SXSW Notes: How to Add Video To Your Blog

Loose notes from the SXSW 2006 session: How To Add Video To Your Blog

This session was heavy on the culture of vlogging, light on technical aspects (“Eh, just Google it if you have questions”), which I found disappointing – video compression, techniques, platforms are as much witchcraft as science and they could have filled a session with tech aspects, but a few interesting tips…


Eddie Codel Producer, Geek Entertainment TV
Schlomo Rabinowitz Janitor, SOAPBOX Kunstwerks
Mike B Slone Founder/ Creative Dir, InkNoise Inc
Michael Verdi freevlog.org
Sarah Hepola Writer, The Morning News

FireAnt – Great Mac desktop client for vlogging. Very funny vlog entry of his dad rapping on pulling wishbones. “Something about wishbones, they oughtta outlaw ’em. But you can’t grow chickens without them.”

Eddie Codel: Geek Entertainment TV. Funny interview with people “in the bubble” on the question: “What is Adaptive Path?”

Rabinowitz: node101 helps people create their own narratives.

Attention spans – going over 3 minutes tends to lose people’s interest. But it takes a lot of time to make things shorter!

4-5 MBs/min (600-700kbps) 320×240 MPEG-4, but 3iVX is also great. h.264 takes a lot of horsepower to play back. [I disagree with this, and train students to shoot for ~3MBs/min – at 5MBs/min, you lose the low-end DSL users.]

freevlog.com includes detailed tutorials, instructions for users of various platforms. Hosting options:

– Host it yourself
– Use internetarchive
– Use blip.tv — cc license, no rights requested (except for non-commercial use to display it)
– Google Video and YouTOOB – you’re giving Good the inalienable right to do whatever they like with, commercial use for their benefit, etc.

At prices like what hosts like dreamhost are offering now, you can host your own video for $10/month.

Discussion about how careful you need to be about allowing copyrighted material (such as incidental/background music) into vlog posts. Comment: centerforsocialmedia.org – Fair use actually guarantees a lot more than what the RIAA wants you to believe. For example if the radio is playing in the background in the car and you’re doing documentary, that’s OK, even though the RIAA doesn’t want you to think so.

Easier than fiddling with QT parameters: embedthevideo.com – Type in a video URL and an image URL and give it a title and it pops out the code and everything just works.

QuickTime Pro allows for chapter markers – all kinds of interactivity not possible with simple QuickTime.

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