Forget Skype and FaceTime, and welcome a new
way to send video email to others.
FaceTime and Skype keep you in touch with
your family, friends and colleagues. However, video-call isn’t always available
for everyone. Many people don’t still have integrated camera and even some of
them don’t want to. In these cases, you must consider sending a video message to
your beloved people – you will see a 30-second video can deliver far more emotion
than any texts.
The following steps are carried out in
condition that you are running OX S Lion, with one installed FaceTime or iSight
camera. (The process is the same as one on Snow Leopard, though it provides
less options and particular menus would be different). Video files created are H.264-formatted
and designated to be opened on any Mac, iPhone and iPad as well as most PCs.
Video
message via mail gets easy.
Step 1: Record message
Open Quick Time Player then select File
> New Movie Recording. One window will pop up and dominate most of the
display. In this window, you will see a floating panel whose record button
stays in the center.
On the right of this button, one small
triangle indicating a menu appears. Pressing the triangle enables you to choose
another camera and microphone (in case you have more than one
camera/microphone), as well as movie’s quality. Select Medium for quality and
the recording window will decrease from 1280x1024pixel size to 640x480 pixel
one. This keeps your video files under control.
Now, let’s drag the recording window below
iSight or FaceTime camera (let’s find a green light on top of the screen). It’s
probable to look into the camera during recording process and if you put the
recording window next to the camera, you will feel being talking directly with
the audience.
When getting ready, click Record button to
start. Don’t worry much about the awkward moment you may encounter in the
beginning and the end of your clip – you will adjust and give better
performance further.
Try keeping your message’s duration from 20
seconds to 40 seconds. The longer you record, the bigger your file is and the
more problems will occur during compressing and sending email. When finishing, click
the Record button again.
Step 2: Summarize message
Once you finish recording, you can use Trim
command of QuickTime Player to summarize your clip, just trim any unnecessary
embarrassing moment in the beginning as well as the end. Choose Edit > Trim
then a trimming bar (which temporarily replaces recording/playback panel) will
pop up and give an overview of your clip.
Just hold sideways yellow tabs and drag
them inside, place them at points where you can to start and end you movie. You
can also preview you trimmed movie by pressing play button (on the left). Once
you are satisfied with changes, confirm them by clicking Trim button (on the
right).
Step 3: Compress and send
Now your movie has been trimmed, you are
able to compress, prepare and send it via Apple’s Mail app. There are two ways
to do this, and the best option belongs to your video’s length. Your goal is to
keep file’s size under 10MB. Otherwise, you may bother your friends and family with
sending an enclosed file that is too big and time-consuming for downloading.
The first method is to use Export feature
to export file directly to QuickTime Player’s Mail. While this method works
well in Lion, Snow Leopard doesn’t have this option.
In Lion, choose Share > Mail. One dialog
box for export will get into your sight and prompt you to select exported size.
Click 480p to limit transfer rate at 2Mbps then click Share. Within several minutes,
Mail will automatically open a window to browse where you would like to store
your done movie.
Input address, topic and maybe a short
message then click Send. (If you are worried about the too big file size, just
click Command key and select View As Icon. After then, you will see sizes of
files on the right of their names).
The second option is for longer message and
best compatible with Snow Leopard. Choose File > Export For Web in Lion (Save
For Web in Snow Leopard). Give an appropriate name for the movie then save it
into desktop, click Export in Lion (Save in Snow Leopard). Now, identify the
folder (on your desktop) which has the movie’s name. Inside, you will see one
folder called Resources containing some M4V files which, for Lion, are
Broadband, Wi-Fi and Cellular when Snow Leopard only provides options for
Computer and iPhone.
In List View, you will spot each file’s
size. Wi-Fi option commonly provides the best compromise between quality and
size for each file thus let’s drag that movie file into Mail’s icon (in Snow
Leopard, choose iPhone). This would popup a new dialog box containing video,
input address and topic, compose a short message and click Send.
Setting
for bandwidth: The small right triangle pop up a menu allowing you to adjust movie’s
quality.
