Start and End Slides, Take 2

[Ubuntu Clips]

On 1/22/07, Alan Pope <alan at popey.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 2007-01-22 at 09:54 -0800, Ubuntu Clips wrote:
>
> > Thank you for the feedback. If we did this, we could either move the
> > starting slide (with the k/x/ubuntu logo) as the second slide or
> > remove it altogether as you suggest. Does anyone else have any
> > preferences or thoughts about this?
> >
>
> I personally like the branding as the first slide.
>
> > More fundamentally, can we assume that the web stream version of the
> > videos will always be accompanied by a web title or text that will
> > include the information on the starting sequence slides?
>
> By web stream are we talking google / youtube?
>
> If so then no, we can't guarantee that there will be links on those
> pages to the non-flash based video.


Yes, I was thinking of sites like google/youtube, but rather in terms of the
title/text outside of the movie file that describes what the video is about.
That is, the title and description that accompanies every video on sites
such as google/youtube. I guess what I was thinking is that even if these
sites use a random frame for the static/preview image, viewers will
nonetheless know in advance what it is that they'll be watching.


So should we perhaps host our own flv files with a simple flash video
> player (which works in gnash? :) [are there any]) rather than upload to
> google/youtube? Does anyone know of a simple player?
>
> I know I have seen Novell use one for the old XGL promo videos on their
> site. I borrowed the player (can someone confirm it [or another] plays
> in a free player such as gnash) and you can see the result here:-
>
>
> http://bishop.popey.com/flash/player.html?id=16bppraw1024x768to1024x768.flv
>
> NOTE: Ignore the quality of the video - it is shockingly bad due to the
> way it was recorded, not necessarily because it's an flv. I made it
> nearly a year ago when I first thought Ubuntu screencasts would be a
> good idea ;)
>
> That way we guarantee that anyone watching the flash video is watching
> it inside our site. We can also up the resolution (from the low Google
> and youtube ones) slightly to improve readability. We can of course also
> hold our hands up as clean on an open-format front. The downside is that
> we don't catch the youtube surfer who stumbles across the video
> in-between watching coke+mentos clips.


Maybe we could do both? Host nice resolution streams off the main site and
still have uploads in google video and youtube. Both google/youtube are
free, may inform potential users of the site, and help with offloading some
of the bandwidth. Once the high resolution videos are recorded and ready to
go, uploading them to google and/or youtube really takes no time.


> I know that Youtube doesn't seem to use the first frame as the static
> > preview and I just checked Google Video and it looks like it also uses
> > a random frame. Thoughts, ideas?
> >
>
> I am not sure how it determines the frame selected, I note that some of
> ours do indeed use a frame from early on which shows the title, others
> seem not to.
>
> You will note that on the screencast site I have removed the flash
> plugin versions and merely linked to them on each page. I have replaced
> the plugin with a static image taken from part way through the video.
> This improves the load time of the page and doesn't mean people are
> required to have flash from the get-go.
>
> I believe the flash version to be secondary to the other formats, but of
> course very useful for getting casual users to see Ubuntu in action.


Agreed.


Cheers,
Michael

-- 
ubuntuclips.org
video howtos for human beings
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