Videotastic!

Gareth Davies

How to make amazing web videos and sell more online

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ContentsIntroduction 4 Chapter 1: Codecs, cameras and internet streaming 6

Chapter 2: The different types of web video 13

Chapter 3: Shopping channels 23

Chapter 4: Choosing a camera and filming kit 34

Chapter 5: Planning your shoot (Part 1) 51

Chapter 6: Planning your shoot (Part 2) 62

Chapter 7: Classic web video mistakes to avoid 74

Chapter 8: Editing 80

Chapter 9: In-house or outsource 88

Chapter 10: Ways to market your videos 93

Chapter 11: Video sharing 100

Chapter 12: Video search engine optimization 105

Chapter 13: Host your own videos, or upload them to video sharing websites? 114

Chapter 14: Optimizing your video web pages 120

Chapter 15: How your videos can help your SEO 125

Chapter 16: Repurposing video 131

Chapter 17: Conclusion 137

Further reading 141

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The Wordtracker AcademyFree articles, case studies, tips and tricks to help you grow your online business through effective

keyword research, pay per click advertising and search engine optimization (SEO).

We’ve commissioned some of the world’s best online marketing and SEO professionals to be your

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Introduction

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Introduction

Whether you’re CEO of a small business, an online or affiliate marketer, part of an agency team

or work in sales, chances are you’ve noticed the significant role that online video has come to

occupy in both our business and social lives.

Over the last decade online video has become entrenched in our daily lives. Today it plays a

major part in how we communicate online.

What this book can do for you

• Discover the roots of online video and how it has evolved in the last decade. Learn

how, in a matter of years, online video has been able to skyrocket into a powerful

global trend.

• Learn about planning, filming and promoting web videos – and how to avoid common

pitfalls – whether you’re in charge of the camera or outsource the work.

• Find out why videos can be an important part of the online marketing mix and how

videos can influence brand awareness, drive visitors to your website and support

search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns.

• Understand the pros and cons of video sharing websites versus self-hosting.

• Discover the fundamentals of video production in order to make informed decisions

about how to produce or commission better videos.

Advertisers have long appreciated the value of the moving image. In the 1960s, the admen

of New York and London pioneered the first color television adverts. Agencies like Collett

Dickenson Pearce & Partners (CDP, London) went on to produce big budget TV and film

advertising, which became synonymous with major brand marketing.

TV shopping channels had emerged by the mid-1980s. Ads for such channels typically paired

a lower budget style of production with a highly effective sales technique. They were all the

more powerful for being broadcast live in the main.

Unlike major brands with big budget marketing spends, online businesses have tended to

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Introduction

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look for more cost-effective ways to sell using the internet. These range from search engine

marketing and pay per click (PPC) advertising to affiliate marketing programs and social media

promotions.

Online video and video sharing websites like YouTube present another opportunity. Video

has the potential to serve many purposes, from illustrating credibility to beginning new

conversations with customers. Video can be used to inform or to sell, and it can often help to

save time for both businesses and consumers.

Traditional TV ads, corporate-style videos and shopping channel presentations can be given a

more conversational style inspired by home videos.

The barriers to entry for video production are coming down. Equipment is now cheaper to buy

and a little easier to use. Most PCs are powerful enough to perform basic edits, broadband

allows speedy uploads and numerous marketing channels help to ensure that videos are seen.

This book brings together insights and practical tips gained over the course of a decade spent

working in motion graphics, web video production and online marketing.

Codecs, cameras and internet streaming

Chapter 1

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Chapter 1 | Codecs, cameras and internet streaming

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Technology is sometimes considered geeky and boring. But to understand how video sharing

has evolved into the phenomenon it is today, it’s worth going back a few years to look at the part

played by video and web technology.

By the late 1990s, the digital video (DV) camcorder and mini DV camcorder had arrived. Basic

video technology was by this time relatively affordable. Chances are you owned a compact

camcorder or knew someone who did.

Individuals and businesses could use a DV camcorder to record a simple home movie and then

make very straightforward edits on a PC. The process of hosting and streaming video was still

a challenge, however.

At the time there was no obvious leader in the race to become the primary streaming option for

the masses. QuickTime®, Windows Media Player® and RealNetworks® competed for market

share, but no all-encompassing, cross-compatible platform for PC and Mac existed.

But one piece of technology was about to have a big impact on online video. Flash®, a

vector based software, had originally been known as FutureSplash. When the software was

taken under the wing of Macromedia, it was rebranded Flash. The advantage of Flash is that

its animation playback generates relatively small file sizes – ideal for internet use – and it is

compatible with both PC and Mac systems.

