Tuesday, December 28, 2010

I made Janna cry again: I ROCK!

Well folks, another year has come and gone. I thought I would post a few tips and tricks I've learned to help us out next year.

I think we can all agree that A LOT of our time is spent converting and compressing files to make them easier to post online, right?

If we could all post a few helpful things, it will save us a lot of grief in the coming years. And really, the only grief we should have during the holidays is from Janna as she harasses us to get our videos posted already!

So, here we go.

(1) Since we all need to post our videos to the blog, try and create your file in a format that is already recognized by certain uploading sites (say, Youtube, or Vimeo,for example). Since Vimeo accepts wmv files (and I used them last year and liked them), I created a slideshow in Photoshop (saved as a wmv file) and easily uploaded it to vimeo.

-Tip #2: be careful about your music choices. Vimeo prefers audio files in mpeg format, so I made sure my song was an mpeg (you can usually convert songs from one format to another-but sometimes it's a pain). I learned this at 3:30 this morning.

Tip #3: Try to incorporate current pictures/characteristics of yourselves and children in your video. I sometimes don't realize how fast we all change, and it's so fun to see the change in everyone through the years.

My best friend for this project has been photoshop. In addition, I created a slideshow in powerpoint, and in Windows movie maker. I can't tell you how much I hate Movie Maker. It makes timing your clips (slides) a HUGE pain. I don't recommend them.

So, that's all for now! Anyone else have any bright ideas they want to share? Do tell!

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