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Making and Optimizing Your Videos
YouTube is designed to make sharing your videos with friends
and family as easy as possible. You probably have the tools
to make a video already, even if you don't have a camcorder.
Web cams, digital cameras, and even cell phones often have
video recording features—many digital cameras even have
a simple switch to choose between stills and video, something
like this: So take a look at what you already have—you
may be surprised! Most of these devices record in either the
.AVI or .MPG formats, both of which YouTube supports, and
the video shot with them can be uploaded directly from the
device or after being copied to your computer.
Digital and Analog Camcorders
If you already have a digital camcorder (one that captures
in Digital8, MiniDV, HDV, or any of the DVD formats), then
you're ready to start shooting your masterpiece. Your camcorder
will need some kind of direct connection to your computer,
either to the USB or FireWire ports or by inserting the DVD
you've recorded. Once you've downloaded the video from the
camera, you can upload it to YouTube or bring it into an editing
program to play with it some more.
If you have an analog camcorder (one that uses VHS, VHS-C,
SVHS-C, 8mm, or Hi8 tape), you can still get your videos onto
YouTube. It will require an extra step and some additional
equipment, though, since these camcorders are not usually
equipped with computer connections. You will need to digitize
the video with a converter box, which will convert the analog
signal from the camcorder to a digital signal that the computer
can understand. After the video has been digitized, you can
manipulate it further or upload it.
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Editing and Improving Your Videos
If you want to be a bit more hands-on with your video,
most new computers come with basic video-editing software
installed (like Apple's iMovie or Windows MovieMaker).
Once you have copied the video from your phone, camera,
or camcorder to your computer, you can bring the video
into these programs. Most allow you to not only edit the
video, but add effects, titles, and music to make your
video look and sound more interesting.
Uploading Your Videos to YouTube
Once you're happy with your final result, you'll need
to save the video in a format that YouTube can accept
in order to upload. Unless you're a professional video
producer, we recommend that you save your videos as either
QuickTime .MOV, Windows .AVI, or .MPG files— these
are the most common formats and they work well within
our system. We specifically recommend the MPEG4 (Divx,
Xvid) format at 320x240 resolution with MP3 audio. Resizing
your video to these specifications before uploading will
help your clips look better on YouTube
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Uploading Directly with
Mobile Devices
If you have video capabilities on your cell phone or PDA,
you can now upload videos directly from the device to
YouTube. So if you get a quick clip of something cool
with your phone, you can put it up right away. Just set
up your Mobile Upload Options in advance, and then send
your videos to the email address you're assigned. All
of your mobile videos will have the default tags, title,
and description that you set, or you can overwrite them
in the email message you send.
Making
Your Video Easy to Find
When you upload your video, we require you to choose at
least one category and enter at least one tag to describe
the content in your video. Adding this information helps
other YouTube members find your video, so if you want
an audience, help them out! The more accurate the tags
are on each video, the easier it is for everyone to find
cool videos to watch.
Make your tags as descriptive as you can—if you
took a video of your friends at the beach, you might want
to tag it like this: party beach surfing. Each tag is
separated from the others by a space.
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