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Chapter 1 | Codecs, cameras and internet streaming

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Flash software began to resolve some of the problems facing a number of video formats. But a

major issue that web designers still struggled with was how to play (or stream) video online in

real time – ideally without the user having to wait a long time for the video to download. Even

in the late 1990s, people were beginning to exhibit impatience with the internet.

Most people in the UK still relied on modems. A lucky few in the USA had cable connections,

but internet connections in most countries outside the USA and Germany were often painfully

slow – too slow certainly to stream online video effectively.

A solution that used Flash® software emerged: rotoscoping.

Rotoscoping

Rotoscoping involved firstly exporting a short video file into still photo images. The series of

still images would then be imported sequentially into a timeline in Flash software. By doing

this it was possible to achieve the effect of video playback.

Below is an example of rotoscoped images.

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Chapter 1 | Codecs, cameras and internet streaming

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In the late 1990s and early 2000 two design agencies – Hillman Curtis, New York and Hi-ReS!,

London – became masters of this technique. The problem with rotoscoping was that it was

often very time consuming work. A designer using Flash software could spend many hours

extracting images from a video file and then rebuilding them again sequentially in Flash.

The main problem with rotoscoping wasn’t the time it took, however. The key issue concerned

the limitations of the final file that was produced using the technique. This was an era in which

the aim was to create file sizes that ran to just a few hundred kilobytes rather than many

megabytes.

If the exported Flash software file was too large, users wouldn’t wait for the download. But

making it smaller meant compromising on frame rate and image quality. That said, rotoscoping

could deliver some interesting results. The art was in producing the best illusion of video

playback using the fewest number of stills.

Some good news was on its way, however. In 2000, with Flash in its fifth edition, a group of

developers invented Wildform Flix.

Wildform was a breakthrough. Its developers had found a way to render Flash Player compatible

files from a range of standard video files at the press of a button. In many ways, the application

yielded the development of the technology you now see on YouTube: videos are converted

from native formats into web-friendly Flash® player compatible files that can be streamed.

When the next version of the Flash software, Flash MX, was released two years later, it featured

a built-in encoder that enabled the conversion of a variety of video formats.

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The release of Flash Professional MX in 2004 made it possible to stream Flash videos from a

web server. This opened the door to the possibility of mass video sharing and streaming.

The cameras

Whilst it took until 2005 to consolidate web streaming and playback technology, the quality of

video cameras had consistently improved throughout the 1990s.

Video cameras that could deliver more professional-looking footage became increasingly

affordable, making video accessible to a growing number of people.

MiniDV

By 2003, Sony®, JVC®, Canon® and Sharp® had introduced high-definition video (HDV).

The first affordable HDV format used inexpensive MiniDV tapes (see image below). And with a

good-sized hard drive and enough RAM, a home PC could cope with editing video.

Video was opening up to most computer users. It wasn’t even necessary to spend hundreds of

bucks on a camcorder to make online video. Webcams had arrived in force and these allowed

for the recording of simple, low resolution video, for streaming online.

Suddenly people all over the world were able to get online and communicate audiovisually.

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Chapter 1 | Codecs, cameras and internet streaming

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Video as social media

As video became easier to capture and edit, video sharing and streaming websites evolved.

Metacafe® was founded in 2003. The following year, quirky daily video blog Rocketboom

appeared.

Amanda Congdon presents an episode of Rocketboom

In San Mateo, California, three men who had worked together on PayPal™ went about inventing

another internet start-up: YouTube. Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim set a goal to

allow users to post videos online and then share them. The first video was posted to YouTube

in April 2005.

YouTube homepage, July 2005

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No longer was a Hollywood production budget necessary for a video to be seen. If the content

was interesting enough, people were more forgiving of technical shortcomings.

YouTube’s influence cannot be overstated. It changed people’s perception of the video format,

how video could be made and how we consumed video. Video run-times became shorter and

public demand seemed to sway towards more and more outrageous content.

A fascination with talking to camera evolved, and since YouTube displays how many times a

video is viewed, the opportunity to become a web star emerged as a possibility.

YouTube added further features, including the option to ‘like’ a video, and invited feedback by

allowing the public to comment or post video responses.

By the time Google bought YouTube in 2006 the video revolution was in full effect. Four years

later, in 2010, YouTube was attracting average monthly traffic of more than 52 million hits.

Summary

This chapter has covered:

• Some of the key advances in web technology and the important part played by

affordable video cameras in allowing web video.

• How in the past designers like Hillman Curtis used the rotoscoping technique to

create small video files for viewing on the web.

• The significance of the Flash video player and how its invention came to be a major

turning point in the proliferation of online video.

• The high definition revolution of camera technology dates as far back as 2003.

• A brief history of YouTube, including details of its founders and the posting of the first

video to the website in 2005.