Photography News - SmugMug Launches New Photo Display and HD Video Capabilities

Sunday, December 09, 2007

SmugMug Launches New Photo Display and HD Video Capabilities

To the delight of its 3.6 million monthly viewers, online photo sharing site SmugMug today announced bigger photo display sizes and astounding video capabilities.

Holidays bring crazy, funny, once-in-a-lifetime moments (blame it on the eggnog) that we shoot and record as a vivid chronicle of our most treasured times. Now SmugMug displays these photo and video memories in all their glory, giving customers SmugMungous XLarge, X2Large, and X3Large photo viewing options and up to 1280x720x24p HD video.

Once the standard, those nifty 800x600-resolution monitors now account for only 8-10% of screens with 1024x768 screen resolution most prevalent. Many entry-level desktop monitors are now 20 inches and 1680x1050 pixels, and SmugMungous gives options that are like viewing specialty enlargement prints without sacrificing the ease of use for which SmugMug is famous. SmugMungous fills a screen with larger images and more thumbnails, with no wasted space and no scrolling, whether the viewer’s monitor is a generous 30-inch model or he’s looking at the 4 1/2-inch screen on his micro PC. For professional photogs, SmugMungous automatically resizes watermarks, too.

For those who don’t want to see their videos dinky and pixilated on YouTube, SmugMug introduced SmugMug Video. SmugMug supports DVD-resolution clips for Power Users and HiDef for Pros. SmugMug makes every video clip available in web resolution as well, for viewers with slow connections.

SmugMug accepts every common video format and converts it to h.264, which plays beautifully in Web browsers and on devices being unwrapped this holiday - including iPods, iPhones, AppleTV, PlayStations, and Xbox 360s. Many Nokia, Sony and Panasonic devices also support h.264. iTunes makes it easy to be notified of new videos from SmugMug friends and family and automatically download them for the iPod and AppleTV.

“Since 2002, SmugMuggers have chosen us because their photos-and now videos-look outstanding here,” said SmugMug President Chris MacAskill. “I’ve never met a person whose face didn’t light up when they saw their photos and videos crisp and SmugMungous.”

About SmugMug

Since 2002, snap-shooters, passionate amateurs, and pro photographers have uploaded more than 225 million photos to SmugMug. Founded by father and son Chris and Don MacAskill, SmugMug was created based on the duo’s love for the Internet and digital photography. SmugMug is the largest independent profitable photo sharing site, one that continues to follow its vision for a destination free from outside pressures. With more than 350,000 paying customers, the company continues to double annually. With a great sense of responsibility for the photos stored on the site, SmugMug has become the trustee for the priceless images of amateur and professional photographers all over the world. For more information, point your browser to SmugMug.com.