Chapter 12. Sharing Movies

This lesson is based on a project that you finished in a previous chapter, which you’ll now share using multiple techniques. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to send your completed video project to the digital media or device of choice, for example, an HDV camera. You will also learn the different ways you can export movies to view online or on a personal computer. Specifically, you’ll learn how to do the following:

• Upload a video file to YouTube and Photoshop.com

• Export a video file for subsequent viewing from a hard disk

• Export a video file for viewing on an iPod or other mobile device

• Record your video file back to DV/HDV tape

• Export a single frame as a still image

• Create a custom preset to save and reuse your favorite encoding parameters

This lesson will take approximately 1.5 hours.

Sharing a video on Photoshop.com.

Sharing and Exporting Video

Apart from creating Web DVDs, DVDs, or Blu-ray Discs, you can export and share movies, still images, and audio in a variety of file types for the web, computer playback, mobile devices, and even videotape. The Share workspace in the Tasks panel is your starting point for exporting your finished project. Here you choose your target and configuration options.

Selecting any of the options listed under Start a new share: opens a view in the Tasks panel that provides output-specific options and settings. Share view simplifies sharing and exporting by providing presets of the most commonly used formats and settings. If you want to specify unique settings for any format, you can click Advanced options and make changes.

The first step for all sharing is choosing your desired target. The exercises in this chapter walk you through examples of the available targets in the Share workspace.

Getting Started

To begin, you’ll launch Adobe Premiere Elements and open the project used for this lesson. Then you’ll review a final version of the project you’ll be creating.

1. Before you begin, make sure that you have correctly copied the Lesson12 folder from the DVD in the back of this book onto your computer’s hard disk. See “Copying the Classroom in a Book Files” in the Getting Started section of this book.
2. Start Premiere Elements, click the Open Project button in the Welcome screen, and then click Open. If Premiere Elements is already open, choose File > Open Project.
3. Navigate to the Lesson12 folder and select the project file Lesson12_Start_Win.prel (Windows) or Lesson12_Start_Mac.prel (Mac OS). Click the Open button to open your project. The Premiere Elements work area appears with the Edit workspace selected in the Tasks panel.
4. The project file opens with the Media, Monitor, and My Project panels visible. Choose Window > Restore Workspace to ensure that you start the lesson with the default panel layout.

Viewing the Completed Movie for the First Exercise

To see what you’ll be exporting in this lesson, play the completed movie.

1. In the Organize tab of the Tasks panel, click Project (). In Project view, locate the file Lesson12_Movie.mov, and then double-click it to open the video into the Preview window.
2. In the Preview window, click the Play button () to watch the video about some kids shooting hoops, which you will render in this lesson.
3. When you’re done, close the Preview window by clicking the Close button () in the upper-right corner of the window.

If the movie looks familiar, that’s because it’s the project you finished back in Lesson 9 after adding a soundtrack and narration. Now it’s time to share the fruits of your hard work with the world!

Rather than duplicating the project file and content from Lesson 9 to Lesson 12, I inserted the rendered file that you just played onto the Timeline in the project you just opened, since it simulates the Lesson 9 project completely and saved a few hundred megabytes on the DVD that accompanies this book. The experience will be exactly the same as if you were working with the original content and project file.

Still, if you’d like to work with the original assets, you can load the Lesson09_End.prel file that you created in Lesson 9, or load Lesson09_Work.prel (if you didn’t make it to the end), and follow the instructions in this chapter to render those contents. Obviously, those projects would be in the Lesson09 folder, not the Lesson12 folder. In your shoes, I would simply use the project file you currently have loaded, but feel free to work with the original content if that’s your preference.

Uploading to YouTube

Premiere Elements provides presets for three online destinations—YouTube, Photoshop.com, and Podbean. The workflow is very similar for all with a simple wizard guiding your efforts. Here I’ll work through the first two, starting with YouTube. It’s faster if you already have an account with YouTube, but if not, you can sign up as part of the process. Follow these steps to upload your project to YouTube.

1. Click Share in the Tasks panel, and then click Online ().
2. Choose YouTube from the list at the top. Premiere Elements uses the Flash preset for YouTube for all files produced to upload to YouTube.

   

3. Choose a preset. Use Flash Video for YouTube for standard definition (SD) 4:3 projects, and Flash Video for YouTube (widescreen) for (SD) 16:9 projects. To upload high-definition (HD) video to YouTube, choose the preset that matches your source footage, which will be High Definition Video for YouTube (1440×1080) for HDV and older AVCHD camcorders, and High Definition Video for YouTube 1920×1080 for most newer AVCHD camcorders and most DSLR cameras.

   Note

   What if you shot in 720p resolution with your AVCHD or DSLR camera? Your results on YouTube will depend on your footage and the quality that you choose for viewing on YouTube. I recommend that you try uploading using both Flash Video for YouTube (widescreen) and High Definition Video for YouTube 1920×1080, and retaining the video that looks the best.

