How Do I Use A Template?

1. Download the template you want to use and decompress it.
2. You should have a QuickTime mov (a .mov file) and an XML file
3. The QT file and the XML file must always be siblings (the XML file must always be in the same folder at the same level as the QT movie)
4. Open the XML file in any text editor (not Word)
5. You will see some fields that contain text that obviously needs replacing
6. This is where you put in the URLs of the videos that you want to show in the template
7. Type (or copy and paste) the full and correct URL of the videos
8. Save the XML file and DO NOT rename it
9. Double click the QuickTime movie and it will read the XML file and display your videos
10. To publish to your website upload the QT file and the XML file
11. You can rename the QT file to anything you like but you CANNOT rename the XML file
12. Embed the QT movie as you normally would
13. When it is loaded on a webpage, or however it is going to be viewed, it will read the XML file and load in that material

I uploaded the QuickTime movie to Blip, YouTube, etc and it Doesn't Work?

1. Correct.
2. The QuickTime movie must be able to read the XML file. When you upload to Blip, YouTube et al all you are uploading is the .mov and not the XML, so once it is on Blip or YouTube your movie no longer knows where, or how, to find the XML file. (If you own LiveStage Pro then it is trivial to handcode an absolute URL for the location of the XML file, in which case you could put them on Blip and any other service that lets the file type stay as QuickTime, but if you had LiveStage Pro then you probably wouldn't be needing these templates....)
3. So these templates only work if you can manually upload the video and the XML to a web site (eg via FTP).
4. On the other hand you can enter Blip URLs into the XML (make sure it is to the QuickTime version) if you want, so your template would be on your sever with your XML file but would be actually loading and playing video via Blip, or anywhere else (but it must be playable by QuickTime).

I Uploaded the Video and the XML But All That Appears is That Blue QuickTime Logo

1. Bummer
2. Ninety nine times out of a hundred this is because the URLs you have put in the XML file are wrong
3. Open the XML file that you edited
4. Copy one of the URLs for the video that you have in there
5. Paste this into either QuickTime Player or a browser
6. Confirm that it is correct
7. If incorrect figure out what the correct URL is and replace the wrong URL in the XML with the right URL
8. Save
9. Make sure this new improved XML file is the one on your website
10. If the URLs are correct then make sure that the video is faststart and not enormous: the templates need to load two videos and then play them, if both are very high bandwidth then it could take some time before they begin to play...

I Got One Rhizome Working, Uploaded Another and Now The First is Odd

1. This is usually because you added the second rhizome movie to the same place as the first and so you may have replaced the first XML file with the second. This means your first movie is now reading the second XML file!
2. To get round this (without coding your own QuickTime movies) just put each individual rhizome movie and XML file pair in their own folders.

What Size Video is Needed?
Each of the templates uses video that is 320 x 240 pixels in size. If your video is bigger, or smaller, it will be resized to fit these dimensions. (If you want something with a 16:9 aspect ratio ask and I'll see what can be done.)

Tips

• The lower the bandwidth of your video the faster it will load and play in these templates

therefore embrace compression artefacts as the online video equivalent of brushstrokes in painting (if you are one of those people who look at a Van Gogh and think being able to notice the brush strokes is an error or a problem, then this won't make sense to you), they are part of what it means to be digital (compress for artefacts rather than to avoid them)

• the duration of your video is much less important than the bitrate of your video
• make sure your video's are 'faststart' - otherwise they will not begin to play until all of the data has been downloaded