# Uploading video footage



## Snoot (Aug 23, 2006)

Hey,
  I've got a question.  I've got a mov. file I'd like to upload, but it seems that FA will only take swf.  Is there anyway to upload a mov file? and if not, can a mov file be turned into a swf?
If I can do either of these things, how do I do them??
Thanks so much!!


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## eb7w5yfe (Aug 24, 2006)

I've been using ffmpeg to convert videos into swf format.  Lacking furthur information, I'll assume that you're running Windows.  There's a Windows version of ffmpeg here: http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/ffmpeg/.  It seems to support converting to swf, but I tested it using Wine, so running under actual Windows may be different.

It's a command line program, but really simple to use.  This is all you'd need to convert from mov to swf (replace filename with whatever the actual filename is):
ffmpeg -i filename.mov filename.swf


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## Bokracroc (Aug 25, 2006)

Eww.
_Movie files_ to .swf converts are evil. Extreme file sizes with the loss of several thingy like picture, sound and Frame Rate quailty.
Best try to ask to .mov uploads.


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## eb7w5yfe (Aug 25, 2006)

I'd certainly prefer to be able to upload videos without converting them to flash format.  It irks me to use flash video when flash is so poorly supported on my system: I can't even see half of the flash stuff posted, since flash 7 is the newest version available for Linux.

That said, I haven't noticed the problems with flash video that you mention.  It seems somewhat comparable to MPEG-4.  It's certainly better in every way than animated gifs, which AFAIK are the only other option at this time.

If anyone does ask for movie uploads, can we please ask for avi file support?  As far as I'm concerned, .mov is almost as bad as .swf.


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## Bokracroc (Aug 25, 2006)

All movie types are bad if you don't know about Compression and such. Most movie to .swf I've used pretty much randomly converts the file into a large mess of uncompressed movie. Even the fabled MPEG-4 is flawed with unskilled hands. 
Avi is some of the worst compressed movies to 'grace' the internet. A 20sec movie at 30mb? Try again buddy.


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## eb7w5yfe (Aug 25, 2006)

I agree that it's certainly possible, and much too common, to have horribly encoded videos.  Fortunately ffmpeg seems to do the right thing automatically.  My latest animation  is roughly 450x450 pixels, 5fps, and 35 seconds long.  It was originally a 205 MB avi, shrunk to a 1.1 MB avi after being run through ffmpeg (which appears to have chosen the divx codec), and as a swf file measures only 950 KB.

One thing I would like to see fixed if possible is the FA file upload script.  In firefox, with large files I repeatedly get a warning about a script which has possibly locked up, and do I want to stop it?  Sometimes I have to click no around 10 times for a file upload to finish.


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## RailRide (Aug 25, 2006)

With so many artists uploading still pictures of 400-500K (showing they don't have a clue as to what compression is, or don't care) do we really want to chew up disk space (not to mention bandwidth) an order of magnitude faster by having videos on here?

---PCJ


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## Bokracroc (Aug 25, 2006)

RailRide said:
			
		

> With so many artists uploading still pictures of 400-500K (showing they don't have a clue as to what compression is, or don't care)


"Butr i haev calbe internets!! if u had it it woludnt be a prorblem!11!1!!!oneone!!!"


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