4. If desired, click the Share WorkArea Bar Only to upload only the work area bar. It’s not shown in the immediately preceding figure because it’s hidden behind the Preset drop-down list box, but you’ll see it after selecting your preset.
5. Click Next.
6. Log in to YouTube. If this is your first time uploading to YouTube, click Sign Up Now and register. Then log in.

   

7. Click Next.
8. Enter the required information about your project: Title, Description, Tags, and Category, and then click Next.

   

9. Choose whether you want to allow the public to view your project or to keep it private, and then click Share. Premiere Elements renders the project and starts uploading to YouTube, with status messages advising you of the progress during each step.
10. When the share is complete, the URL appears in the Share workspace. You can choose View My Shared Video to open YouTube and watch your video, or choose Send an E-mail to alert friends to your new posting.

    Note

    I’m pretty sure that there will be (at least) dozens if not hundreds of copies of this video on YouTube by sometime in early 2011. It might be a better idea if you follow these latter steps to upload your own video to YouTube, or if you do upload this sample movie, that you later delete it.

    

11. Click Done to return to the main Share workspace.

Uploading to Photoshop.com

YouTube is a great location to upload your video to for it to be seen by the multitudes, but video quality ranges from very good to poor, and some of the comments can be, well, rude. If you’d like to upload a video primarily for friends and family, at very good quality, your Photoshop.com account is ideal, and the workflow is exceptionally simple. Here’s how.

1. Click Share in the Tasks panel, and then click Online ().
2. Choose Photoshop.com. There’s currently only a single preset for Photoshop.com, so there are no options available. If desired, click the Share WorkArea Bar Only to upload only the work area bar.

   

3. Click Next.
4. If you’re not already logged into Photoshop.com, you’ll see the login screen. Log in to Photoshop.com. If you don’t have a Photoshop.com account, click Create New Adobe ID and sign up. Then enter your account name and password, and click Sign In. Click OK to close the Success dialog.

   

5. Enter the required information about your project: Movie Title, Privacy Settings, Email Message, and Send Email To addresses, and then click Share.

   

   Note

   You probably don’t want this video of some random kids shooting hoops consuming space on your Photoshop.com account. So you might consider following these steps to upload your own video to Photoshop.com, or if you do upload this sample movie, delete it after uploading and playing it.

6. When the share is complete, Premiere Elements will display a hyperlink that you can click to view your online video.

   

7. Click Done to return to the main Share workspace.

Sharing on Your Personal Computer

In the previous exercises, you exported a Premiere Elements project to YouTube and Photoshop.com. In this exercise, you’ll export your project as a stand-alone video file to play on your own system, upload to a website, email to friends or family, or archive on DVD or external hard disk.

As you’ll see in a moment, Premiere Elements lets you output in multiple formats for all these activities. Each file format comes with its own set of presets available from the Presets menu. You can also customize a preset and save it for later reuse, which you’ll do in this lesson.

See the sidebar “Choosing Output Formats” for more information on which preset to choose. In this exercise, you’ll customize a preset and output a file using the QuickTime format.

1. In Share view, click the Computer button ().
2. In the list at the top of Share view, choose QuickTime.
3. In the Presets list box, choose NTSC DV 16:9. Note the three presets beneath the PAL DV 16:9 preset. These are custom presets that I created before starting this lesson. After you complete the lesson, the custom preset that you create will also be available via this list box.
4. Enter Lesson12_SharePC in the File Name field, and then click Browse to select the Lesson12 folder as the Save in folder.

   

5. Click the Advanced button () beneath the Save in: text box. Premiere Elements opens the Export Settings dialog.

   The NTSC DV 16:9 preset is great if you want to edit the file further in a Mac-based program, but the files are too large to easily email to friends and family. You’ll create a custom preset that creates more compact files.

6. To start, click the Video Codec list box and choose the H.264 codec.

   

   Note

   Note the circled box in the figure next to Width and Height. When a link () appears in the box, Premiere Elements links the width and height to maintain the aspect ratio of the source footage. Most of the time, that’s the right decision, but sometimes you’ll want to change the aspect ratio, and if the link appears, Premiere Elements will automatically adjust the values in the height and width fields to maintain the aspect ratio, preventing you from entering the desired values. In these cases, simply click the link to disable this option. The box should not be selected when using the preset that you selected, but if it is, click the box to deselect it.

7. In the Basic Settings box, click and insert 640 in the Width text box and 360 in the Height text box. Otherwise:

   • Leave the Frame Rate at 29.97.

   • Click the Field Type list box, and choose Progressive.

   • Click the Aspect: list box and choose Square Pixels (1.0).

