The video-sharing phenomenon, YouTube, has made its mark on computer screens around the world. Now everyday people are getting in on the filmmaking action posting videos of varying quality. A random look at a recent day’s most-viewed videos on YouTube includes topics ranging from “A Sloppy Drunk” and “A Guy Goes Shopping with a Stocking on His Head” to “Healthy, Quick, and Easy Recipes” and “An Interview with Bruce Willis”. 

Whether users are after their fifteen minutes of fame or are using the site to share videos with family and friends, YouTube does have a variety of uses that go beyond mere entertainment. For example, one often overlooked use of YouTube is in conjunction with eBay or other online marketplaces.

For example, if you are selling an item online such as a car, RV, or boat, consider posting a video of it on YouTube and providing a link in your online description. This gives buyers the opportunity to fall in love with your item by seeing it in much greater detail than mere photos can provide.

Another YouTube use is for sharing videos of the family with grandparents. This offers immediate gratification of seeing the little ones in action without the need for shipping off tapes or DVDs. You can even make your videos private by going into the My Videos section and choosing the Edit Video Info button. Simply find the broadcast section and click the option that says Private.

Use YouTube when planning a family reunion. Ask family members from around the globe to post short videos showing a little bit about their lifestyle before the reunion. This allows everyone to get reacquainted beforehand and makes a terrific icebreaker. It also allows family members to show off their homes and hobbies as well as reveal a little about themselves that otherwise might not get shared.

Get creative and dream up new uses for video-sharing on YouTube. You too can YouTube.

When shopping for your wedding videographer, you’ll be faced with a variety of packages to choose from including the basic single camera shoot to elaborate choices featuring extensive editing and multiple cameras. One option that is well worth the extra money is the "Highlights" video.

As much as you and your guests enjoyed the day, how realistic is that anyone is going to sit through a two-hour video of your wedding? The two-hour version is for you, your future children, and posterity. A shorter version of the highlights is the one you’ll watch over and over with family and friends. In fact, you’ll likely enjoy this version even more than the longer one because it cuts to the chase and shows the main points.

Work with your videographer to discuss how much of the ceremony you want to include. You may want to choose one classical song and condense the seating of the important family members such as elderly grandparents. Instead of showing their entire slow approach, the editor can use techniques such as dissolves to condense this and show them as they approach the camera and take their seats. You may want to skip this altogether and begin with the procession, move quickly through to the vows and kiss, and then cover the reception highlights including the entrance, cake-cutting, toasts, first dance, and so on.

The key to making your wedding highlights video exactly what you want is communication with your videographer or the person who is going to edit the video. Ask to see a few samples of their previous highlight videos and select one whose style matches what you expect out of yours. Discuss music, length, whether you want certain readings or speeches included, and how much reception dancing footage to include and then back off and let the editor make your dreams come true.

What’s an ideal length to shoot for? It depends on how elaborate the wedding was to start with but an average target length should be between fifteen to twenty minutes. You want it to be short enough so that you will actually want to share it and your friends will actually want to watch it. Music sequences and good editing will keep it moving - both in pacing as well as emotionally.

Be sure to order multiple copies because this is the version you’ll want to send to family and friends who were not able to attend the wedding. Save the longer versions for immediate family and grandparents.

And now for an example of a great wedding video called the JK Wedding Entrance Dance. This shows how creativity and video can go hand in hand in making your day a lasting memory for video. Almost makes you wanna try it out!

Its the Great VideoCelt Contest!

VideoCelt.com is currently holding a contest in celebration of our newly released upgrades and enhancements to our site. Help celebrate with us by adding videos to our site and you can win prizes, cash and become famous. Well, maybe not famous - but atleast famous on VideoCelt.com!

The key to this contest is to suggest the most videos from now until November 30, 2009. The top prize is a $50 cash payment - now that will be help with Christmas just around the corner! Here is the full breakdown of all of the prizes available for this contest:

1) $50 + Premium Upgrade
2) $25 + Premium Upgrade
3) $10 + Premium Upgrade
4) Premium Upgrade
5) Premium Upgrade
6) Premium Upgrade
7) CD & Celtic Radio Bumper Sticker
8) CD & Celtic Radio Bumper Sticker
9) CD & Celtic Radio Bumper Sticker
10) CD & Celtic Radio Bumper Sticker 

The premium upgrade refers to a Celtic Radio Premium upgrade for 1 year which is a $20 value.

Rules of the Contest

- Videos must be approved to count.
- No amature "live" video recordings.
- Must be a video, not a slideshow or song.
- Cash prizes will be paid through paypal.
- Cash prize does not include paypal fee.
- Prizes must be claimed within 30 days.

Track the results here: http://www.videocelt.com/contest.php

Be sure to send this link on to all of your friends and family so we can make VideoCelt the #1 Celtic Video site!

To Suggest a Video, Visit this Link:

http://www.videocelt.com/suggest.html

Have fun and looking forward to all of the new videos!

It's pretty obvious that one of the reasons cell phone cameras are so popular is they're so convenient. Many people carry their phones everywhere. Few carry their cameras everywhere.

The same is true for video cameras. It's easy to shoot a quick video clip with your cell phone camera; it's not so easy to haul around tons of equipment.

But while cell phone camera technology is constantly improving, cell phone videos are often short, grainy and blurry, discouraging many people from using their "video" setting very often.

