Wikipedia:Creation and usage of media files

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This page explains how to create and use media files. If you need help playing Ogg Theora and Vorbis files, see Wikipedia:Media help.

Images, audio, and video files must be uploaded into Wikipedia using the "Upload file" link on the left-hand navigation bar. Only logged in users can upload files. Once a file is uploaded, other pages can include or link to the file. Uploaded files are given the Image: prefix by the system, even if they are not images, and each one has an image description page. Please consider uploading freely licensed content to the Wikimedia Commons instead of here. This allows the files to be used in articles instantly by all Wikimedia projects. The maximum size of an uploaded file is 20 megabytes. As of April 2008, the following file types may be uploaded: png, gif, jpg/jpeg, xcf, pdf, mid, ogg, svg, djvu. All others are prohibited for security reasons, and pdf and djvu are intended primarily for projects like wikisource.

If you want to give a link to the file description page in an article, use an extra colon at the front, e.g. [[:Image:FILENAME]]. If you type [[Media:FILENAME]], a download link to the media file is created. The file name has to contain the file type.

Contents

[edit] Special characters and math

It is not necessary to upload images to use special characters or even complex mathematical expressions.

Wikipedia uses a UTF-8 encoding scheme, which means that any Unicode character can and should be entered directly. See m:Help:Special characters for details and help.

For mathematical formulae, we use TeX markup. For help and instructions, see m:Help:Formula.

[edit] Text files

Please do not upload plain text (.txt), Microsoft Word (.doc), or text files in other formats. Instead, please start a new page and input the text using standard wiki formatting. Please do not dump text into Wikipedia unless you wrote it yourself, or you know that it meets the project's stringent copyright licensing requirements. If you do not have time to format it yourself, add the {{wikify}} tag at the top of the page.

In rare cases an html file is uploaded, for example as test or demonstration.

Occasionally a PDF file is uploaded, such as Image:Davis recall petition.pdf; also there is a WikiReader Image:WikiReader Free Software and Free Contents.pdf (preview version), and more are being prepared. However, most PDFs should be converted into wikitext. Source documents should be uploaded to Wikisource instead.

For a discussion on uploading spreadsheets, see the talk page.

[edit] Textfile usage

Type [[Image:davis recall petition.pdf|description]] to create a link to the media description site of the document.

[edit] Images

Images can be displayed directly on Wikipedia pages.

The preferred formats are JPEG for photographic images and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) for drawings, though PNG can be used. Vector graphics are preferred to raster graphics for drawings, because they can be scaled as needed without losing information, and can be edited more easily.

[edit] Image usage

Type [[Image:FILENAME.ogg|description]] when you want to display an image file directly. In most cases, a thumbnail is more useful: [[Image:FILENAME.ogg|thumb|description]]. See Wikipedia:Picture tutorial for further information.

See also:

[edit] Audio

Wikipedia uses Ogg Vorbis for sound. The Ogg Vorbis format is not encumbered by patents, and has been found to offer higher audio fidelity than the MP3 format. It is competitive even at low bitrates for encoding speech, comparable with even HE-AAC. A decision has been made that MP3 files will not be hosted at Wikipedia.

Software supporting Vorbis exists for many platforms. Winamp multimedia player can be used to play Ogg Vorbis files. Although Apple iTunes does not natively support Vorbis, Xiph.org provides a QuickTime component which can be used in iTunes and QuickTime on both Windows and Mac OS. On Microsoft Windows, DirectShow filters exist to decode Vorbis in multimedia players like Windows Media Player and others which support DirectShow.

Useful software for audio:

  • For audio editing, Audacity is a high quality free audio recorder/editor for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux/Unix.
  • Sweep is another free audio editor which can be used in Linux environments.
  • For encoding to Ogg Vorbis, it is recommended that you use the Hydrogenaudio-recommended encoder version for best results. oggenc (cross-platform) is the command-line encoder, while OggDropXPd (Win32-only) is an easy-to-use GUI for encoding to Ogg Vorbis.
  • dBpowerAMP Music Converter offers a convenient GUI for transcoding between most audio codecs, including Ogg Vorbis. The Vorbis encoder must be downloaded separately from the software, but it is freely available from the same website.
  • The easiest way to play ogg vorbis files on legacy Macintoshes (OS 9 and lower) is to use JustOgg.

The VorbisSoftwarePlayers node at the xiph.org wiki has an up-to-date list of Vorbis-supporting software for all operating systems. Users can test these players using the list of Vorbis audio streams available at [1].

[edit] Audio usage

Most viable is to use Template:Listen, see its page for detailed description, common usage is listed here:

{{Listen|filename=Name of file.ogg|title=Title of this file|description=The description of this file|format=[[Ogg]]}}

Example:

{{Listen|filename=Accordian chords-01.ogg|title=Accordion chords|description=Chords being played on an accordion|format=[[Ogg]]}}

gives this:

Accordion chords

Chords being played on an accordion
Problems listening to the file? See media help.

[edit] Lists of uploaded music

[edit] Lists of uploaded spoken articles

[edit] Further information on audio files

[edit] Video

Wikipedia uses Ogg Theora for video because it is open and royalty-free. Because most popular movie/audio formats are patented and require a royalty, there are no free all purpose video converters. See also WikiCommons' Theora video conversion help page.

[edit] Useful software

  • For video, ffmpeg2theora [2][3] is a command line encoder capable of converting numerous file formats (.mov, .mpg, .mpeg, .avi) into Ogg Theora. It works on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux/Unix. (For information on how to use ffmpeg2theora, click here.)
  • You can also use the encoder_example application included with libtheora in combination with a program like MPlayer [4] that is capable of dumping raw (yuv4mpeg) video and sound to encode in Ogg Theora
  • LiVES and Cinelerra are video editing programs for Linux which are able to edit Ogg Theora videos

For assistance with conversion, try contacting:

[edit] Video usage

Buzz Aldrin steps onto the Moon
Image:A11v 1094228.ogg

Television clip of Buzz descending the ladder and stepping onto the moon.
Wikipedia:Media help


For embedding the video directly into an article, you can type type [[Image:FILENAME.ogg]], or use Template:Video:

{{Video
|filename=A11v 1094228.ogg
|title=Buzz Aldrin steps onto the Moon
|description=Television clip of Buzz descending the ladder and stepping onto the moon.
}}

The result is on the right.

You can use a thumbnail like with images:

[[Image:A11v 1094228.ogg|thumb|Television clip of Buzz descending the ladder and stepping onto the moon.]]

By default, a frame from the midpoint of the video is used for the initial still image. To use a different frame, use the thumbtime parameter. For instance:

[[Image:Bombers of WW1.ogg|thumbtime=3]]

Specify the time in seconds, or use colons to separate hours, minutes and seconds.

"Bombers of WW1" with a still from the midpoint
"Bombers of WW1" with a still from the midpoint
"Bombers of WW1" with a still from 3 seconds
"Bombers of WW1" with a still from 3 seconds

To just give a link to the video, use:

[[:Image:A11v 1094228.ogg|Click here to see the video.]]

See also:

[edit] See also