our tagging a little?

Is there a post where general guidelines to effective tagging are?

- schmawy

Finally, Here Come Better Quality Vids From GoogTube

lucky760 (http://lucky760.videosift.com) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:28:42 -0800

(2 comments - 245 views)
YouTube is in its test phase for what they've been sorely needing for far too long: higher quality video content. Currently there are lots of videos available, but there are still millions that have yet to be converted. To try watching a video on a YT url and append "fmt=6" to see the higher quality if available. For example, http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQzUsTFqtW0&fmt=6

Via /.

[edit]
More detailed how to at Wired.

- lucky760

After a week of contemplation...

MycroftHomlz (http://howto.videosift.com/member/MycroftHomlz) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:25:37 -0800

(27 comments - 624 views)
Please read more inside. I would like to discuss what happened in the sift about a week ago and maybe some possible different approaches with how to handle similar situations should they occur in the future.

- MycroftHomlz

What happened to my videos?

Shasdo (http://howto.videosift.com/member/Shasdo) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:54:04 -0800

(5 comments - 249 views)
Ok, i'm member of videosfit for several months now, and there is still some questions that i did not find answers on how videosift work.

Maybe I have missed something, but when I post a *dupe (sometimes it happens) and I come back later to check how my post is going, I just don't find it anymore. So I suppose that is was a dupe and it have been discarded.
But i think that the siftbot sould keep us informed. We should have some private log in our profile page to let us know what happened to our video. Like:
"this video reached xx votes"
"A new comments have been post on your video xxx"
"Your video XXX have been discarded by XXX for the reason XXX"
"Your video XXX have been used in a siftalk/Playlist etc"
"XXX flagged this video XXX as *dead"
etc...
You know like the Facebook profile but it would be private and would only list the things happenning to your own videos.

So, did I really miss something? Or am I the only one who wants to have something like this?

- Shasdo

Long Sifts on the beach...

schmawy (http://schmawy.videosift.com) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:31:38 -0800

(4 comments - 320 views)
I love a good long Sift, even if they don't get me many votes. Oxdottir turned me onto Constitutional Patriot's post: http://www.videosift.com/talk/How-to-create-a-Custom-Player-in-YouTube It works great, but there's a problem. The little pop-down menu only holds seven or so playlists, and once you've exceeded that, it seems difficult (impossible) to add any segments to the playlist you've just created. It often doesn't even show on the pop-down list. Going the the Playlist section of my Youtube account allows me to edit tags and descriptions, but not add to the playlist by entering individual URL's. I don't want to delete any, because they've been sifted already.

Does anyone know a good work-around for this?

- schmawy