Tutorials

1. Overstream Editor Tutorial Part 1: Basic Operation. (3.4 Mb)
   Covers basic subtitle creation, timing adjustment, playhead movement, saving the overstream and the Overstream Properties page.

2. Overstream Editor Tutorial Part 2: Advanced Operation. (3.3 Mb)
   Covers changing the Video URL, timeline zooming, fine-tuning the subtitle timing and creating links to the overstream.

      These tutorials were created with Wink, a free tutorial creation software.

FAQ

1. Which video providers are currently supported?
2. What is required of my browser for Overstream to work?
3. Which languages are supported by Overstream for use in subtitles?
4. Why does the video playhead sometimes jump back a bit during playback after I move it?
5. My overstream won't play anymore... what happened?
6. How do I download my subtitles to my computer?
7. How do I download my overstream to my computer?
8. How do I get my subtitles to the video provider (e.g. YouTube)?
9. I love your free service. How can I donate some money to keep it going?

1. Which video providers are currently supported?

   Currently, Overstream supports the following video providers: YouTube, Google Video, MySpace Video, Veoh (*), Blip.tv, Archive.org (*) and Vimeo.com. This list will continue to grow. If you are a video provider who would like to appear in this list and give the internet community the ability to overstream your videos, please write to us at . If you are a company or an institution interested in using our services, please consider the Overstream Client Services.

2. What is required of my browser for Overstream to work?

   Both javascript and cookies need to be enabled in your browser in order for this website to work as intended. Also, the Overstream Editor and Player require Flash Player version 8 or above to be installed. (Note for Linux users: install the Flash 9 Player for Linux.)

3. Which languages are supported by Overstream for use in subtitles?

   Overstream supports all languages. (The technical explanation is that UTF-8 encoding is used everywhere on the site.) However, in order to work, the language must be installed on the viewer's computer. If you write your overstream in Japanese, only those viewers who have Japanese installed will be able to see it properly. Most languages come already installed with your operating system, but some need to be installed explicitly.

   For example, in order for Japanese to work, East Asian language support must be enabled in Windows XP. Also, for right-to-left languages (such as Arabic, Hebrew and Persian), right-to-left language support should be enabled. Both East Asian and right-to-left language support in Windows XP can be enabled from Settings > Control Panel > Regional And Language Options > Languages tab.

4. Why does the video playhead sometimes jump back a bit during playback after I move it?

   In the Overstream Editor (and the Overstream Player as well), you will notice that when you move the playhead as the video is playing, it will not start from the playhead position, but will instead jump a little forward or backward and then start from there. Unfortunately, this behavior is related to how the streaming technology functions: for some video streams, the points in the video from which it can start playing are defined by cue points (like Chapters on a DVD) embedded into the video by its creators. For the same reason, as you move the playhead, only the video frames corresponding to the cue points can be shown on the screen. Thus, if the video has a lot of cue points, moving the playhead will feel very precise, but if there are few, the playhead will visibly jump.

5. My overstream won't play anymore... what happened?

   Since we do not host the video streams, it is possible that the video which you have used for an overstream will later become unavailable (e.g., it is deleted from the video provider's server by its poster). In this case, your overstream will no longer play. However, if you find another copy of the same video, you can repair your overstream by opening it in the Overstream Editor and replacing its video URL with the new one.

6. How do I download my subtitles to my computer?

   You can export the subtitles as a .srt file. To download the subtitles, open your overstream in the Overstream Editor, click on Tools in lower right corner and select Export as SRT. Click the 'Save' button, and save the subtitles as a .srt file.

   If your subtitles have any non-english characters, at least on Windows you might need to do the following to make sure the subtitles render correctly when played back. Open the .srt file in Notepad, and select File > Save As. At the bottom of the Notepad Save dialog you will see "Encoding". Select "UTF-8" encoding. (If you subtitles are in english only then it does not matter, but some other characters will only render correctly if the encoding is UTF-8).

   Note: If you are having trouble saving the subtitles using the 'Save' button, you can do the following instead:

   On Windows: Click on "Copy To Clipboard", then open Notepad (e.g., by going to Start > Run > type "notepad"). Paste the clipboard contents into Notepad (e.g., either press Ctrl-V or select Edit > Paste from menu). Now save the file, selecting the UTF-8 encoding if your subtitles contain non-english characters.

   On Macintosh: Click on "Copy To Clipboard", then open TextEdit. Paste the clipboard contents into TextEdit. Choose 'Make Plain Text' under 'Format' in the menubar. Now save the file, selecting the UTF-8 encoding if your subtitles contain non-english characters.

7. How do I download my overstream to my computer?

   If you want to view an overstream in the absence of internet access, you might want to download the overstream to your computer.

   First, (read more)...

   First, you will need to download the video and the subtitles separately, and then use a video player to play them back together.

   Downloading

   The original video is not hosted on overstream.net, and you will need a service such as ClipNabber to download the video. Simply enter your overstream's original video URL into this service, and you will get a link to download the video (FLV) file. To obtain the original video URL, visit the page where your overstream plays, and click on "Watch at [Video Provider]" link at the bottom. So, let's say, for example, that you have downloaded a YouTube video with ClipNabber and saved it as myvideo.flv.

   To get the subtitles, follow the instructions above. Save the subtitle file as myvideo.srt (same name as the video, but with an .srt extension) in the same directory as myvideo.flv.

   Playback

   To view the video with subtitles, you will either need a video player that can can play the FLV video and the subtitles correctly, or alternatively, you can use a free software such as XviD4PSP to join the subtitles to the video stream (to get so-called "hard-coded subtitles") and export the resulting subtitled video in a format of your choice.

   To view separate FLV and subtitles, you can use one of the the following free video players:

   1. ZoomPlayer. Download CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack), and make sure to check ZoomPlayer when it will ask you which player to install.
   2. VLC Media Player. VLC also works, but in general seems a little harder to use than the ZoomPlayer.

   To play the FLV video, launch the video player (e.g., ZoomPlayer - it will be under Programs > Combined Community Codec Pack > ZoomPlayer), and then drag the flv file (e.g., "myvideo.flv") into it. The video player will load the subtitles automatically if the subtitle file is in the same directory as the video file and has the same name (but with .srt extension).

   If you want to be able to just click on the .flv file and have your video player of choice play the video with the subtitles, you have to make sure that the .flv extension is associated with the video player (e.g., ZoomPlayer). One way to do that in Windows is to right-click on the .flv file and select "Properties". At the top of those properties you will see "Opens With:". You can click on the "Change" button, and then select ZoomPlayer from the list. Now, every time you click on any .flv file, it will open it in the ZoomPlayer.

8. How do I get my subtitles to the video provider (e.g. YouTube)?

   First, export the subtitles as a .srt file as described above.

   Then, if you are the owner of the original video and if the video provider supports import of .srt subtitles (as YouTube does), upload the subtitles for your video to the video provider.

   See Overstream user tutorial and YouTube blog entry for reference on how to upload subtitles to YouTube.

9. I love your free service. How can I donate some money to keep it going?

   You can to Overstream via Paypal. Thank you!