Open video isn't open enough

For the past 2 days, I've solidly spent time working on a post, and I'm greatly disappointed because this post isn't it.

I know its a bit early, but I was hoping to create a video on this blog; one using the new HTML5 video tag, and a theora/vobris clip. However, tasks have turned out to be a complete mess and there will be no video on this post (maybe for a while on this blog!). :-/

I first set out to create a video encoded using Theora. You'd think that the encoder being free to distribute and open sourced, it'd be as easy -- you'd have your video encoded quickly & posted in seconds. But actually it was much more difficult, and I started to get angry. Xiph.org the maintainers of the codec don't make it very easy to encode. I started out wanting to use a VFW encoder to just encode my clip directly on the fly as I recorded my screen capture. Pretty cut and dry stuff... run the screen capture, send the frames to the encoder. But there is not VFW encoder, and there is none made -- this was a HUGE shortfall for the xiph.org fellows. 2 hours later I looked at the encoders posted on the xiph.org site, the easiest way was to use a command line interface (CLI) version (the DOS prompt sytle) to encode my video from some format to theora (A "Point, Shoot, Convert" Style). Real men can work the CLI, and I've had my time spent on CLI's so I wasn't scared.

All my encoding produced video that was dramatically sped up through some bug. It didn't matter what my source video was at... the output was 5 times faster (or 80% shorter time wise) so a 10 second clip turned into a real fast 2 second clip, yet all the data (frames) played. Even if I set an override on the encoder for output FPS or input FPS. All videos were 5x faster. What... The... &%#!! My experimental encoder came with a few more things. I think it may have had to do with the source encoder, which i didn't change (because it was lossless).

I actually set out to make a how to guide and ended up looking for a how to guide and asking for help!

Even after I FINALLY got my file lined up and encoded... 2 days later. I was unable to post it:

Blogger will only post video on this blog using the flash player. It simply doesn't allow me to post a video the same was uploading a JPEG... I just can't upload an OGG, OGV, OGM file. That made me really angry. In fact, the only way to post a video on this site is to use the FUCKING flashing player...