How to Prepare Video Files for Upload

Nikkei Album currently accepts video files up to 10MB each in the following three formats:

• MP4
• Ogg/Theora
• WebM

If your video(s) are in one of these formats, you can ignore the rest of this page and start your Album or upload your Item.

If not, then you will need to convert your video(s) before uploading to the Nikkei Album.

Converting Video Files

There are many programs available for converting your video files. We recommend Miro Video Converter as a simple, free, and open source video conversion tool. It is available for Mac OS X or Windows, and supports all the video formats supported by Nikkei Album.

The program specifically only converts video files and is very easy to use.

It can convert almost any video file, including DV video produced by consumer-level camcorders. It produces reasonable quality output from most videos.

To start, go to: http://www.mirovideoconverter.com/

Download the Miro Video Converter and open the application on your computer.

Miro Video Converter main screen

Click “Choose file” and select the video file you want to convert.

Miro Video Converter after choosing a file

The “Pick a Device or Video Format” dropdown menu lists a variety of devices and formats. DiscoverNikkei.org supports the following three formats:

1. MP4
2. Theora
3. WebM

Choose one of these three file types (you only need to upload one version of the file; it does not matter which type of file you choose). The most common format is MP4.

MP4

Note: Miro Video Converter offers a straight MP4 converter, but this results in a larger video file. Please use the smaller “iPhone” format when uploading to DiscoverNikkei.org. You can select this option even if you do not own an iPhone.

Convert your MP4 video by selecting “iPhone” from the Devices and Formats list.

Miro Video Encoder: choosing iPhone-compatible output format (select "iPhone", not "iPhone 4")

Press the “Convert” button and wait. The converted file will be named SOURCENAME.iphone.mp4 and will be saved in the same directory as your original video.

Miro Video Converter: H.264 encoding progress

When the encoding is complete, you will be returned to the main screen.

Theora

Encode your Theora video by selecting “Theora” from the Devices and Formats list.

Miro Video Encoder: choosing Theora output format

Press the “Convert” button again to encode your Theora video. The converted video will be named SOURCEFILE.theora.ogv and will be saved in the same directory as the source video.

Miro Video Encoder: Theora encoding progress

When the encoding is complete, you will be returned to the main screen.

WebM

Encode your WebM video by selecting “WebM (vp8)” from the Devices and Formats list.

Miro Video Converter: choosing WebM output format

Click the “Convert” button and Miro Video Converter will immediately start encoding your video. The converted file will be named SOURCEFILE.webm and will be saved in the same directory as the source video file.

Miro Video Converter: WebM encoding progress

When the encoding is complete, you will be returned to the main screen.

Note: These instructions were adapted from portions of Chapter 5 of Dive Into HTML5, by Mark Pilgrim (Copyright 2009-2010 Mark Pilgrim, CC-BY-3.0).