   

8. Click the twirl-down triangle next to Advanced Settings (if necessary) to reveal those controls. Make sure that all the check boxes are deselected.
9. Click the twirl-down triangle next to Bitrate Settings (if necessary) to reveal that control. Select the “Limit data rate to” check box and insert 1000 into the text field.
10. Click the Audio tab to open those controls. In the Audio Codec list box, choose AAC, and conform the other settings to those shown in the next figure.

    

11. Click OK to close the Export Settings dialog, and the Choose Name dialog opens. Insert the title H.264 640×360 1000 kbps preset into the name field, and click OK to close the dialog.

    

12. Back in the Share workspace, note that Premiere Elements inserted the preset that you just created into the Presets list box. The next time you click that list box, the new preset will be available with the other custom presets.

    

13. If desired, select the Share WorkArea Bar Only check box.
14. To start exporting your movie, click Save.

    Premiere Elements begins rendering the video and displays a progress bar in Share view and an estimated time to complete each phase of the rendering process. Click Cancel at any time to stop the exporting process. Otherwise, you’ll see a Save Complete! message in Share view when the rendering is complete.

15. Click Done to return to the main Share workspace.

Exporting to Mobile Phones and Players

Premiere Elements also includes an option for producing files for mobile phones and players, such as the Apple iPod or iPhone, the Creative Zen, and the Microsoft Zune. Note that most of these devices have very specific and inflexible file and format requirements, so you shouldn’t change any parameters in the Export Settings window, because you may produce a file that’s unplayable on the target device.

In this exercise, you’ll learn how to create a file for the iPod; if you’re producing a file for a different device, just choose that device and preset in the appropriate steps.

1. In Share view, click the Mobile Phones and Players button ().
2. In the list at the top of Share view, choose Apple iPod and iPhone.
3. In the Presets list box, choose iPod and iPhone – High Quality to produce a high-quality file compatible with iPods, iPhones, the iPod touch, the iPad, and similar, newer portable media players, keeping in mind that this file won’t play on some older portable players. Choose iPod and iPhone – Medium Quality for a lower-quality file that should be playable on all iPods and iPhones, past and present, the iPad, as well as many other portable media players. For the purposes of this exercise, choose iPod and iPhone – High Quality.

   

4. Next to File Name, enter Lesson12_iPod, and then click Browse to select your Lesson12 folder as the Save in folder.
5. If desired, select the Share WorkArea Bar Only check box.
6. To start exporting your movie, click Save.

   Premiere Elements starts rendering the video and displays a progress bar in Share view and an estimated time to complete each phase of the rendering process. Click Cancel at any time to stop the exporting process. Otherwise, you will see a Save Complete! message in Share view when the rendering is complete.

7. Click Done to return to the Share workspace.

After producing the file, transfer it to your device in the appropriate manner. For example, use iTunes to upload the file to your iPod or iPhone.

Preparing to Export to Tape

If you shoot either DV or HDV video, you should consider archiving your edited project back to back to DV/HDV tape, providing an inexpensive but high-quality backup copy of your project. This exercise and the next will show you how. If you have access to a DV camera, you may want to use it for this exercise. We’ll proceed as if a DV camera is connected to your system, but if not, follow along with the exercise anyway.

To begin, connect your DV camera to your personal computer, turn it on, and then open Premiere Elements. In most cases, if Premiere Elements is already open, it will recognize a DV camera when it is attached and turned on; however, I’ve found this happens more reliably if the DV camera is connected first and turned on prior to launching Premiere Elements.

When you’re writing videos to tape, it’s good practice to add some extra video to the start of the project to prevent your recording device from accidentally cutting off the first few seconds of your project. In this regard, Premiere Elements lets you create either a five-second black video file or a universal counting leader, which looks like the countdown video that preceded older movies you may have viewed in the theater. In this exercise, you’ll add a universal counting leader to your project before writing it to tape.

1. Connect your DV camera to your computer. For help, refer to your owner’s manual or the diagram located in the section “Connecting Your Device” in Lesson 3.
2. Turn on your DV device and switch it to the VTR (or VCR) mode. If a Digital Video Device dialog appears, click the Cancel button to close it.
3. Start Premiere Elements and open the project file Lesson12_Start.prel in the Lesson12 folder. If a dialog appears asking for the location of rendered files, click the Skip Previews button.
4. In the Timeline of the My Project panel, press Home to move the current-time indicator to the start of the project.
5. In the upper-right corner of Project view, click the New Item button (), and then choose Universal Counting Leader from the menu that appears.

   

6. Premiere Elements opens the Universal Counting Leader Setup dialog. Leave all items at their default settings, and click OK to close the dialog.

   

   A new item called Universal Counting Leader appears in your Media panel, and Premiere Elements adds it to your Timeline after the first scene.

