Supported video formats
From Phanfare Support
We support a wide variety of video formats including AVI, MPG MOV and WMV files. We limit movie clips to ten minutes in length. A movie clip must also be less than 2GB, although practically speaking, there are no non-HD video cameras or still cameras in production today that will produce a 10 min clip in excess of 2GB. (Read technical details on video limits.)
| Table of contents |
How video sharing works in Phanfare
Here are the high level steps:
- Drop the video into Phanfare Photo.
- Phanfare Photo extracts the first frame and send it up as a placeholder. At this point, the video on the web says "Not yet available."
- Phanfare Photo sends the fullsize video up to the service.
- The website now shows the video in its original format.
- 5 min to 1 hour later, we attempt to convert the video to Macromedia Flash 7 format at 1 megabit/second. If conversion is successful, the video then displays on the web in a Flash video player.
- If the video you uploaded to us is encoded at less than 4 megabits/second, we will keep the original video file and make it available via the "download hi-res" link at the right of the video clip. If the video you uploaded to us is greater than 4 megabits/second, we will re-compress it into a 4 megabits/second MPEG 4 file in AVI container. This is essentially DVD quality. However, you will need to download a special player before you can view it as explained here: http://support.phanfare.com/doc/Playing_archival_video
Conversion of video to Macromedia Flash
We attempt to convert all video to Macromedia Flash because the Macromedia Flash format is more widely compatible than other video formats. Flash is installed on 95% of Macs and PCs by most estimates.
If you desire to see the video in its original quality, click on "Download Original" over the video preview on the web. The compatibility notes below apply to viewing the original video.
We are able to convert nearly all modern videos to Flash. Some videos we can not convert because our software is not able to process all file formats and underlying codecs. To know whether or not a video is converted to flash on our side, right click your mouse over the running video on the web and see if the Macromedia Flash menu comes up. It takes between 5 min and 1 hour for conversion to Flash to occur.
If a video fails to convert, we show it in its original format.
The best way to fix conversion problems is to use a format we can grok.
The video that point and shoot cameras take is fairly simple to process and if you drop it in Phanfare unchanged, we can usually convert it. if you edit video and re-encode it, you must take care to make sure you produce an output that we can process. On a Mac, convert to h.264 and AAC audio in a Quicktime (MOV) file, produced using iMovie (or Final Cut Pro) works well. On a PC, try WMV format produced by Windows Movie Maker.
Notes on viewing video in its original format on the web
In the unlikely event that we are not able to convert your video to Flash the end user will need to have the right viewer installed.
Using a DV camera
If you use a DV camera to shoot your video, instead of a point and shoot, you first need to acquire the video onto your PC or Mac before editing it and encoding it to a more compressed format.
For this type of work, Apple's iMovie is simply the most consumer friendly program on the market. If you have access to a Mac, use iMovie and output to H.264 video, AAC audio in a Quicktime File. You will be happier for it.
If you use a PC, then a variety of programs can acquire video (Pinnacle, Adobe Premier) but you still need to produce compatible output for the web. For output, we recommend h.264 if you use a Mac and WMV if you use a PC.
Final thoughts
To keep things simple, try to shoot clips using a point and shoot camera that are less than 10 minutes in length. Drop them into Phanfare directly. There is a good chance that we can convert them, and if so, your workflow will be significantly simpler.