Recently, I’ve been uploading video files to VideoPress.com. When uploading the files, I’ve generally kept the default naming scheme provided by the Flip Camera. On my machine, there were two different video files with a similar name but different extensions, video-4.mp4 and video-4.mov. The .mov file was the interview with Jane Wells while the .MP4 file was the interview with Brad Williams. I discovered today that the reason why the Jane Wells interview started showing Brad Williams was because of the way VideoPress renames files.
When videos are uploaded to VideoPress, the service renames the file using the original name. So what ended up happening is that Video-4.MP4 and Video-4.mov both turned into video-4_fmt1.ogv. Since Brad’s video was uploaded first, the second uploaded file pointed to Brad’s video. This is what caused the confusion and why Jane’s interview switched from her, to Brad. What I ended up doing was downloading the Jane Wells interview .mov file, renaming the file and then re uploading it to VideoPress to resolve the conflict. This is a lesson that before you upload your videos to VideoPress, you should give them a unique file name.
A few days ago, I mentioned that the readme file for repository hosted plugins was updated so that authors could provide a short explanation as to why a user should upgrade to the newest version. The readme file has been updated again to include support for videos. According to Michael Adams who is responsible for this enhancement, plugin authors can add a YouTube, Vimeo or VideoPress.com video into their readme file via a shortcode. The plugin repository readme validator has also been updated to show videos if they have been included. Dre Armeda asked what measures would be taken to combat spam or advertisements within the videos. Matt replied with:
I’m most worried about Youtube, seeing a lot more spammy stuff on there with the ability to put links and popups in videos. If the feature is abused, we’ll just turn it off.
A lot of plugins are beginning to have screencasts attached to them so that users can get a better idea on how the plugin actually works. Building this type of support into the plugin repository just makes sense.
Lorelle Van Fossen has published a detailed list of all the videos that have been released so far from WordCamp San Francisco and Dallas. John P. of One Man’s Blog, the guy in charge of doing the videos is slowly but surely publishing them as they are finished. So far, the WordCamp Panel session and Cali Lewis has been published from WordCamp Dallas while Chris Pirillo and John Lilly presentations have been published from WordCamp San Francisco. If you have the time, I suggest watching Chris’s presentation as he hammers home a number of great points when it comes to community building.
I came across these videos last night through WPCult.com, a WordPress centric site written and maintained by Austin Passy. There are four videos from the WordCamp San Francisco Developers Day uploaded by Austin which contain Sam Bauers discussing the development of the bbPress forum software. The most interesting video to me was number four where Matt shares the idea of how the comment form on a WordPress blog could be replaced by a thread or a forum powered by bbPress. A very interesting idea indeed. Thanks to Austin for uploading these videos.
P.S. I’m working on getting Sam Bauers on WordPress Weekly before or just after the release of bbPress 1.0. As of right now, things look good to have Sam on the show Friday, June 19th but keep an eye out for the show reminder email from Talkshoe as that will contain the locked in date.
I didn’t realize how complicated styling threaded comments can be until I watched this video. David Perel published a screencast on From The Couch.com which goes over how to style threaded comments in WordPress complete with source files for the code but more importantly, hand holding to figure out all of the CSS required for good looking threaded comments. While this is a basic tutorial, it was easy for me to get lost between parent comments, sub comments, sub-sub comments, etc, but that is not his fault.
I suggest clicking on the FULL SCREEN mode to see the video clearly.
The other day, George Plumley contacted me to let me know of a new site he launched called SeeHowTwo.com. The site contains a variety of videos specific to WordPress.org with plans on adding videos to cover WordPress.com topics as well.
Initially, I had to increase the font size on my machine since it was a bit too small for me. No biggy as the site adjusted well to the increased font size. Unlike WordPress.TV, this site contains a key which makes browsing through the videos an easy process.
One of the videos I watched instructed me on how to hide comments on individual posts or pages. The video quality was pretty good while the audio quality was very good. In this particular video, I would have enjoyed seeing the screen zoom in on specific areas to make the content easier to read. George is a good narrator but at times, it’s difficult to see what he is doing on the screen.
Another thing I think sets this site back is that the screencasts are purely flash based with no way of sharing them on other sites. While doing the screencasts on your own ensures the best video quality and control, not having the ability to embed that video across the web I think is a major step backwards. Why would you not want that kind of exposure? On the SeeHowTwo videos, George already places a SeeHowTwo link at the bottom which does not make sense to me if you’re watching the video on the HowTwoSite. That link would be perfectly acceptable on a video that lets say, is embeddable across the web. Talk about branding!
While George provides quite a bit of good content already on his SeeHowTwo site, I think there are a few things that could be done to make it better. And while you might be hoping to have people simply link to the page with the video on it, I’d much rather embed the video on my own blog.
Head on over to George’s site and then come back and let me know what YOU think.
Recently, I’ve been uploading video files to VideoPress.com. When uploading the files, I’ve generally kept the default naming scheme provided by the Flip Camera. On my machine, there were two different video files with a similar name but different extensions, video-4.mp4 and video-4.mov. The .mov file was the interview with Jane Wells while the .MP4 file was the interview with Brad Williams. I discovered today that the reason why the Jane Wells interview started showing Brad Williams was because of the way VideoPress renames files. 
Video Tutorial – Style Threaded Comments
By Jeffro on April 17, 2009
I didn’t realize how complicated styling threaded comments can be until I watched this video. David Perel published a screencast on From The Couch.com which goes over how to style threaded comments in WordPress complete with source files for the code but more importantly, hand holding to figure out all of the CSS required for good looking threaded comments. While this is a basic tutorial, it was easy for me to get lost between parent comments, sub comments, sub-sub comments, etc, but that is not his fault.
I suggest clicking on the FULL SCREEN mode to see the video clearly.
Posted in Video | Tagged styling, threaded comments, tutorial, videos | 2 Responses