E-mailing your movies

The World Wide Web seems to get all the attention these days, but I think that e-mail, more than anything else, revolutionized the way we communicated during the last decade. Most of your friends, relatives, and business associates probably have e-mail addresses, and you probably exchange e-mail messages with those folks on a regular basis.
E-mail is already a great way to quickly share stories and pictures with others, and now that you’re making your own movies, it only seems natural to start e-mailing your movie projects to friends as well. Before you do, keep in mind that movie files tend to be really big. Most e-mail accounts have file-size limitations for e-mail attachments, sometimes as low as 2MB. Other e-mail accounts don’t allow any file attachments at all. And of course, many people still have slow dial-up modem connections to the Internet, meaning it will take them a long time to download a movie you send them. If you want to e-mail a movie to someone, first ask the person whether it’s okay to do so. Send an initial e-mail that says something like, “Hi there! I just finished a really awesome movie and I want to send it to you. The movie is in QuickTime format and the file is 1.3 MB. Can I e-mail it to you?” Most people will probably say yes, and they’ll appreciate that you took the time to ask.

Making QuickTime movies with iMovie

If you’re using Apple iMovie and you want to make movies in QuickTime format, you’re in luck. QuickTime is the only movie file format that iMovie can produce. QuickTime movies can be played using the QuickTime Player program, which is available for free for Windows and Macintosh systems. If you want to output in a different format, such as RealMedia, you’ll need to use more advanced software such as Final Cut Express. Pinnacle Studio can export movies in RealMedia or Windows Media Video format, but not QuickTime. To create QuickTime movies in Windows, you’ll need QuickTime Pro, or a more advanced editing program such as Adobe Premiere.
Exporting a QuickTime movie from iMovie is pretty simple. The QuickTime format offers a variety of quality and output settings that you can adjust, and iMovie provides several easy-to-use presets. You can also customize export settings if you wish. To export a QuickTime movie:
1. When you’re done editing your movie in iMovie, choose File➪Export. The iMovie: Export dialog box appears.

2. Choose To QuickTime from the Export menu.

3. Choose the best preset for the way you plan to distribute your movie from the Formats menu.
iMovie provides three preset formats for export: Email, Web, and Web Streaming. Unless your movie is very short, the CD-ROM and Full Quality DV presets generally produce files that are too big for online use. If you want to fine-tune your own settings, choose Expert Settings from the Formats menu.

4. Click Export. A Save Exported File As dialog box appears.

5. If you chose a preset format, give your movie a filename, choose a folder in which to save it, and click Save to save your movie to a file and finish the export process.
If you chose a preset format in Step 3, you’re done! But if you choose Expert Settings in the Formats menu, you still have a few more steps to complete in the export process. At the bottom of the dialog box, you can choose presets from the Use menu, or click Options. If you click Options, the Movie Settings dialog box appears.

6. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, leave the check marks next to Video and Sound if you want to include both in your movie.

7. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, click the Settings button under Video in the Movie Settings dialog box and adjust video settings. The Compression Settings dialog box appears.
Start by choosing a codec from the menu at the top of the dialog box. The Sorenson or H.263 codecs are pretty good for most movies, and the Motion JPEG A codec works well for movies that will be played on older computers. MPEG-4 .
Adjust the Quality slider and preview how your video image will be affected. The Best quality setting provides better picture quality, but also increases the file size.
In the Frames Per Second menu, you can choose a frame rate, or just choose Best from the menu to let iMovie automatically determine a good frame rate. More frames per second increase file size.
I recommend that you leave the Key Frame Every x setting alone. (The default value is 24 — that is, a key frame occurs once every 24 frames — and a smaller number means more key frames.) Key frames help QuickTime compress and decompress the movie. More key frames provide better quality, but they also increase file size. Click OK when you’re done adjusting Compression Settings.

8. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, click the Filter button.
The Choose Video Filter dialog box appears. Here you can apply filters to your video image that can blur, sharpen, recolor, brighten, or perform a variety of other changes to the picture. Most filters also have adjustments that you can make using slider controls. A preview of your video image appears in the Choose Video Filter dialog box so that you can see the affects of the various filters. I don’t usually find these filters very useful because normally I’ve already applied filters or effects to my video during the editing process. After making your selections, click OK to close the Choose Video Filter dialog box.

9. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, click the Size button.
The Export Size Settings dialog box appears. Choose either Use Current Size, or choose Use Custom Size and enter a custom width and height in pixels. Click OK to close the Export Size Settings dialog box.

10. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, click the Settings button under Sound.
For online movies, choose QDesign Music 2 in the Compressor menu. Reduce the sampling rate using the Rate box (for online use I recommend 22.050 kHz or lower). Switching from Stereo to Mono will also reduce the file size. Click OK to close the Sound Settings dialog box.

11. (Optional) In the Movie Settings dialog box, leave the Prepare for Internet Streaming option checked if you want to take advantage of streaming or progressive download for this movie, and choose the Fast Start option in the Streaming menu.

12. Click OK to close the Movie Settings dialog box, and then click Save in the Save Exported File As dialog box.

The movie will be exported using the settings you provided. When the export process is complete, preview your movie in QuickTime, and check the file size of the movie. If the movie file is too big, re-export it using the lower quality settings (such as a smaller frame size, lower frame rate, or lower sample rate for the audio). If the movie is smaller than you expected, you may want to re-export it using slightly higher quality settings. When you’re done, you can share your QuickTime movie file online by attaching it to an e-mail or placing it on a Web site.

A Short Review on Windows Media Player

Microsoft’s Windows Media Player (version 7 or newer) can play many common media formats. I like to abbreviate the program’s name WMP because, well, it’s easier to type than Windows Media Player. WMP comes pre-installed on computers that run Windows Me or Windows XP. Although the name says “Windows,” versions of WMP are also available for Macintosh computers that run OS 8 or higher.
Windows Media Player can play video in MPEG and AVI formats. Although Pinnacle Studio can output both of these formats, they’re not terribly useful for online applications because they create big files and have an appetite for resources. Windows Media Player can also play Windows Media Video (WMV) format, and Studio can output that as well (by using the Streaming option in the Make Movie window, I’ll show you how later in this chapter). I like the WMV format because it provides decent quality (for Web movies) with remarkably small file sizes.
What are the compelling reasons for choosing over other players? Choose Windows Media Player as your format if

• Most or all of your audience members use Windows. Most Windows users already have WMP installed on their systems, so they won’t have to download or install new software before viewing your Windows Media-format movie.
• You want the look, but not the expense and complexity, of streaming media. If you don’t want to deal with the hassle of setting up and maintaining a streaming-media server, Windows Media format files can provide a workable compromise. WMP does a decent simulation of streaming media with progressive downloadable video: When downloading files, WMP begins playing the movie as soon as enough of it is downloaded to ensure uninterrupted playback.
• You’re distributing your movie online and extremely small file size is more important than quality. The Windows Media format can offer some very small file sizes, which is good if your audience will be downloading your movie over slow dial-up Internet connections. I recently placed a 3:23-long movie online in Windows Media format and the file size was only 5.5MB (megabytes). Of course, the movie was not broadcast quality, but because most of my friends and family still have slow dial-up modem connections to the Internet, they appreciated the relatively small download size.

A Short Review on RealPlayer

Another very popular media player is RealPlayer from RealNetworks.
RealPlayer is available for Macintosh, Windows, and even Unix-based systems. The free RealPlayer software is most often used for RealMedia streaming media over the Internet, though it can also play MPEG-format media as well. Pinnacle Studio allows you to export movies in the RealMedia format using the “Streaming” option in the Make Movie window. Although RealNetworks does offer a free version of the RealPlayer , you have to look at their Web site carefully for the “Free RealOne Player” link before you can download it. RealNetworks offers other programs as well — and though they’re not free, they offer additional features. RealNetworks has specialized in the delivery of streaming content, and they offer a variety of delivery options. You can use their software to run your own RealMedia streaming server, or you can outsource such “broadcast” duties to RealNetworks.
A complaint often heard about RealPlayer is that the software tends to be intrusive and resource-hungry once installed — and that the program itself collects information about your media-usage habits and sends that information to RealNetworks. Although RealPlayer is extremely popular, consider that some folks out there simply refuse to install RealNetworks software on their computers. RealMedia is an excellent format, but I recommend that you offer your audience a choice of formats if you plan to use it; include (for example) QuickTime or Windows Media Video.

