Help on Videos

Embedded video player

Videos on this site are encoded in the open source Ogg Theora format. If you are using Firefox (3.5+), Opera (10.5+), Safari, Chrome (3.0.182.2+), Konqueror (4.4.2+) or another HTML5 browser you can view these videos directly in your web browser. If you are using a non-HTML5 browser (e.g., Internet Explorer <9), you can still view these videos through the embedded Cortado video player (http://theora.org/cortado/), which should load automatically. To use the Cortado player you will need to have Java installed on your computer; see http://www.java.com/getjava/index.jsp to download the free Java Runtime Environment if you do not already have it.

It is not possible to view videos in full-screen mode using the Cortado player. To view videos in a larger format it is necessary to download and view them in a standalone player (see below). Additionally, please note that subtitle playback and other functions are not fully supported using the embedded player.

Downloading and other options

You can download any video by clicking on the "download" link below the video. These videos can be viewed in the free VLC player (http://videolan.org/), Mplayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu/), or other software supporting Ogg Theora playback (see http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/TheoraSoftwarePlayers for a full list). Please note, however, that these options are currently unsupported and are not guaranteed to work in all cases. All files are tested on Mozilla Firefox 3.5.

Currently all videos are encoded and displayed at 480x360 or 640x360 resolutions with moderate compression. These settings provide a reasonable display size and bitrate for both online streaming and distribution on optical or flash media, requiring approximately 700 MB storage per hour of video. High-definition versions of all clips will also be submitted to a special collection in the Internet Archive for long-term storage and public access (full access data will be provided here as it becomes available).

Subtitles and annotations

Videos containing annotations will be displayed using the "jQuery srt" script. NOTE: Some ad-blocking software or browser plugins may interfere with subtitles.

Raw subtitle files can also be viewed and downloaded in SubRip (.srt) format by clicking on the "Attachments" link for the page on which the video is shown. These subtitle tracks will be accessible from most standalone video players--including those that do not render embedded subtitles properly--if you download them to the same folder as a downloaded video.

Privacy and licensing

All video clips are licensed for use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA License. You may freely download, view, store, reformat, and redistribute these videos for non-commercial purposes (e.g., education and research), on the condition that you provide attribution of the original source and authors, and that you make a copy of the original copyright notice and license in any redistributed or derivative works. This copyright information is and should remain embedded in the digital metadata of each clip.

Please note that all subjects depicted in the videos are joint authors of these works for copyright purposes, and as such retain full moral and character rights under the copyright laws of all states signatory to the Berne Convention. See the Terms of Use page (MonArc/TermsOfUse) for full details.

Editing and uploading videos

See VideoCookbook.

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