May 6, 2008

Get Your Home Movies on a Personal DVD - We’ll Do The Work!

The world of video has changed a lot in recent years. By emailing links, or embedding on your site, it’s now quick and easy to share videos with people all over the world.

Now, we love online video as much as the next person (if not more). But it has taken us out of the living room and away from our televisions. We found we missed sitting on the couch with our families and watching those home movies together.

And so…about two weeks ago we launched something pretty cool. It’s a hassle to burn your own DVDs, so we decided to do it for you! Once a video is uploaded to Motionbox, all it takes is a few clicks to get a personal DVD with your own videos, and your own title and description sent straight to your home.

Give it a try! Since we’re in the early stages of this product, we’d love to get your feedback. As always, don’t hesitate to contact our Support Team with any questions or suggestions!

April 13, 2008

Who We Are

We know you have a lot of options out there in the world of video. It's hard enough to choose a camera! With so much information on the latest models, not to mention hundreds of ways to edit, store, and share your videos, we know it can be mind-boggling -- especially since you don't always want to share your private videos with the whole world.

Our mission from the very beginning has been to cut through the clutter and provide you with a simple, comprehensive, no-manuals-required service that is fast, easy, and unlimited. We know you are real people with real lives - you want to be able to preserve and share your memories with the people who matter most. And you don't want it to take up all your time.

We feel pretty good about what we're doing here, but it's always nice to hear it from you. We recently conducted a phone survey and online interviews with some of you, and we were thrilled that you gave us high marks on being a leader in fast, easy, and reliable video sharing. Your feedback was anonymous, but thanks – whoever you are – for your kind words:

• "I really like the ease and simplicity. With some programs, it's so difficult and you're so frustrated by the time you get anything accomplished. I haven't run into any moments like that with Motionbox. It's fast, it's easy. I can sit down and enjoy it while I'm doing it. I love it."


• "I was using YouTube but I was very constrained by the size of files I was able to upload. I would have to spend a lot more time at my computer trying to…get it down to the right size. I don't have to think about that with Motionbox."

Our team has been working hard on a bunch of improvements to the service: a faster uploader to help you get all that footage up on the site a crystal clear HD player, a way to create a DVDs of all your videos, additional ways to keep your videos private and secure, and much more!

We want you to let us know what's on your mind. We aim to provide you with the most personal customer service around, and we listen to what you have to say whether you're a member, or just someone who's interested in learning more. And if you're ever unhappy with the service you receive, let us know! We take all comments, good or otherwise. Though we must admit, we're partial to the good ones:

• "When I e-mailed customer service, I expected never to hear back. I got an e-mail back the next day, which was very encouraging and made me want to explore the service."



• "Good, friendly people. They really try to help. Every time I sent a question, I got a reply back right away."

We want this conversation with you, our customers, to continue. As we grow this blog and this community, we want to hear from you! Hearing your experiences with Motionbox and your personal video will help bring this service to life.

Whether you shoot 45 seconds of your 2-year old or 3.5 hour videos of your latest vacation, we try our utmost to provide solutions for all of your needs. We know you have lots of video sharing options, and we sincerely thank you for choosing Motionbox.

April 5, 2008

You Asked, We Listened

We recently asked our Premium members to take part in our Premium member survey to tell us all the things they like, dislike, and need on Motionbox.

This is a shout out to you, Motionbox members, to let you know that your voices do not go unheard here!

• Your #1 request was to get better video quality, and that is exactly what we gave you when we launched our brand new HD player - indeed, a very special benefit of being a Premium member!


• You wanted to upload your videos faster - changes we have already made and will continue to make are definitely going to keep improving this!


• You told us you wanted to be able to make DVDs from your videos, and that is exactly what you'll be getting.....very, very soon.

You also gave us some high marks for Motionbox's ease of use and for our responsive customer support -- Aw, shucks! We thank you for your kind words.

We took all of your advice to heart and this is just the beginning of all the new improvements we'll be making based on your feedback. Thank you again for taking our surveys. Your voices do not go unheard!

April 5, 2008

Member Spotlight - haverly

Motionbox member haverly can't get enough of her nephew, Trevor Rex! She uses Motionbox to store and share all the videos she takes of him, like this one of Trevor singing Happy Birthday to Nana!

March 26, 2008

Introducing the Motionbox HD Player!

We are extremely happy to present: (drumroll, please...) our brand new HD Player!

So why should you care? In a nutshell, the video quality is a *whole lot* better. We've done a ton of under-the-hood work to improve optimization of your videos after you upload them (for techies: We now encode your video in the H.264 format). You'll also notice that we've added fullscreen mode: Just click on the arrow icon to watch the video in all its fullscreen glory.

What does this mean for your videos? It means that you'll see an immediate and stunning improvement in video quality. For basic members, your videos will be upgraded from standard Web-quality video to DVD-quality. And if you're a Premium member and upload some personal videos off the HD camcorder you just bought, the quality of the HD playback in our new player will knock your socks off. (All that said, don't expect the 30-second clips off your cell phone to suddenly look a whole lot better than they do on your cell.)

