How To Make YouTube Videos Look Great
http://www.squidoo.com/youtuberight

I’d like to see a breakdown of all the freeware video editing, conversion, compression and effects programs that are out there.

You don’t, if the whole video you are watching downloads they are in these folders no program needed.

TIP: clean out your temp folders in IE and FF options before you watch, easier to find the video later. Careful not to delete certain cookies, you may have to relog into your account if you do.

IE
C:\Documents and Settings\your user name\local settings\temporary internet\

note: sometimes explorer will ask, do you want to open this system folder blah blah, click yes.

find video by clicking either size or name at the top. highlight copy. past in C:\temp

note: if the original page in IE is still open windows might not allow you to copy, change name or move until you close or move off the IE page.

FF
C:\Documents and Settings\username\locals setting\applications\mozilla\firefox\profile\org9…\Cache

FF has other cache folders as well, you may have to dig a little.

tricky part – firfox converts everything to a number you’ll have to find it by size, sometimes it’s hit and miss, but don’t worry they are only temp files anyway.

When you find the file you think is the video right click change the name to whatever you want and add .flv .mov .wma whatever the formate on the original page was.

i.e.FF file – FA11S13d03 highlight right click rename naltafunny.flv move to the folder you want to store it in. c:\temp

note: Once you find the right file FF never gives you any trouble renaming or moving a file in use.

Got an easier way or tips let me know

Rip streaming videos is a whole different animal and I hope they make a better easier free program soon.

If you use RIVA (free) you can convert avi to flv and visa versa. I tried uploading both, not much faster show time on any of the sites. flv will also cuts out a lot of the depth to your videos, they never ever look as good as a mov or wmv. If you use photos convert or process in png format, if you have jpgs and gifs convert them to png. if you are making videos start or convert the flvs to avi. There are a lot of programs and converters out there and a bunch come in bits and pieces and parts, I like the whole package, but I’ll use different programs for specialized effects.

Best to dl a couple different brands and find out what effects you like best. They all run between $50 and $120, most are sharware for 30 days with a watermark or 1 to 5 min conversion time.

In the end though you’ll want to take anything you make and stick it in movie makers. Best to do this in parts as well, because it locks up often and works you CPUs like a race horse. Make and edit the video and narrative together, process to one file, then reload and add your music, you’ll save a lot of time and crashes. Reboot often.

alternatives: get a really really good video card and tons of mem.
better yet: get a MAC!

I usually edit with Sony Vegas Pro 7, or its very capable little brother, Sony Vegas Movie Studio 7 (Platinum version). You can get it on ebay for less than $100.

I also use QuickTime Pro a lot. I’ll convert my uncompressed edited AVI files to 320×240 .mp4 files using the H.264 codec (YouTube converts mp4s quite nicely). QT Pro is great for exporting to different formats (and grabbing individual frames), and is a steal @ under $30.

BTW: Here’s a related tutorial I did recently just for YouTube newbies:
How to Upload a Video to YouTube

-joe
http://www.WebVideoZone.com

PS – nice hat