Newsletter #66 is about the neptune and mydeo online hosting services. Click the image to read it.

To see the service in action, check the galleries... there are many videos made by Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3.

MovieMaker Gallery at Neptune

Setup Your Neptune Service

Upload a Movie to Neptune

If you already have movies on your hard drive to upload, skip ahead (I'll cover how to do that later) and come back here when you want to render and upload another one.

If you're ready to render one from a project file and upload it, here are the steps to take.

1 - Use the Save Movie Wizard the same way you do when saving a movie to your hard drive.

... but opt for saving to The Web.

2 - Fill in the file name for your saved movie.

Remember this name might end up being the name you see on the neptune service. It'll be harder to change it there.

.

.

.

3 - Select a profile to use for the rendering.

Neptune's experience shows that WMV files from Movie Maker are best viewed when saved at 640x480 with a total bitrate of 768Kbps. The total bitrate is the combination of that for the video and that for the audio.

I have a number of videos at neptune that I made using different profiles, and I'm still studying which ones play the best. And I'm looking at the properties of the other videos there.

As I collect and assess my notes, I plan to make a set of 3 custom profiles that you can download from these links:

• Neptune - high quality video and audio (later)

• Neptune - high quality video and low quality audio (later)

• Neptune - low quality video and high quality audio (later)

You'll be able to put the custom profiles into your Movie Maker 2 pick-list of other settings to choose from when saving your movie.

4 - Select a Video Hosting Provider and sign in.

This step is easy for those who have neptune showing up in the list.

It's a bit harder for those who have a neptune service but it doesn't show up the picklist of the wizard. You might have this situation if you're in England.

And there are countries in which neptune service is not available.

The providers in the picklist are those who have setup an affiliation with Microsoft to be included. There are other hosts you can use, starting with your ISP. The process of uplading movies to them will differ and depend on the process provided by each ISP or host service.

5 - Upload your movie.

At this point, your movie is rendered to your profile settings and uploaded to neptune.

6 - Save a Copy.

After uploading, Movie Maker 2 gives you the option of saving a copy of the movie to your hard drive.

And check the option to view the online copy right after finishing the Saving Wizard.

7 - View it on neptune.

There it is, playing at neptune. My welcome video is shown playing at 200% size. You have other options to play at 100%, 150%, or full screen.

Once at neptune, you can either leave it there for your personal viewing, move it into an album which you can then invite others to view, or submit it for inclusion in a gallery for the world to watch.

One note about your albums at neptune... the word is perfect when thinking of a set of still pictures. But an album with video files only has one movie per album, and it's not mixed with other items such as pictures.

Organize your Online Movies

1 - Sign In

Open neptune and sign in to view the movies you have there and organize them a bit.

2 - Upload More and Organize the Online Videos

Once logged in and at neptune, you'll be looking at this 4 step menu: step 1 is to upload more files from your hard drive; steps 2, 3 and 4 are about creating, viewing and sharing your albums.

To share a video with others, you need to have it in an album. Once in an album, you can invite others to view it... using either the neptune email notice, or by copying the direct link and using it in your usual emails, instant messages, online posts, or website pages.

3 - Upload More

Use Step 1 of the neptune menu to upload more files from your hard drive

Choose between 'easy upload' and 'single file upload'...

Let's go down the 'easy upload' path first.

The window will have choices to upload photos, videos and audio... and neptune supports 3 video types. Select Windows Media for your stories from PhotoStory and movies from Movie Maker.

Invite Others to View Your Online Movie

Once your movie is on the neptune site, you can fill out a form to invite others to see it, using a neptune email to your personal contacts, or by getting the URL to use in your own emails, instant messages, or website pages. In addition to viewing it, your contacts will be able to save a copy to their computer.

For the link, create an album for your movie if you haven't already, and then use the Invite tab to get to a page listing your albums and your contacts. Select an album and the direct link to the album will appear under the list. That's the URL to copy and paste to send to others... to take them directly to that album on neptune.

If you or someone else is viewing an album on neptune, you or they can save a copy of it to your hard drive.

In the window where you view an album, the control panel includes a option to 'Save Video'... it'll be grayed out and non-functional until the video is fully downloaded (watch the buffering progress under the monitor).

When fully downloaded, the 'Save Video' option changes to being bright and functional. Selecting it opens your Windows Media Player and starts the video playing in it...

With it open in WMP, use File > Save As.

Delete Older Movies to Make Room for New Ones

Selected Posts About the Neptune Service