7. In the Timeline, drag the newly added Universal Counting Leader to the beginning of the movie, waiting for about two seconds for the Lesson12_Movie.mov clip to shift to the right before releasing the pointer. Premiere Elements moves the Universal Counting Leader to the beginning of the movie and shifts the Lesson12_Movie file to the right.
8. Choose File > Save As. Rename this file Lesson12_DV.prel.

   

Exporting to Tape

Let’s write the project to DV tape. If you connected an analog device such as a VCR to your DV camcorder, you can follow these steps as well to dub the video through your DV camcorder to the VCR.

1. Make sure your DV camcorder is turned on and in VTR (or VCR or Play) mode, and that you have enough blank tape to record your project.

   When writing video to tape, Premiere Elements records only the video within the work area, not the entire project. So before starting, make sure that the work area includes the entire project.

2. In the Timeline of the My Project panel, press the Backslash key () on your keyboard to display the entire project.
3. Double-click the work area bar beneath the time ruler to make sure it extends to the end of the project.

   

4. Select the Share tab in the Tasks panel, and then click the Tape button () at the bottom of Share view.

   If your recording device is properly connected to your computer, the Export to Tape dialog opens.

   

5. If you’re recording to a DV device, make sure the Activate Recording Device check box under Device Control is selected. This ensures that Premiere Elements can communicate with the device.

   Note

   If you’re recording to a DV device and Device Control is unavailable, click Cancel, choose Edit > Preferences > Device Control, make sure that your device is set up properly in the Device Control options, and then try recording to tape again.

6. If you’re using a DV device, click the Record button. After rendering project components as necessary, your DV device will begin to record as Premiere Elements begins to play the Timeline from the beginning. If you are recording with an analog device, you must manually press the Record button on your device when Premiere Elements starts playing the Timeline.
7. When the end of the project has been reached, the recording will stop automatically if you are using a DV device. If you’re recording to an analog device, you must manually press its Stop button to stop recording.
8. Click the Cancel button to close the Export to Tape dialog.

Exporting a Frame of Video as a Still Image

Occasionally, you may want to grab frames from your video footage to email to friends and family, include in a slide show, or use for other purposes. In this exercise, you’ll learn to export and save a frame from the project. To perform this exercise, reload Lesson12_Start_Win.prel (Windows) or Lesson12_Start_Mac.prel (Mac OS) as detailed in the “Getting Started” section near the start of this chapter.

1. In the Timeline, drag the current-time indicator to timecode 00;01;18;28, or click the current timecode box at the lower left of the Monitor panel, type in 11828, and press Enter.
2. Click the Freeze Frame button () in the lower-right corner of the Monitor panel. You might have to enlarge the Monitor panel to see the Freeze Frame button. Premiere Elements opens the Freeze Frame dialog.

   

3. In the Freeze Frame dialog, click Export to create a separate still image or Insert in Movie to insert the frame into the movie. You can also select the check box to edit the captured frame in Adobe Photoshop Elements if you choose the Import in Movie option.
4. In the Export Frame dialog, locate the Lesson12 folder and name your file Walking_off.bmp. Click Save to save the still image onto your hard disk. Then click Cancel to close the Freeze Frame dialog.

   Tip

   You can also export Audio only from the Personal Computer output group.

   

   Tip

   The snapshot export function is very quick and easy but outputs only BMP files at the resolution of your current project. For more control over export size and formats, click Share, then Computer, and choose Image, which exposes multiple presets that you can customize by clicking the Advanced button.

   

Review questions

1. What’s the best format to use for creating files to view on Windows computers or to share with other viewers with Windows computers?

2. Why shouldn’t you change any encoding parameters for files produced for iPods or other devices?

3. Why should you add a universal counting leader to the beginning of a file before writing it to DV or analog tape?

4. What’s the easiest way to write a project to an analog tape format such as VHS?

5. What’s the easiest way to upload your movie to a website such as YouTube or Photoshop.com?

Review answers

1. Windows Media is the best format for Windows because it combines small file size with high quality. Although virtually all computers can play MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 files, the files are usually too large for easy transport. QuickTime files may pose a problem because not all Windows computers support QuickTime, and Adobe Flash Video files with an FLV extension require a stand-alone player, which not all computers have installed.

2. Devices have very specific playback requirements, and if you change a file parameter and deviate from these requirements, the file may not load or play on the target device.

3. You should add a Universal Counting Leader or simply a black video file to the start of a project before writing it to tape to prevent the recording device from cutting off the initial frames of the video file.

4. Connect a VHS recorder to your DV camcorder via composite or S-Video connectors plus audio while writing your project to DV tape. Most DV camcorders will display the recorded signal out the analog ports while recording, which you can record on the VHS deck by clicking the Record button on the deck.

5. Switch to Share view, and then click the Online button. Choose YouTube or My Website, and then follow the instructions in Share view to render and upload your movie.