We've intentionally designed the registration process to be as short as possible. To sign up:

1. Visit our sign up page, located at http://stagevu.com/register.
2. Follow the instructions on the page in selecting a username, password, and enter your email address.
   • If a message pops up alerting you to an error, correct the error and resubmit.
3. An email address will be sent to you in order to activate your account. It may take up to a minute to arrive. Once it does, click on the link provided to activate your account.
4. Login by clicking on "Login" in the right top corner of each page.

Don't forget to add extra information by editing your profile information!

Stagevu supports a wide variety of video formats. Most common, relatively modern video files should work fine. Here's a long long list.

Containers/Formats: These can be thought as the peanut shell that contains all the actual video content. They're often represented by different file extensions

1. AVI (.avi): Audio Video Interleave - a very old and established format; all your videos are encoded to this
2. MKV (.mkv): Matroska Video - a new format that can contain everything, mostly used for anime
3. MPEG-4 Part 14 (.mp4): Standard MPEG-4 file - good for newer video codecs
4. MPEG-2 (.mpeg): Standard MPEG-2 file - works with MPEG-2 and DVD video
5. FLV (.flv): Flash Video - used on other video sharing sites
6. ASF/WMV (.wmv): Advanced Systems Format - our encoders may be able to encode these, but no guarantees
7. RMVB (.rmvb): Realmedia - this might work, but it's proprietary, so no guarantees
8. Ogg (.ogm): Ogg Media - largely superseded by MKV, not recommended, but should work fine

Video codecs: The chocolate inside the shell, these represent the actual video (not audio) data

1. MPEG-4 Part 2 (DivX, XviD, libavcodec): this is the video codec we use
2. MPEG-4 Part 14 AVC (h.264: x264, Nero, Mainconcept, DivX 7): a newer and better codec, but requires more resources to decode and encode
3. MPEG-2 (TMPGenc): sort of old, but everywhere
4. VP6 (Flash): used for streaming online
5. WMV, VC-1, RealVideo, Ogg Theora: not recommended due to compatibility issues

Audio codecs: The sugar inside the container

1. MP3 (LAME, Fraunhofer): it's everywhere, and your videos' sound is encoded to it
2. AAC or MPEG-4 Audio (Nero, FAAC): it's better than MP3, but is not used as much; fully supported as well
3. Vorbis (Xiph, Tremor): a good and free audio format that's often used with Ogg
4. AC3: used in DVDs, among other things
5. RealAudio and WMA: not supported for same reasons as above
6. MP2: might work, but haven't tested; you're still using this old stuff?

Subtitles: Helps clarify things

1. Standard Vobsubs: we haven't tested this, so we would appreciate any word on whether these work
2. SSA/ASS: (Advanced) Substation Alpha - popular for anime fansubs; currently SSA/ASS softsubs work inside MKV containers

If you feel that Stagevu's encoding process is too rough or simply want to do it yourself, simply upload a video matching the following criteria.

• Container: AVI - .avi and maybe .divx (haven't tested .divx)
• Video codec: MPEG-4 Part 2 - XviD, DivX, and FFmpeg MPEG-4 all work
• Audio codec: MP3 - LAME and all other MP3 encoders should work fine
• Total bitrate: <750kbps - The bitrate of the video and audio combined has to be less than 750kbps

Once a video is uploaded, it can have a variety of status messages:

• Awaiting encoding: This is the status your video gets immediately after uploading, meaning that it's waiting in a queue to be encoded. We re-encode all videos so that they're in a common format which can be played by the DiVX Web Player we use. At this point, you can delete your video if you change your mind.
• Moving before encoding: You might get this status or not, depending on how many videos are currently encoding. The video is simply being moved to another server for encoding.
• Encoding: Our servers have gotten to the video and are encoding it. You can't delete the video in the meantime.
• Moving: We're moving the videos to the video-serving servers. If the status stays on moving for longer than two hours, contact us.
• Error: Uh-oh, something went wrong during encoding. Make sure your file was a video file.
• Move error: A problem occurred in transferring the video between two servers. Contact us with your video's name.
• Awaiting publishing: You need to fill in the description and tags of your video, as well as choose a thumbnail, before we publish your video. Click "Edit" to change these.
• Published: Your video is now up! Go take a look. You can choose to change it at any time by chosing "Edit" again.
• Removed by administrators: We have removed the video because it either violates our terms of use, or an appropriate and justified complaint has been made against it. You should be notified by email.

To edit or publish your video, visit the "My Videos" page.

1. Wait until your video's status is "Awaiting publishing". It takes us a while to re-encode videos. If the video status says "Error", something went wrong. Make sure your video is a video in a standard format.
2. Once the status becomes "Awaiting Publishing", go and publish the video by pressing "Edit". You must then add tags and choose a thumbnail.
3. And you're done! Wasn't that easy?

Similarly, you can click on "Edit" later to change details about your video.

To remove video, you have to once again visit your "My Videos" page. There, beside each video entry, click on the Remove icon. Your video may take a little while to remove. Once the message pops up, it's gone.