DV for Teachers

An Actual Lesson Plan

I wanted to link to a lesson plan that incorporated video technology and that documented the standards which it followed. I found Ted Kahn of DesignWorlds.com to the Apple Learning Interchange Resource Guides. Once on that page, you can find links to other video resources: examples of student work, methods for appropriately incorporating the showing of videos into lessons while keeping class attention (and control).

Too Good to Save Until Monday

Applelust has a very very good explanation of the features of QuickTime Pro, the $29.99 upgrade of the free QuickTime Player. The differences are far more than a chance to download dubious “premium content”; the Pro version is a full-featured authoring and converson application for making multimedia of all kinds.——-

In looking for resources for yesterday’s links, I posted a link to a Google search on QuickTime Reference Movies. Among the results were these great sites where university educators are working with QuickTime.

Dave Egbert does a lot at Brigham Young with QuickTime, and has posted some valuable tutorials here. I think he’s affiliated with Retiarius Enterprises; he links to them on his own page.

Digital Media Services at Northwestern University’s Library has an impressive array of services and tutorials including video capture and editing with Final Cut Pro and iMovie, compressing and exporting to the web or to CD-ROM, and help authoring in QuickTime.

And of course, there’s the dear old ITC, host to yours truly.——-

QuickTime News

The Little QuickTime Page has numerous updates, including a well-laid out comparison of QuickTime, Real, and Windows Media from Retiarius Enterprises. They have also posted a beta release of QTRM Maker, an interesting tool for streamlining the process of making QuickTime Reference movies.

“Okay, what are QuickTime Reference Movies?” I’m glad you asked. Different computers connect to the internet at different speeds – dial-up modems at 28.8 or 56K, or DSL or cable modems, etc. If you’re trying to stream a video clip to a slow connection, they won’t or can’t wait for a large file to download. The solution is to prepare different versions of the clip, at different sizes and frame rates, for different download capabilities, and then embed a reference movie on your page. When a viewer clicks on the link to see the clip, QuickTime will then cleverly determine what the connection speed is and download the correct-size file.

More on Reference Movies here on the Apple site, and here’s what Google finds on the subject.——-

Camcorderinfo.com

I found a new site with user-friendly reviews and advice for people beginning in desktop video. Camcorderinfo.com has readable reviews and solid information without too much jargon. I find it helpful and straightforward.——-

Customize Your QuickTime Movies with ‘Skins’

I found some tutorials for creating unique player interfaces, called ‘skins,’ for QuickTime movies. Why would you want to? Teachers, especially for the younger grades, need to control potential distractions. The QuickTime native interface is nice and clean, but what if you could make your video about volcanoes play inside a volcano? What if you could make your school’s cheerleading video clips, or football or soccer hightlights, play in a customized player modeled after your school mascot? Or your principal’s face? The interactive nature of QuickTime makes it a brilliant instructional tool, and with a little help it’s easy to author in, too.

About.com’s Desktop Video page has a tutorial here. You will need QuickTime Pro (the $29.95 upgrade from the regular player), a text editor, graphics editing software (they suggest Adobe Photoshop, but I’ll bet LemkeSoft’s top-notch shareware GraphicConverter will work too).

Totally Hip Software’s QuickTime showcase site BlueAbuse reminded me of the feature with this tutorial. This one tells you to use a demo of their LiveStage Pro software, but as the About.com lesson shows, a text editor is all that’s necessary for the few scripts this requires.

Apple has its own tutorial here.
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More Photoshop Followup

After Wednesday’s Photoshop conference, I found some great online QuickTime movie tutorials here at the Apple site. They’re not small; most are 2 MB or more, so you may have to wait a while. The video quality is very good, and the tips are very useful for anyone, beginners or intermediate. I found more good QuicktTime tips for Photoshop here at www.lynda.com, a good site for training materials for all sorts of web graphics and multimedia, including Dreamweaver and Flash as well.

More Editing Software Options

I know that many educators use platforms other than Macintosh. I don’t have the time or budget resources to evaluate many different applications here, which is why so much of my coverage focuses on QuickTime, iMovie, and Final Cut Pro. I chose these tools because of my famiiarity with Macs and the ease of setup and use. That said, here are some alternatives, four for PC and one for Mac. None are more than $100, and all offer high usability and a not-too-steep learning curve. I haven’t used any of them, but they all seem worth a look depending on your needs.

PC Magazine’s Oct 16, 2001 issue has a look at four inexpensive PC-based editing applications. The PC Magazine review says nothing about system requirements, installation procedures, or potential conflicts, which I deem a large oversight on their part. Nonetheless, look over their reviews and comparisons. I list all four below, with links to their manufacturer’s sites.

Pinnacle Studio 7 a disorganized web page, but the PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice

Sonic Foundry VideoFactory

Ulead VideoStudio 5.0

MGI Software VideoWave 4

The Mac-only is a shareware app created by Ben Bird, an independent developer in Britain called BVT. It’s built on QuickTime and offers features I haven’t seen before, including time lapse, motion detection, and a “frame-averaging” feature for saving clearer stills from video by combining video data from a series of frames to eliminate noise. The Pro version also offers TV tuner presets and scriptable programmability for certain video cards. Very cool to be able to program your computer to record and compress a TV show while you’re away from the computer.——-

All-day Photoshop Conference Part II

I learned some very usable methods at the conference yesterday, led by a company called CompuMaster. I’d give it a B; there were three strands, Beginning, Advanced, and Web. I’m in the murk between beginner and intermediate and use Photoshop mostly for titles in DV. Choosing among the hour-by-hour content options, I spent four of the six hours with the Advanced instructor and one each with the other two, and his were the most effective. None of the topics dealt directly with DV, but there are many sites on the web to help with moving titles and graphics from Photoshop into Final Cut Pro or Premiere (and QuickTime makes it all possible). I haven’t taken many workshops of this kind, but I now think I can maneuver more effectively and efficiently within Photoshop.
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I’ve been out of the office at a Photoshop conference, learning “cool tips and tricks.” I’ll tell you more tomorrow.

Thanks as always for reading.——-

I found a good discussion at the DV.com site discussing the relative merits of Windows Media, QuickTime, and Real: WM vs QT vs REAL. The contributions primarily deal with commercial applications, but it’s good to keep an ear to the ground as these things will definitely impact educators.

The discussion never devolved into Mac-vs-Windows flames, which speaks very well of the quality of the discussion and/or the list moderators. There were (I think valid) complaints about Real’s behavior in taking over file types and their player’s incessant attempts to force users to register (thus subjecting the user to many unwanted emails) and to upgrade to the “premium” service.

The evaluations seemed clear-eyed and informed. With Windows dominating the desktop and with Microsoft seeking strongly to dominate the streaming media market, their technology is good and getting better… but it is still far from universal, and QuickTime encoding tools for Mac or Windows are much easier to find and less expensive for educators to come by.

I encourage you to look through the discussion, and explore the DV.com site itself. Some very smart and forward-looking people hang out there, and you should too.——-

Basic (non-digital) Video Tip

Here’s an easy-to-remember tip for working with VHS tapes for school purposes: never use LP/SLP/6-hour mode. Ever. It might be acceptable for recording programs for a quick review, or to catch up on a favorite you’d otherwise miss. If you plan to use the recording for any other purpose—in the classroom, for making copies, and expecially on a CD-ROM or the Web—the lower quality will really make a difference in the video’s impact.

In essence, recording in the long-play mode crams three times as much video information on the tape than the conventional SP/2-hour mode, and the quality of the picture really suffers. If you’re recording a program on a VCR, check the speed setting. You may need the remote control to change it, so keep track of it!——-