HelpConsole 2008 SP1

There are several ways to incorporate video into your multimedia gallery. The best way is to upload your videos to YouTube which will convert them in the best format to be viewed over the Web. You can also just add your Windows Media or Apple's .MOV files. However, your WMV files may be too large or of a type which will not play well for you or your Web viewers.

File formats

You can add WMV, AVI, MPG or MPEG (Windows Media Video) and QuickTime (MOV) files to your gallery.

Previewing videos offline

Windows Media video files will not play back in the generated gallery on your local computer. You will need to upload your gallery files before videos will play. This is due to Web browser security settings. If you have Apple's QuickTime player on your computer, you will be able to view .MOV files in the local version of your gallery.

Viewing videos online

Correct playback of video files depends on the video file format as well as the specific software the viewer has installed on their computer. The video player in the uploaded gallery does not provide user feedback while the file is downloading so if the video file is large, the viewer will need to wait a longer time until the video is displayed.

What is a widget?

A Web widget (also called an online widget) is basically a standalone "section" that can be embedded in any Web page, such as your personal blog, a MySpace page, an eBay auction page or online store pages. The Web widget usually resides in a rectangular area on the page, and its behavior is independent of other sections from the page. Online widgets embedded in a page can be viewed by simply opening that page in the browser.

A Video widget is a Web widget which mainly plays video. YouTube is currently the primary provider of Video widgets. It allows users to easily and reliably convert their videos into a Web-friendly format that can be embedded in Web pages. YouTube provides the HTML code that you would insert in Shozam. Alternatively, you can use any third party video converter to convert your videos into Flash format video. You can then use your own HTML code to insert in Shozam and have more control over Flash video playback.

Recommendations

To ensure reliable playback of your videos, you have to convert them to a Web-friendly format. The best way to do this right now is to let YouTube do this for you:

Upload your videos to YouTube
Copy the Embed code provided by YouTube
Click Add video widget in the Step 2, Video tab
Click paste and then OK

This workflow has the following advantages:

Your video will be converted in the best possible format for the Web, so anyone can see it.
YouTube will host your video for free (and provided necessary bandwidth on their fast servers)
Your Web gallery uploads will be faster

Using YouTube also allows you record videos directly from your desktop camera or your mobile phone.

Advanced workflow

The Video Widget method described above will provide a generic video thumbnail image (icon) in your gallery. If you want each video to have its own descriptive icon you can add those "placeholder" images into Shozam, insert Flash video playback code and then hide the images (so only the video appears on the page, without the image placeholder). Do this:

Step 2: Add image that you want to be used for the video thumbnail. You may want to have some "play" arrow or video graphic overlayed on the image so when Shozam creates an icon from it, it will be more representative to the viewer.
Step 2 -> HTML Tab: Select the the new placeholder image on the left and enter on the right the code that will display the Flash movie. This code will be placed on the Large Page and the QuickView Page for the respective image so the Flash video will play on those pages.
Step 2 -> Other Tab: Select the placeholder image on the left and check “Hide image(s)” on the right. This will hide the placeholder image so only the video displays.

This process allows you to use "placeholder" images so Shozam uses them to create the respective thumbnail but will hide the actual image to be displayed on the typical image pages. It is a great workaround to use when you want to put an HTML widget on a page and you want to control the image to be used for the thumbnail representing that widget.

Sample video widget

Here is a link to a sample video uploaded and converted at YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEjxtu3uO0I

Here is the embed code for the above video, which you can use to test out the Video widget feature. Just click on the Add video widget button in Step 2, Video tab, copy the code below and paste it in the pop-up Video widget code window.

Video resources

Go to our Video Resources page in the Resources section for more information and great ideas.