It doesn't have to be this way. Here are eight tips to shoot better cell phone videos.

Before you start shooting:

Make sure you're using the highest resolution.
Check your options or settings menu when you're in video camera mode. My Samsung Sync offers two choices: 176 pixels by 144 pixels, or 128 pixels by 96 pixels. Other phones give you a choice between 320-by-240, or 640-by-480. Pick the highest numbers your camera offers. Higher resolution videos eat up more memory, but it's worth it.

Make sure your phone is not set to end the clip automatically after a set period of time.
The Sync offers choices such as 10 seconds, 30 seconds or full memory. If your phone has a full memory option, or something that appears similar, pick that. It will keep the camera recording as long as you want or until the phone's memory fills up. You can always edit it down later.

Check the memory on your phone to make sure you have enough. If you need more, get more.
I had a Nokia 6102i that had a nice camera but had only a few megabytes of memory. I could only record a little more than a minute of video. Many newer phones today have much larger internal memory capacities and are expandable via MicroSD or other cards. If you're a serious cell phone video enthusiast, you can carry several cards and swap them out as needed. That means your phone memory is limited only by your budget and how many cards you can physically carry. If you're not sure whether your phone's memory is expandable, check your manual.

Make sure the lens area is clean.
It's easy to get a fingerprint smudge on the plastic in front of your camera phone lens. You don't want that showing up during your videos, so make sure you wipe the plastic area clean before you begin.

Once you're shooting:

Lighting, lighting, lighting.
It takes a lot of light to produce a good cell phone video picture. You'll find your best shots typically come outdoors on sunny days. Inside, you'll need well-lit rooms with lots of sunshine or bright lamps. It's possible to shoot at night or in dark rooms, but your videos will be much grainier and blurrier.

Get up close and personal with your subjects. Don't use the zoom.
Whether you end up watching your video on your phone or on a computer, the picture is going to be small. Try to avoid making the subjects inside the frame small as well. If you're shooting someone who is talking, hold the phone up fairly close to him or her. Your subject might think it's weird at first, but most people get used to it pretty quickly. The same goes for objects, like cars or buildings. Get up close and fill the frame with your subject. Try to avoid using the camera zoom lens; zooming is usually choppy on a camera phone.

Move the camera as little as possible. If you have to move it, do it slowly.
Once you've started shooting, keep the camera as still as possible to reduce blur. If you do need to pan or move around somehow, do it slowly to reduce blurriness and jerkiness (unless you're moving simply to line up another shot, and you plan on cutting out the movement later during the editing process; then, it doesn't really matter). To keep the camera steady while shooting, try resting your hand or elbow on a flat surface for stability, or leaning against a wall or doorway.

Most importantly, have fun.
Let's be honest. If you're using a cell phone to shoot a video, it's probably not something too terribly serious or important (although there are notable exceptions, such as a car accident or other disaster). So why not have fun? Don't worry too much about things turning out perfectly - it's a camera in a phone, after all. Just enjoy yourself and try your best to make a video that you and your friends will like to watch.

Hot off the video presses, this is our first VideoCelt news feature! We have just completed a major update to VideoCelt including a ton of new features, faster loading times and a news article manager.

Whether you are a faithful member of VideoCelt.com or if you just joined us last week, you are going to love some of the cool new toys on our total video site.

Our new video player can show videos in regular or HD formats, full screen or window mode and contains a high quality audio driver that increases the dynamic range and sound quality of every video submitted to our site.

The membership section and online profiles have also been expanded. Online avatars can now be uploaded, profiles contain a rich selection of member details and each member can save their favorite videos, comment on all videos and view the membership rooster.

Video submissions can now be submitted from over 32 video sources which means just about every major video site on the internet is now compatible with VideoCelt.com. This means members and musicians can suggest or link up their own video creativity to VideoCelt.com.

Along with a 70% speed improvement, new features and a ton of bug fixes - VideoCelt.com is now the premier video website for all videos related to Celtic and Folk music. We currently have over 4,000 videos available in our archives and the list is growing each and every day. As a companion video site to CelticRadio.net, we also display musician videos on our main radio page at CelticRadio.net when that musician song is heard on Highlander Radio. We also have the ability to now sell 15-30 second video advertising to both members, businesses and musicians. This feature is currently in the beta testing phase, but we expect in 2010 to provide a cost effective video advertising solution to our customers.

What's Happening on VideoCelt.com?

For the next few weeks we are featuring music videos from our Celtic Rock category. We've got some great heart pounding Irish and Scottish music that you can hear and see from some of the most energetic Celtic Rockers from both the past and from the current music scene.

Can't wait to see the days newest Celt Rock Video? Then check out the entire catagory:

http://www.videocelt.com/browse-Rock-videos-1-date.html

Need Cash? It's the GREAT VIDEO CONTEST!

Help us add videos to our video site, and you could win CDs and Cash! We've decided rather than spend money on advertising, we'd just give it to our members instead! :) The key to this contest is to suggest the most videos from now until November 30th, 2009. Find out all of the details in our special ranking page:

http://www.videocelt.com/contest.php

And that's our first VideoCelt news article. Expect us to post regular updates on VideoCelt.com and what's happening with the site and videos. We also plan to feature and review musician's videos and to point out to our members exceptional videos that you can talk about at the office. Great stuff - and we hope that you have enjoyed our first VideoCelt news article!