Good question! On Jumpcut, Clips (aka video clips) are single video files that were uploaded by our users. Movies are what you create using the Jumpcut Editor. They are combinations of individual video clips, photos, music, titles and effects. Movies are analagous to photo slideshows, but you can do a lot more.

The distinction between clips and movies can be confusing to some people because they’re used to video sites that just let you upload individual clips. We think Jumpcut is more exciting because you can use these raw materials to make your own movies.

But, if you want to make a movie out of a single video clip, you can do that too. Just press the green Edit/Remix button on the clip to open it up in the editor and then Publish.

Popular tags are the 25 most popular tags on Jumpcut. When you click on a popular tag, we run a search based on the tag you clicked. At this point, you’ll see a list of “Related Tags” on the right side of the page. These are all of the tags related to your search results, so you can drill down to a more specific search.

Popular Movies shows recently created movies that are popular with the community. The formula that determines popularity is based on a number of factors. One of the factors under your control is the amount of love that a movie has. So, if you see something you like, give it some love…maybe it will end up on the Popular Movies list.

The Active Users list shows people who recently made movies on the site. If you click on their picture, you’ll go to their page where you can check out their latest creation. Chances are, they’re still on the site, so give their movies some love (if they deserve it) and leave them a comment.

That’s Steve Weibel, our Creative Director.

So, yeah, we live in a tense world these days. A world often made more tense by firewalls that stop you from uploading movies to Jumpcut. We’ve encountered problems with uploading to Jumpcut ourselves from Microsoft Windows when we have slap-happy and access-denying “security software” which, depending on the configuration, causes the upload to hang mid-way through, or prevents the upload process entirely.

So, continuing our tradition of subtle solutions, give this a shot if you are having trouble uploading from the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems.

NOTE: Please turn any services you have turned off back on after you have completed your upload successfully, if you want your computer to be secured against unauthorized network access. Thanks.

For McAfee Security Center users, disable some McAfee Network Services, such as the obvious (”McAfee Personal Firewall”), but also the “Parental Protection”, the “Network Scanner”, and probably a few others. If you are still faced with a question regarding “Trust this network”, you should say “yes” to this. That is, if you trust the network you are currently connected to.

While the above may fix the problem, if you have to get serious, we’ve been able to restore upload functionality by stopping the following McAfee Windows Services from within the Administrative Tools’ “Services” MMC:

• McAfee Personal Firewall
• McAfee Redirector
• McAfee Privacy Service

For security software from other vendors, you should probably disable any “Personal Firewall”-like service if you are having trouble with uploading files to Jumpcut. Of course, we do offer our E-mail Uploader service to registered users if you just can’t get upload to work through Jumpcut’s other uploading mechanisms.

If you are not sure of the wisdom of performing any of the above steps, you are probably correct to doubt it. Seriously. Permanently disabling your security software on today’s Internet is not a great idea, if you value your data on your PC.

To change the email address associated with your account, do the follwing:

1. Log in to Jumpcut
2. Edit your profile
3. Enter a new email address*

*You’ll need to use a valid email address to participate in the Jumpcut community.

Right now there is no way to change your username on Jumpcut. If you would like a different username, you can create another account.