A Short Review on QuickTime

Apple QuickTime is perhaps the most ubiquitous media player in the personal computer world today, which makes it a good overall choice for your audience. QuickTime is available for Macintosh and Windows systems and is included with Mac OS 9 and higher. QuickTime can play MPEG and QuickTime media. The QuickTime Player also supports progressive download, where files begin playing as soon as enough has been downloaded to allow continuous playback.
Apple also offers an upgraded version of QuickTime called QuickTime Pro.
QuickTime Pro costs about $30 (the regular QuickTime Player is free). Key
features of QuickTime Pro include

• Full-screen playback
• Additional media management features
• Simple audio and video creation and export tools
• Advanced import/export options If you already have iMovie (and therefore regular QuickTime), you don’t absolutely need the extra features of QuickTime Pro.

Your audience really doesn’t need QuickTime Pro either (unless of course they want to watch movies in full screen). The standard QuickTime Player should suffice in most cases. Apple iMovie exports QuickTime-format files. If you’re a Windows user, QuickTime Pro allows you to convert MPEG files to QuickTime format. Some advanced Windows editing programs (such as Adobe Premiere) can also export files in QuickTime format.

Streaming your video

Doing stuff on the Internet usually means downloading files. For example, when you visit a Web page, files containing all the text and pictures on that Web page are first downloaded to your computer, and then your Web-browser program opens them. Likewise, if someone e-mails you a picture or a document with yucky work stuff, your e-mail program actually downloads a file before you open it.
Downloading files takes time, especially if they’re big video files. You sit there and you wait. And wait. And wait. Finally the movie file is done downloading and starts to play, but by then you’ve left the room for a cup of coffee again. But software designers are crafty folk, and they’ve devised methods of getting around the problem of waiting a long time for downloads. They’ve come up with two basic solutions:

• Streaming media: Rather than downloading a file to your hard drive, streaming files can be played as the data streams through your modem. It works kind of like a radio, where “data” streams through in the form of radio waves, and that data is immediately played through the radio’s speakers as it is received. With streaming audio or video, no file is ever saved on your hard drive. To truly stream your movies to other people, your movie files need to be on a special streaming server on the Web. There is a remote possibility that your Internet service provider offers a streaming media server, but most service providers do not.
• Progressive download: Newer video-player programs can “fake” streaming pretty effectively. Rather than receiving a movie signal broadcast over the Internet like a radio wave, viewers simply click a link to open the movie as if they were downloading the file. In fact, they are downloading the file — but as soon as enough of the file has been received, the player program can start to play. The program doesn’t need to wait for the whole file to download before it starts. Current versions of QuickTime, RealPlayer, and Windows Media Player all support progressive download. The really cool thing about progressive download is that you don’t need any special kind of server to host the files. Just upload the video file to any server that has enough room to fit it in.

I’m actually being kind of picky about terminology here. Many people now refer to progressive download video files as “streaming video,” and because they basically function the same way, why not? The good news is that you don’t need to do anything special to stream (or progressively download, or whatever you want to call it) your movies to your audience. Just output your movie in QuickTime, RealVideo, or Windows Media Video format, and let the player programs do the rest.

Choosing a Video Format for Internet

Many different video formats are available for the movies you edit on your computer. Each format uses a different codec. (I explain codecs in greater detail in Chapter 13, but a codec, short for compressor/decompressor, is a software tool used for making multimedia files smaller.) Common video file formats include MPEG and AVI, but these two formats are usually not suitable for movies you plan to share online because they have big file sizes. Three other popular formats, however, are perfectly suited to the online world:

• QuickTime (.QT): Many Windows users and virtually all Macintosh users have the QuickTime Player program from Apple. QuickTime is the only export format available with iMovie. Pinnacle Studio cannot export QuickTime movies, but some more advanced Windows programs like Adobe Premiere can.
• RealMedia (.RM): This is the format used by the popular RealPlayer, available for Windows and Macintosh systems, among others. Pinnacle Studio can export RealMedia-format video.
• Windows Movie Video: This format requires Windows Media Player. Almost all Windows users and some Macintosh users already have it. Both Pinnacle Studio and Windows Movie Maker can export Windows Media Video.

Each of these three video formats has strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately the format you choose will probably depend mainly on the editing software you’re using — for example, if you’re using iMovie on a Mac, QuickTime is your only option.