choosing the thumbnail for your video

[Matthew Max]

Whether I'm in Camtasia or Pro 5.5, is there a way to choose which frame shows on the icon of the outputted mp4 file?

[Steve Grisetti]

Not that I'm aware of.

Though there may be a way to do it on YouTube, if you display your video there. Some videos there seem to display the most salacious frame as their thumbnails!

[Kent Frost]

There is a way to do it on Youtube, but they also give you the opportunity to upload a JPG image to act as your Youtube thumb.

[Matthew Max]

My main concern is when I use my own system for delivery. I don't do much on YouTube, because I deliver 500+ videos to my customers in a private membership.

[Kent Frost]

Looks like they make software for exactly this situation: http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Video-Thumbnails-Maker

[sidd finch]

It would take some time but you could always calculate where the video grabs the thumbnail from, figure out how many frames that is into the video then place a 1 frame still image there. I would assume that the thumbnail grabs at a constant place so you could then have your reference.

Sidd

[BuddyB]

I've done it one time in Vegas, though usually I let it auto pick one. I would think most any good program would allow that, an MP4 to burn to DVD. Don't know about Youtube except what I'm reading here. I could have done it in Architect after making movie in Vegas.

[Bob]

Whether I'm in Camtasia or Pro 5.5, is there a way to choose which frame shows on the icon of the outputted mp4 file?

Short answer: No.

The "icon" you are referring to is called a Poster Frame. There is no universal support for poster frames. Usually, the poster frame defaults to the first frame in the video. Some services such as YouTube and Vimeo, provide a way for you to provide a still image to be used as the poster frame. But, others don't. For your own web pages, you would need to capture the frame (which you could do with your editing program) and display it as a clickable image link. HTML 5 includes a new Video Tag element that includes the ability to specify the image to use for the poster frame. HTML 5 is supported by current version of all the major browsers, but there are still a lot of older browsers in use. For Internet Explorer, for example, HTML is supported for version 9 and up.

You might try placing the desired single frame at the beginning of the video. When played back, it won't be noticed, but if the poster frame is being picked up from the 1st frame, it just may give you what you want.

[Matthew Max]

Hmmmm. Ok, thanks, everybody. I will ponder these suggestions.
That's a pretty interesting idea about putting an unnoticeable-on-playback icon frame on the front, Bob. I have got to try that.