We know this is something many of you have been asking about, so we are really excited about the new player. We continue to work hard every day to give you the best video sharing experience possible, and we want you to know that your suggestions and concerns are taken seriously here. In other words, don't ever be afraid to drop us a line.

To that end, we'd LOVE to hear what you've got to say about the new player. All of your feedback -- whether loving or...not-so-loving -- is greatly appreciated and our Support Team will get back to you no matter what.

March 11, 2008

Ask Eric Episode 11: Cameras!

HD! High definition. We know it means at least that much. But what does that mean, for you? When you take a video in HD, how can you really tell the difference from a video recorded the "old fashioned way," in "standard definition?" Well, the difference really comes in size, which, in this new world of flat screen TVs and computer monitors, is really important.

An HD image is a minimum of 3 times larger than an image at standard resolution, and can be up to 6 times larger. When you watch normal TV on an HD monitor, it gets blown up to the size of the screen, so it can be hard to tell the difference if you're not searching to see the extra pores on the cheek of your favorite movie star. On a computer monitor though, the difference is a lot more important, because the image isn't being expanded at all.

There's tons of new HD cameras coming out this year, and most record to a card just like your digital camera has now. That means easy uploading at super high quality, so I went to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to test out all the new HD cameras.

The cameras I looked at were:

• Kodak Easyshare 1273
• Panasonic HDC-H59
• Canon HF-10
• Sanyo Xacti HD-1000
• Sony DCR-SR300

Feel free to click back through the video if you want to check out individual features on these new HD cameras. Also, keep in mind that this is a sneak preview - you won't be able to buy these until early summer.

Write in with any questions you have about this stuff, and if you do go to buy an HD camera, the most important thing is to remember what your priorities are: there's a lotta bells and whistles out there, and you wanna make sure you are getting the ones that are right for you.

March 9, 2008

And the Winner is.....

Congratulations, NerdyMom!

After sifting through all your amazing entries, we finally picked one! For her little one’s awesome Valentine’s Day tribute to Dad, NerdyMom is the winner of our “Not-So Secret Admirer” Contest.

Check out the winning video here!

Thank you so much for all your entries to our February Contest. We love seeing what you shoot, so keep those cameras rolling!

Click Here to upload your own video.

March 7, 2008

Why does uploading take so much longer than downloading?!

Hold up....first things first. What's the difference between them?

For starters, uploading files to the Internet refers to transferring a file from your computer to the Internet. Downloading files, on the other hand, refers to transferring a file from the Internet to your computer.

Usually, the larger your file, the longer it'll take to upload or download. For most people, however, uploading files can be a lot slower than downloading files. Is this normal? Unfortunately, yes.

But why? Well, this has something to do with your ISP (Internet Server Provider). Most high-speed Internet connections, including cable modems and DSL, are asymmetric. This means that they're designed to provide a much faster speed for downloading files from the Internet than uploading files. If you think about it, this makes sense since most of the people using the Internet spend much more time downloading things (such as webpages, images, music, videos, games, etc) than they do uploading. Although this is starting to change, because more and more of us want to share our stuff with the rest of the world, Internet providers still give priority to downloading and put a cap on upload speeds. Their logic is, pretty much everyone downloads, but not everyone uploads.

So if you've ever wondered, why the heck is it taking so long to upload this video, when I can download it to my own computer in just minutes?! Know that in most cases, this is an expected and unfortunate reality.

On a happier note, our friend Eric always has some pretty cool ideas! Check out Ask Eric Episode 10: Top 5 Uploading Tips Revealed to see what you can do on your end to make uploading your videos faster and better.

Happy uploading. =)

February 29, 2008

Motionbox Named a Finalist in the 2008 “Webware 100” Awards!

Hey Folks,

Great news! Motionbox has been named a finalist in the video category of CNET's Webware 100. The Webware 100 Awards recognize the best Web 2.0 sites, services, and applications that are leading the next wave of innovation. We're one of 300 finalists from 4,600 nominations!

Finalists are selected by the editors of Webware, but the ultimate winners will be picked by the public. That means YOU can help us get a spot in the winner's circle. Click here to vote now!

Voting will run until March 31st, so spread the love and forward this on to other Motionbox fans as well. =)

Thanks for the support, you guys!

January 31, 2008

Ask Eric Episode 10: Top 5 Uploading Tips Revealed

Our hardworking support team gets lots of emails from members asking how to get videos up on Motionbox as easily as possible. We think our awesome uploader is one of the fastest and simplest tools on the web, but there are many factors that contribute to a happy upload experience.

In this episode of Ask Eric, we'll go over five ways to get your videos off your camera or hard drive and in front of friends and family without breaking a sweat or throwing your laptop out the window. Check it out: