Livelyblog

This blog site uses a video embedding tool called Anarchy Media Player to embed videos into blogs. The ways to do it is easy, depending on the video..

Video files from other (video) sites

Click the Anarchy Media Player Icon - it’s the yellow icon with a A on it at the top right on the iconrows in the editor. Paste in a direct link to a video site such as Google Video, Youtube, Revver, Metacafe, etc and the video will be embedded in your blog.

This has one major drawback: If you, or someone else, uploads a video to Youtube and they remove it then it’s also removed from your blog. If the video is not subject to Copyright then the better way to share videos from such sites is to download it and then upload it to your blog.

Video files you’ve made and want to share in your blog

Upload the video file and insert it into your blog as a link. The media player will convert any video link (in the editor) into a video player (in the blog). Files who are not images will give you a window in the “Upload” dialog under the editor with the filename and the choices Link to File, Page or None and Send to editor. Sending a video file to the editor with Link to: File will create a link that’s automatically turned into a video player when the link appears in your blog.

The problem with this story is that there is a good chance your video will not appear in your blog even though it does so in your blog.

The reason for this is that embedding videos in web pages in general requires the visitor to have a plug-in installed.

You can upload any .avi or .mpeg video file and it will play in most browsers, but not all - only those who support these video formats as embedded video files.

The most common video plug-in today is actually the Flash plugin. It is more common to have this installed than a video plugin for .avi and .mpg files. So flash is a good choice. The flash video format is falled .flv (Flash Video).

If a .flv file is uploaded and put as a link in the blog then it is automatically turned into a flash video player (.swf) which plays that .flv file. If the user has flash enabled then your video is played.

Note that this site does not automatically convert other video files into .flv like dedicated sites such as YouTube do. You have to convert your video files to .flv if you want it to appear as a flash-player in your blog (you can upload .avi and .mpeg files too, but as said, a plugin for these fileformats is less common than the flash plugin).

Here’s how to convert any video file to .flv:

If you’re using Windows then you can use the free converter Rivavx. It’s freeware, so it doesn’t cost anything, and it does a great job at converting video formats into .flv files which can then be uploaded into your videoblog. There is also Total Video Converter and Super - these are also freeware. And then there is “Video to Flash Converter” - but that one is not free.

If you are using Linux then you can use ffmpeg to encode video. It’s actually really simple to do:

ffmpeg -i video.avi flashvideofile.flv

Then simply upload your .flv file, insert is as a link to the file in your blog, press “Save and Continiue Editing” to see how it looks in your blog and that’s it. Press “Publish” and now you’ve got a video file in your blog.

Here’s an example (this is a .flv file):

bush_sr_new_world_order_speech_rare.flv