Do you have photos and videos from this past Halloween?
Good news for you! Shutterfly is running a special Halloween promo and all you have to do is create a Share site and/or post a video to a Share site.
What's in it for you? Get up to 60 free 4x6 prints.
This offer ends on November 8th though, so hurry on over and upload a video! Learn more here.
Motionbox is now sponsoring How Did You Know, MentalFloss.com's monthly 5-day trivia hunt!
What does this mean? Each month, we'll be giving out some pretty awesome prizes to the winners of How Did You Know on MentalFloss.com. Prizes include free 1-year Motionbox Premium memberships and Vado 8GB HD video cameras! There are great benefits to both prizes, including being able to shoot and share your personal video with your friends and family for free.
We're currently already on Day 3 of this month's trivia hunt, so hurry on over!
Saturday, October 17th has been declared Home Movie Day! We know how talented many of our members are and have surely seen some wonderful home movies from all over the world on Motionbox. This is a great time to share and showcase your family or amateur videos with other home movie enthusiasts!
For more information on Home Movie Day, click here. There are venues all over the world for folks to showcase their own videos. And if you're unable to attend an actual Home Movie Day event, be sure to participate on Motionbox by sending us a link to your video so we can showcase it on the blog.
On a side note, you might also be interested in learning how to preserve your older home movies that are on reels or VHS tapes. If you transfer these films to DVD, you can easily upload them to Motionbox and share them on the web. It's convenient to have your video online so you can easily access and play it back at any time.
If anyone goes to one of these events, we'd love to hear from you. Otherwise, we can't wait to showcase your favorite home movie on our blog!
If you're like most people, you're extra careful with your video camera at the beach, pool, or any other place where there's water. Sometimes, you don't even take your camera with you, knowing that you'll barely get to use it. And then those fun, summer-time, personal memories are never documented.
Check out this New York Time's article on waterproof video cameras that you can use no matter where you are: Cameras That Swim With the Fishes. This article's a bit older but definitely still helpful for anyone searching for camera to use in water.
If you end up buying one or if you already have any videos that you've taken under water, share them with us!
As you may know, Motionbox now powers video for Shutterfly Share sites, which are secure, personal web pages you can create and customize to share with friends and family. Create a Share Site now on Shutterfly.com and get 30 4x6 prints, for free!
Check out Shutterfly for more information and an amazing summer sweepstakes. You could win a grand prize of airfare and 7 nights in the Caribbeans for 4!
Motionbox now has an official (new) page on Facebook, so check us out!
The fans we have on there right now are feeling kind of lonely, so help spread the word and become a fan of Motionbox on Facebook today! Here's an easy way to do it too - you won't even need to go on Facebook, just click the "Become a Fan" button below.
Thanks for your support, folks!
If your Dad is anything like mine, he's probably the hardest person in the world to shop for. So this Father's Day, keep it simple - say it with video! I guarantee one of these inexpensive, easy ideas will bring a huge smile to your Dad's face.
Send a video card
What does Dad want more than to see your face? Nothing! So set up the camera, record your personal Father's Day card, upload it to Motionbox, and off it goes! You could go the funny route, or the serious...either way, he's going to love it.
Read the rest of this entry »
We all know we need to sometimes get creative in order to make the most of those video cameras we have. I've been looking at CNET's "Do-It-Yourself Home Video Projects" and thought they had some great ideas, so I'll be sharing a few here and there with you.
Here's one idea: Take your camera to a party.
We normally don't like to do this - you want people to relax and have a good time and you don't want a boring video either, right? But, with a little purpose and creativity, a video camera can actually make a party a whole lot more fun.
We don't like to toot our own horn, but we have no problem sharing what our members have to say about us!
Check out this blog post to see what makes Scott love Motionbox.
You have a video camera. It's sitting on that shelf right over there, but you suddenly realize, you barely use it. You were so excited when you first bought it and couldn't wait to use it. But now, unfortunately, you have no idea when to make use of it.
Don't worry, the good news is that this happens to almost everybody (so...don't be too hard on yourself). We all pay big bucks to get that camera or camcorder we're so excited about, and then we barely make any use of it.
