Motion @ Workbook Quick-Start Guide
Below is a quick primer on how add motion video clips to your Workbook Portfolio, and how they will be displayed on the Workbook.com Web site.
Specifications
Currently accepted file formats include AVI, WMV, and MOV. More will be added soon.
The video player max size is 720px by 473px. Videos larger than this will be scaled down proportionally to fit. Smaller videos will be displayed at their existing size. We encourage you to size your videos before uploading.
Uploading Video
Video clips are uploaded exactly like still images, using the Upload Screen in the Portfolio Manager.
On the Upload Screen, just browse your system to your video files. You can select multiple videos to upload simultaneously.
If you are using a Windows machine, be sure to select "Video Files" from the pop-up.
A progress bar will show you the status of the upload. Do not close your browser window; it will terminate active uploads.
When your upload(s) finish, you will see thumbnails for your videos in your Library. Initially they will display with a generic "processing" thumb, but will switch to the real video's thumb when the encoding completes. This process can take a few minutes; larger videos will take longer to process. You must refresh the library page to see the updated thumbs.
If there is an error while encoding the video, you will see an error thumb. These thumbs should be deleted and a new upload should be started.
Managing Clips
Once the videos have been loaded into your Library, you can move them around and add them to your keyword galleries, just as you do with still images.
We did not add specific "motion", "animation", or "video" specialties to the site. Instead, we encourage you to intersperse your motion clips amongst your still shots.
In order to showcase all your motion clips, we created an automatic "Motion" gallery that will host all your videos. You don't have to do anything to activate this gallery, it will appear automatically whenever your portfolio is viewed. Please note that only videos placed in your other published galleries will appear in the Motion gallery.
Presentation of Motion on Workbook.com
When Web site visitors use Workbook.com, they can access video several ways. Besides promotion that we will do in various locations on the site, "Motion" has been added to the photography & illustration portfolio search forms. This allows the user to specify that they are specifically interested in motion, and want to filter their results to portfolios that contain motion. This filter can be combined with specialties to further refine the search.
The resulting thumbnails will indicate that the portfolio contains motion by including the "motion" label and filmstrip icon under the thumbnail, and if the master image for the resulting portfolio is a video clip, the play button is displayed prominently on the thumb.
Opening the portfolio by clicking the thumb or "view portfolio" link will spawn the portfolio viewer with the master image/video displayed.
If the user opens the portfolio by clicking the "motion" link, the portfolio viewer will spawn with the Motion gallery displayed, showing all videos in the portfolio.
Feedback
We encourage your feedback about this new addition to the site. If you have problems, need assistance, or would like to offer suggestions, please give us a call at 800.547.2688 or email feedback@workbook.com.