COW: Post a Video to YouTube
This exercise is designed mainly for those who have never uploaded an online video before. The idea of the challenge is to complete it with as little cost as possible or ideally at no cost at all, by using equipment that you already have lying around your house, such as a digital camera.
Any form digital camcorder, whether it be MiniDV, DVD, or HDD should be fairly strait forward to upload onto your computer. Usually this will be done through a firewire cable and will require a computer with a firewire input jack.
If on the other hand your camcorder runs on an analog signal, then the task of posting online video can be significantly harder. One option is to borrow a friends Digital Camcorder and connect your camcorder to theirs through the AV wire. By having your camera output to theirs you can set your camera to play and theirs to record. Once your footage is stored on a digitally formated medium, their camera can be used to transfer it to a computer.
One of the simplest options is to use the video setting that comes standard on most digital cameras. Just use the USB cable that came in the camera’s box to upload your photos and videos to your computer, as you would normally, and then upload the video file you have shot to YouTube. Depending on the specs of the camera you should be able to shoot video that produces online video of a decent quality. Obviously this is not going to be anywhere near the highest quality option for producing online video, but it works.
For those of you have a camera designed specifically for producing online video, such as a pocket video camera made by either Flip or Vado then the task of shooting online video will be even more strait forward. The software that comes with these cameras have been improving and some of the latest versions allow you to sync your YouTube account with the software so that you can upload your video to your computer and then upload to YouTube with a click of your mouse.
If you have not done so already, you will need to create a YouTube account. Once your account is set up, go to the YouTube website and sign in. Once you are signed in you will see your username as a text link, towards the top of the screen, just a little bit right of center. Click on this link, and on the next page click on the drop down list entitled “New” which appears on the left hand side of the page a little bit down from the top and select the “Video Upload” Option from the drop down.
From here you can browse the files on your computer and click “Upload Video” when you’ve found the right file.
Related Posts