Well, this is where I thought we could help. Sometimes all we really need is a bit of creativity and inspiration. Once you read about different ways you can use your camera, hopefully your creative juices will start flowing again. Every so often, I'll post a different idea for what you can do with your camera and the steps you need to take to make an interesting and fun video. How's that sound? If you have any requests, leave a comment and let us know, otherwise, just stay tuned!
You may have heard of a little thing called "the inauguration of Barack Obama?" Maybe you also heard that MILLIONS of people descended on our national's capital last week to take part in the historic day. Well, one of those people was our very own Michele G., who braved the freezing temperatures and large crowds to bring us this glimpse of what it was like to be there:
When asked what it was like to be there for the big day, Michele said "It was pretty amazing. There was something in the air...you can get a part of it from the video, but not all of it. There was a general feeling of excitement and anticipation, like things were going to get better. People felt unified...that was unforgettable."
Michele took this video for us, and also brought us back awesome Obama posters and buttons. Thanks Michele!
One of my favorite things to do on our new blog here is to watch video! Go figure, right? But more specifically, I like to watch YOUR video. I love to see what our members are doing and taping, whether it's your adorable kid, your crazy cat, or just some beautiful footage. So I hereby call on you (yes YOU) to send me your favorite video of the moment. I don't care what it is, I want to see it! I also want to feature it right here on our blog, so make sure it's something you don't mind sharing.
If you're game, here's what you do: Email support@motionbox.com with a link to your favorite video, and a description I can post along with it. It can be a straight-forward description, or a story about how it came to be, whatever you want! I just want to hear from you!
And to get things rolling, here's a video of my own. It's from my honeymoon in the French Polynesian island of Moorea. It's quite literally just me filming from the passenger seat while we drive around. I picked it because I don't say anything in it (which is good for you guys, trust me), and it's kind of mesmerizing. Also, please note that I used a point and shoot photo camera for this, so the footage is NOT HD. But enjoy!
Motionbox user ceonyc had a fun idea: he asked a bunch of people to share their 7-second predictions of 2009, all on video. Once he received them, he uploaded all 23 prediction videos onto Motionbox and used our Mixer to trim each video and combine them all into one neat video.
"Motionbox [was] the *only* video site I could find that would not only take all of the various video formats that were posted, but also allow easy trimming and splicing..."
-User ceonyc, on his blog
We're thrilled the video turned out as great as it did. Most of the work our team does to support so many different formats and codecs on Motionbox is usually invisible to users, because if you're like most people, you have one video camera and generally upload the same video format to Motionbox. This project really shows the variety of formats and codecs we support on Motionbox - all 23 videos made from various cameras uploaded and processed without a problem. We thought the end result turned out fantastic, thanks to ceonyc's creativity!
Make sure to check out his blog and watch the video below!
Hey Folks,
Some of you may know me, but let me formally introduce myself. I'm Mona - you've probably heard from me if you've ever written to the Motionbox support team or if you've been reading our blog for a while. My husband and I just returned a week ago from a late honeymoon to Spain. We bought a new HD video camera right before going and I have *tons* of video from our trip that I'm currently uploading to Motionbox. This is my first, personal HD video camera and so I didn't leave our hotel without it! It was awesome being able to get so many beautiful, historic sights on video and with such great quality too!
For now, while I'm still sorting through all my videos, I wanted to share one video that probably tells you a thing or two about me. I'm a huge cat lover, and the good news is that Spain has plenty of them. There were cats everywhere and I'd often get distracted from the sights by following them around with my video camera! Here's a video I found amusing. We had just left the grounds of the beautiful Alhambra in Granada, when we noticed a few cats hanging around some tourists. A couple took out some food from their bag (chocolate I think?), and well....you'll see the rest. Enjoy!
What can I say? We're excitable people here at Motionbox. And we were thrilled to get our Cynopsis yesterday and find that we were listed as the website of the day!
Cynthia's Cynopsis, a daily trade publication for the media industry, says:
"If you got an HD camcorder for Christmas check out Motionbox.com. It offers a free platform with which to upload, share and store your HD footage then further distribute it on the web. One cool feature allows you to highlight specific segments of videos then share only the best bits. Online apps allow you to create video e-cards, embeddable videos or even hard copy DVDs or flipbooks you can ship to that family member who is still not online. It's extremely easy to use and - best of all - there are currently no limits on how much you can upload."
Thanks Cyn!
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