Edit Your Footage
If your video consists of nothing more than 30 seconds of your puppy squaring off against your Aibo, then by all means head straight for YouTube's Upload section. For everything else, do your viewers a favor and edit the footage. Add some titles, cut out the extraneous shots, insert some transitions between scenes (nothing too fancy--a simple fade or wipe will do), and choose the all-important background music.
Windows Movie Maker offers basic video editing features, more than enough transitions and special effects, and support for laying down music tracks.For all these feats of video magic, you'll need editing software. Good news for Windows and Mac users alike: You've got everything you need for simple editing baked right into your OS. Windows XP and Vista users can fire up Windows Movie Maker, while the Mac crowd can use iMovie. Both programs offer basic video editing features, more than enough transitions and special effects, and support for laying down music tracks. Most important, they can output YouTube-compatible files.
If you're creating a mashup, which is really all about clever editing, you'll probably want more sophisticated tools. Commercial video editing programs offer options like picture-in-picture and chroma key, the latter used to mix multiple images (think weatherman standing in front of a moving weather map). Windows users can choose from editing suites like Adobe Premiere Elements 4 and Pinnacle Studio 11 Plus; Mac apps include Apple Final Cut Express 4 and Adobe Premiere Pro CS3.
If you're in a hurry and need nothing more than a few quick-and-dirty edits, take YouTube's own Remixer for a spin. Powered by Adobe's Premiere Express software, Remixer lets you add titles, transitions, borders, and music. You can also combine multiple videos from your YouTube library into a single video, though you can't actually edit the footage.
Once you've chosen your editor, it's time to import your video into your editing program. Most editing apps will automatically split your raw footage into separate clips by detecting scene changes. With that done, you can cut your clips to the proper length and arrange them in the proper order. Each clip can be trimmed from its beginning and end, or split in two. By using your editor's timeline view, you can drag and drop clips to get them in the desired order. Add transitions by dragging them in between clips.
Output and Upload
After you've finished editing your video, you'll want to output it as a YouTube-friendly file. That means adhering to as many of the following specs as possible:
- 640-by-480 resolution
- MPEG-4 video format
- MP3 audio
- 30 frames per second
- No larger than 100MB
These are guidelines, not rules--YouTube will also accept videos in formats like AVI, MOV, and WMV, with varying bit rates and frame rates, and then convert them to its own proprietary format (FLV, in case you're wondering). Just be sure to keep the file size under 100MB; anything larger requires you to install YouTube's Windows-only Uploader utility, which can accommodate files up to 1GB. (The 10-minute length limit still applies.)
The YouTube Uploader utility also lets you select multiple files to upload at a time. Otherwise, you can use YouTube's Web-based single-file uploader. Just click the yellow Upload button that appears on every YouTube page, then provide a title, description, category, and tags. You'll also want to choose public or private status for your video; the latter limits you to 25 viewers, while public videos can be viewed by anyone. Finally, pick your sharing options, like whether external sites (such as blogs) can embed your video.
YouTube allows you to upload videos straight from your phone.You'll need to venture into your account settings first and configure a mobile profile. Once that's done, you can send a video message (MMS) to 'YTUBE', or attach your video to an e-mail and send it to the special address listed in your profile (which you should add to your phone's address book for easy future use).
Now that you've added your video to YouTube's massive library, it's time to attract some eyeballs. Start by posting your video on your blog, Facebook page, or other personal site. For every uploaded video, YouTube provides an 'embed' code that you can copy and paste into a new blog post or the like. The result is an embedded YouTube video player--the kind you've clicked countless times before, but this time it's your very own video on the 'Tube.
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