Setting Video Start Image @ YouTube, etc.

Soniclight wrote on 9/28/2010, 1:31 PM
It's been a while since I've uploaded anything to YouTube and so perhaps things have changed. But one of the things that irritated me is that YT chose--seemingly totally at random--the frame* with which to represent the video before one clicks play (*I don't the technical term for this, I'd like to know).

This actually pushed me to add a few seconds of intro footage just to get a decent still representation of the video. Irritating.

Truth is I don't care for YouTube overall and would prefer using Vimeo and such. But sites like Facebook and many others only let you use YouTube code when adding a video to one's Wall, etc.

Any suggestions on the in-Vegas and/or other workarounds for YouTube and/or ? would be most welcomed.

~ Philip

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 9/28/2010, 1:49 PM
If you'll go to your editing page youtube gives you three choices as your thumbnail image - that's as good as it gets.
Soniclight wrote on 9/28/2010, 2:07 PM
Indeed, as far as YT is concerned, there isn't really a workaround as far as I can see for it only gives you 3 frames to choose, and now even the thumbnails. At page below it explains how it does and even how to find out/calculate ahead of time which three would show up at choices.

But it's still irritating -- I want to choose the frame or even created a still image as I do when hosting at my own site :)

Can I Select Any of The 3 Thumbnails for My Video?
(NOTE: It's a few sections down the page)
richard-amirault wrote on 9/28/2010, 2:41 PM
That's old info. YouTube no longer uses that formula to pick thumbnails.
Soniclight wrote on 9/28/2010, 9:56 PM
"That's old info. YouTube no longer uses that formula to pick thumbnails. "

I didn't see any date on the tips, so I don't know but will take your word for it.

Anyway, I took the plunge and uploaded to YT anyway and selected one of the 3 place holder frames, and this time it wasn't too bad. The only thing is that I had put a pause-annotation at the beginning so people watch it in 480p -- it looks like fuzzy crap in default 360p.