How To Add Video Clips To Your Web Page

Editors Note: This article was written a couple of years ago, but still applies for those who have older computers and/or want to setup their files for slow (28.8 or 56K connections).

You've probably seen the PCs in the computer stores demoing video clips. Or, you may have used a CD-ROM file which displays video. The creators of these programs added VCRs to their hardware to get the video to save to their hard drives. Hooking up a VCR and saving videos to your hard drive is not difficult, but it involves a small investment and some time to set to up. This column will guide you in the right direction regarding equipment and preparation.

Hardware / System Requirements

First of all, you need to purchase a video capture board for your PC. The video capture board has a COMPOSITE-S jack to enable a hookup to a VCR, camcorder or television. Usually, the video capture hardware you need to capture the VCR output contains software for editing the videos and the hardware driver to communicate between your video capture board and the PC. The video capture board that I bought is the Intel Smart Video Recorder and retailed for $200. The kit came with video capture software from Asymmetrix called DVP (Digital Video Producer). Also included were the necessary cables and hardware manual.

Your PC should be equipped with at least 133 Mhz, 32 meg of RAM, and 500 mg hard drive. Your monitor should be a SVGA resolution with 16 million color ability.

The software to edit videos (which comes with the capture board) is usually standard and lets you edit video clips, change the brightness, and add a few special effects.

Required Software

Although Intel's Smart Video Recorder came with Asymmetrix DVP, I wanted more than just the basics. I began to search the market for some good capture software and ended up buying MGI's VideoWave.

The software package is excellent for adding the best special effects to my videos. I have a client named Taylor Mason who is a comedian and ventriloquist. You can visit his web site at http://www.taylormason.com. Back in May, Taylor asked me to add some videos of one of his shows in Birmingham, Alabama to his web site. I just finished six video clips ranging in time from three seconds to nine seconds and they all look pretty clear with nice stereo sound. You can see the videos at http://www.taylormason.com/videos.htm

MGI Videowave allowed me to add special effects to his videos like oil painting, smoked glass, ripple, and swirl. It also allowed me to take two videos and combine them with a special transition effect. In other words, I can take two videos and make one corner drop in any direction to uncover the other. The transition effect I used was horizontal saw teeth where small lines move across the page to uncover the underlying video. And with Videowave's storyboard features, it allowed me to put a video clip onto a storyboard and arrange them in any order by cutting and pasting them in the order I want. The software also comes with a library where I can add objects such as video clips, bitmaps, and sound files. Videowave also contains my favorite feature, text animation. I can have Text flying across the video. Is this the type of web page you want?

There are some other video editing software packages out there on the market like Adobe Premiere and Ulead's MediaStudio. I have not used them, but I am very happy with VideoWave.

OK, I have my video captured on the computer. Now what?

Just capturing the video is not enough. You have to consider these decisions about the finished video:

• size
• time length
• frames per second
• Compression format
• video file format

The size of the finished video will depend on the message you want to get out to the readers of your web pages. The size refers to the frame size and is measured in pixels. The bigger the frame size is, the more hard disk space and download time your video will take up. 160 x 120 is the most popular for the web, because it uses the smallest file size and fastest transfer rate. There is also 320 x 240, which is popular for television and 640 x 480. If your video is long in length, then you probably want to go with 160 x 120, although I recommend this frame size all the time. The larger sizes can really put a strain on your memory and your hard disk.

Time Length

The time length is the biggest factor to consider. If you want people to see your videos, then they must keep them as short as possible unless you use streaming video. Even compressed (and we'll talk about that in a minute), a nine-second video will take 25 minutes to download on a 33.6 Modem.

Frames Per Second (FPS)

You also need to determine how clear the video clips will play by the Frames Per Second. As with any other positive correlation, the higher the FPS, the higher the file size. A decent and normal setting for a web page is 15. Although 30 fps helps to make a nice clear video clips, it over-inflates the file size and download times to an undesirable effect. Your best bet is to keep the fps settings at 15.

File format and compression method

Because video clips can take up a lot of disk space and memory, you will want to compress them. Any file format can be compressed. MGI VideoWave supplies all file formats including AVI, MPEG, and MOV. These formats require that the video file be downloaded completely for it to be viewed. The quality is that of a VCR and the sound is in stereo and/or CD quality. The major disadvantage is the time it takes to download.

Other file formats are related to real-time streaming video. These formats take up a lot less disk space and download very quickly, which is why it's called "Streaming." The major disadvantage is mediocre quality. Real-time video has dropped frames and AM radio-quality sound. Streaming video plays as it's being downloaded and that factor alone is its selling point.

The main decision you, as the webmaster, must make, is whether to design your video clips in high-quality long-downloading files or low-quality fast-downloading quality. This is the hardest decision I face when designing videos.

The most important question to ask yourself is what your audience prefers. Whether your audience is into high-quality or immediate viewing is what you need to determine. One way around this hard decision is to supply both formats and give people the choice to view either.

To encode videos using high-speed low-quality files like RealVideo and VDOLive, you need to visit those web sites and download both the encoders (software to produce those formats) and the players (software to play those formats). TV.COM (NBC's late night TV/Internet program owned by Ron Reagan, Jr.) uses VIVO, the streaming video player. I visited TV.COM's web site (www.tv.com, what else?) to hear a David Bowie interview and jam session over the web. It worked nicely, but I had to download the VIVO video player. The most popular streaming video players that I have seen on the web are RealVideo at www.real.com.

As a webmaster, you need to test your video clips in all those formats and provide a link to the web site of the streaming player you want your web page readers to use, so they can download it. Follow this table as a guide when creating video clips for your web page:

Default: 15 fps & 10 seconds

Frame Size	Video File Format	Resulting file size
160x120	AVI (No Streaming)	700 K
320x240	AVI (No Streaming)	1.8 meg
160x120	VDO (Streaming)	150 K
320x240	VDO (Streaming)	275K

The video is created, now what? On your web page with the video, tell people to click on the link and then provide a hypertext link to the video using an A HREF tag like you would any other html file or gif. As a webmaster and websurfer, you know people do not want to wait for long download times. So, the best thing to do is tell your readers the download time and size in disk space. This way, they know what they are in for. In addition, what I do is provide links to other places in the web site to let my clients' audiences read while they wait for the video clips to download.

Summary

The whole process of producing video for your web page is not difficult, but just requires a little investment and experience. In a nutshell, you need to do the following in this order:

1. Make sure you have a video capture board in your PC or obtain it at your local computer store.
2. Install the video capture software
3. Decide if you want streaming videos or high-quality videos and the time length and FPS settings
4. Upload to the web and design a web page which will inform people as to the quality and download times.
5. Test the download on the web. Do not test on your hard drive.

As a final note, the last thing you want to do before working with video is keep your hard drives clean. Do a scan disk or defragmentation on the hard drive. This will clean up all the fragmented files and make it easier to store and retrieve video files when you are in your production phase of the game.

Reprinted with permission from author Bruce Chamoff, a contributor to SmartBiz.com, where you can find thousands of free resources to help your business.