Tips and Tools for YouTube

Editing a Video

The Video Editor is a free tool in your YouTube Account which allows you to edit various clips and produce an entirely new edited video. Here’s what you can do with the Video Editor:

• Combine multiple videos you’ve uploaded to create a new longer video

•Trim at the beginning and / or ending of your videos

•Add a soundtrack from our AudioSwap library

• Create new videos without worrying about file formats, and publish the new video to YouTube with one click (no new upload is required)

• To get started, go to TestTube and click "Video Editor" (or visit www.youtube.com/editor)

You will be given this video editor screen, with your uploaded videos available in the top tab and audio available in the other. Using these simple tools, you can drag-and-drop videos into the bar on the bottom of the screen - the square box for video, the long rectangle for audio.

Editing Con’t

•Once you have dropped a video into the editing bar, a pair of scissors will appear. By selecting the scissors, you can 'cut' the video - that is to say, you can edit it to make it shorter, or just to show what you want it to show.

•In order to edit the video, drag the grey bars along the video. What is greyed-out will not show up in the video, what is in color will. You can move the bars by single-second increments by using the arrows. Once you have completely edited your video, click save.

•By switching tabs to audio, Youtube offers a large variety of music for you to add to your video. Simply select the audio that you prefer, and drag it down into the audio bar, below the video bar at the bottom of the screen.

•From there, you can name your video - up above the preview window - and select publish. The video will appear in your collection of videos.

Insight: Statistics and Data

•Insight is a built-in tool that provides statistics and data on your YouTube channel and uploaded videos. 

•Insight will give you data related to views broken down by video, demographics, and popularity by region.

•From your profile Account page, click on "My Account" and then select the "Insight: Statistics and Data" link.

Searching for Videos

•To search for videos, type in the tag or search terms in the box provided at the top of YouTube. 

•If you're looking for a specific channel, here “usnvayband", click on the Channels link. You can also do an advanced search which allows you to narrow it down.

•If you don't find what you're looking for in your basic search, you can use the advanced search function.  Click on the "Advanced Options" link to further refine your search.

Video SpecificationsThese were taken from YouTube on preferred video specifications for optimal quality:

• Resolution: Recommended: 1280 x 720 (16x9 HD) and 640 x 480 (4:3 SD). There is no required minimum resolution - in general the higher resolution the better and HD resolution is preferred. For older content, lower resolution is unavoidable.

• Bit rate: Because bit-rate is highly dependent on codec there is no recommended or minimum value. Videos should be optimized for resolution, aspect ratio and frame rate rather than bit rate.

• Frame rate: The frame rate of the original video should be maintained without re-sampling. In particular pulldown and other frame rate re-sampling techniques are strongly discouraged.

• Codec: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 preferred (more details on format below).• More on Video Formats

Source: YouTube

• YouTube accepts a wide range of video file formats. The video files below are all accepted by YouTube. Some video formats work best and are most compatible with certain computers, software or devices.   * Windows Media Video (.WMV)   * .MP4 (ipod/psp)  * .3GP (cell phones)                     * .MPEG  * .AVI (windows)                         * .FLV (adobe flash) * .MOV (mac)                          * .MKV (h.264)  If you do not think your current video file format is recognized by YouTube, you may get the best uploading results from converting your file to MPEG4 video with MP3 audio.

• Windows Movie Maker, by default saves projects as .MSWMM files. .MSWMM files are project files (this means the file only contains the layout of your video and does not contain the final video itself). YouTube does not accept .MSWMM files. To upload your Windows Movie Maker video to YouTube, select the "Save to My Computer" option to save the file to an accepted format. You can then upload the generated file to YouTube.

• Keep in mind that each time you convert or "transcode" a video from one type of compression to another, there will be some loss in quality, similar to making a photocopy of a photocopy.

General Tips

1. Have relevant content!

2. Actively look for content

3. Produce your own videos

4. Subtitle IIP videos or other videos you use in local language  (more on this below).

5. Make sure that you have tags, descriptions and rights to potentially copyrighted videos before uploading them.

6. Make sure you post rules for commenting and review the comments for inappropriate ones and answer questions in a timely fashion. The number of comments that come in will depend on how popular the video is.

7. Update weekly. Try producing a weekly short (5 min. max) servicemember’s address focusing on life on duty or simply his/her reflections of that week's happenings in country. Could focus on humanitarian efforts, community projects, etc.

Advertising Tips

1. Cross promote. Think of the Channel as a holding bin. Host the videos on YouTube but tweet the link, post to Facebook, websites and blogs to get play.

2. Create a badge and promote the channel on the embassy website.

3. Be sure to lace key words in the description because Google will pull words out of both the Description and Tags fields.

4. Use tags that other videos of the same topic use to increase visibility.

5. Have videos, along with audio, subtitles, description and tags in local language, so it will be archived and searchable by your end-users.

Video Tips

1. Post videos that are current event relevant and be sure to use the tag function.

2. Try not to post anything over 5 minutes. In general 2-3 minutes is about right for internet viewer attention span and lower bandwidths.

3. Post video with some entertainment value.

4. If doing an event or speech just edit the highlights; don't post the whole thing.

5. Click here to learn how to make your videos 508 compliant (helps make them accessible for people with disabilities).