Video Support in Shozam!

We are planning to include three ways to display video in Shozam! galleries.

1) Import Windows Media files (video will not show when previewing gallery locally, and uploaded video may not play reliably for some viewers);

2) Import Flash video files (requires conversion of your video to Flash video using a third party utility or Web service); and

3) Import video widget (video needs to be uploaded to YouTube, or a similar services. These services convert your videos into the best Web-friendly format, and host the video for you. They provide you with a code snippet (video widget) such that your video will play on your Shozam! gallery page).

In the current Beta version:

- Windows Media video is not fully implemented
- Flash video cannot be imported directly
- Importing video widget works great, and is the recommended way to best display your videos for now  

11 Responses to “Shozam! Beta tip”

1. Ted Diebold Says:
   February 7th, 2007 at 7:46 am

   I realy like the the help files that are now included. Allowed me to add gps co-ordinents for picture locations. Would be nice to be able to add signature to copywrite symbol.

2. admin Says:
   February 7th, 2007 at 2:29 pm

   Ted, you should be able to add your signature by scanning/creating (in an image editing program) a GIF with your signature on a transparent background. Then use the “custom graphic” watermark option to import the signature image.

3. Ted Diebold Says:
   February 8th, 2007 at 1:08 pm

   When I use the custom graphics option I loose the ability to sho the copyrite symbol and it doesn’t show the signature either. It does however create a strange rectangle on the picture. I have 2 screen captures but because I can’t include them here I will email them to Kelly Ford.

4. Robert LeGrand Says:
   February 9th, 2007 at 4:39 am

   Couple Questions:

   1. I am testing this software - looks cool - I was trying to import over 300 photos and got a error message. Do I post the error here?

   2. What about password protecting a photo album?

   3. Anyway to place no right click code on the entire album or pages?

   4. How about placement of a watermark on the photo? I.E. your signature

   Thanks

5. Brooks Clayton Says:
   February 9th, 2007 at 11:00 am

   When in Slideshow view, the counter at the top stops at 099. For instance in a show with 347 images, the counter stops at 099/347. The images continue, just not the counter.

6. Shozam! Team Says:
   February 9th, 2007 at 12:29 pm

   Robert, you can post here unexpected behaviors and please provide details such that the error can be replicated. We don’t collect yet error report text files generate by the program.

   2. I have updated the FAQs to address your question:
   http://www.help.shozam.com/default.aspx?page=FAQs2.aspx

   3.& 4. I have updated the help files to better explain image protection options:
   http://www.help.shozam.com/default.aspx?page=5Gallery-Protect.aspx

7. Shozam! Team Says:
   February 9th, 2007 at 12:42 pm

   Ted, you can choose one (and only one) of the three watermark options(copyright symbol, text or custom graphic). The feature is not yet working right in all situations. I expect this to be fixed in the next drop, to occur mid next week.

8. Howard Rachlin Says:
   February 12th, 2007 at 7:26 pm  

   I’d like to suggest a feature I think would really be outstanding. Instead of clicking on the thumbnails to display the image on the left, how about it showing when the cursor rolls over the thumbnail?

9. Shozam! Team Says:
   February 13th, 2007 at 4:44 pm

   Howard, we have evaluated this feature early on and was nixed. For this feature to work, the all the large images need to be per-loaded, so the user does not have to wait when hovering over the thumbnail. this makes it workable for very limited albums, of 6-9 images. Large galleries with many thumbnails shown at once, would need to pre-load too many large images for this feature to work. We have opted for a slightly different kind of pre-load; caching the “next” image. This allows for fast navigation from one image to another if viewing images in order and places less stress and bandwidth requirements on your server or Internet connection.

10. Nigel Williams Says:
    February 14th, 2007 at 4:57 pm

    I have just been testing the cart function as this is key to me. One thing that I have noticed which seems to be the same on a lot of cart software, is issues with the way shipping charges are calculated. The way this works currently is that the 1st item is always charged at the “Shipping” cost and the 2nd of the same item at the “Add’l Shipping”. As with photo’s somone would generally purchase 1 each of 2 or 3 items the product currently charges the “Shipping” 3 times. As photo’s are very light it would be greate to have an option to charge “Shipping” once and then no matter which photo was chosen next only the “Add’l Shipping” be charged. I hope this makes sense to you, it’s just you need the initial larger value to cover 1 item say 9.99, but sending 2 or 3 photo’s together is never 29.97 (well here in the UK anyway)

    Kind Regards

    Nigel….

11. Shozam! Team Says:
    February 15th, 2007 at 7:05 pm

    Nigel, the current thinking is to do without the shipping related optional fields in Shozam! and allow the user to control shipping charges from their main PayPal account setup.

    PayPal used to provide shipping calculations embedded in the BuyNow button (the way Shozam! does it now). However, PayPal has moved away from this model and now provides more solid shipping pricing logic in the PayPal account control panel. The two methods are not identical in the way shipping charges are set but it seems like a good idea to support PayPal’s current “best practices”.

    So the plan is to remove the shipping calculations from the buttons and let users set their shipping pricing logic in their PayPal account.

    I suggest you do not use the optional shipping fields that are still in the current Beta version and see if you can get what you need by making changes to the shipping calculations in your PayPal account control panel.