DV for Teachers

2-pop reviews Synthetik Software’s Studio Artist 2.0. Free registration required; I still don’t like the registration requirement and the motion-heavy ads, but the article is worthwhile. They also preview NAB.

New tutorials from Creative Cow: Creating an Audio LED Meter with After Effects and Anatomy of a Logline, the second in a series about writing and selling screenplays.

Charlie White: ‘Titanium PowerBook G4 Dazzles and Disappoints’ at Digital Producer. Charlie is no pushover when it comes to Macs; he seeks reall dollar value and pulls no punches on what he doesn’t like in the PowerBook and why. A good assessment… but what disappoints me about the Digital Producer site is the nasty pop-behind ad for Adobe that appears with every link on the site. Ecch.

Even more from Digital Producer A look at Apple’s iDVD 2: /”...But with the release of iDVD 2, things have certainly changed, and I can finally see professionals turning to this sweet application for their daily needs.”

...And a review of Ulead’s VideoStudio 6, which offers quite a lot for only $99.95. The review impressed me; seems really good for an inexpensive PC-based editing app.——-

The New Chroma Key for FCP 3 ”...the new Chroma Keyer filter is much more robust and precise. You’ll find that now its actually easier to pull a respectable key without leaving FCP than it used to be, and that you don’t have to mess around with as many filter combinations.” The latest from Ken Stone’s FCP online training center. It’s now my favorite FCP resource on the web.——-

I’ve decided that I have to turn on the News Items. I need – and you need, for better linking and finding of older info – the permalink feature. DV for Teachers will look different until I get this new routine down: some posts will be repeated, others may seem to come and go, but in the end I will know more about authoring and maintaining my site and (I hope) you will get more and better information from it.

And so, as Oat Willy says, “Onward through the fog.”——-

I’ve decided that I have to turn on the News Items. I need – and you need, for better linking and finding of older info – the permalink feature. DV for Teachers will look different until I get this new routine down: some posts will be repeated, others may seem to come and go, but in the end I will know more about authoring and maintaining my site and (I hope) you will get more and better information from it.

And so, as Oat Willy says, “Onward through the fog.”——-

2-pop: A Review of Two Alternative Camera Eyecups
Good review of some an accessory I hadn’t considered and will order this week.

These links stolen wholesale from Giles Bateman’s weblog, giles.hn.org:81. A number of quite helpful links for video work, and all the comments are his.

DVFilm Maker is a program that takes interlaced 29.97 fps video and turns it into progressive (deinterlaced) 24 fps footage. Mac OS 9, OS X, and Windows versions available. 24p on the cheap!

DVFilm’s chief engineer, Marcus van Bavel, has written Shooting Digital, a book on the subject of shooting video for film. The first chapter can be read online. Looks like a really good one. I’m going to buy it.

PlaythroughFX is an OS X app that can apply real-time effects to any Mac audio input.

Mandy.com: A film and TV production directory.

Giles runs Frontier – Userland’s Manila Weblog serving database application – on an OS X server box.——-

The Little QuickTime Page strikes again, with news about software updates, tutorials, and comparisons of streaming products.

2-pop reviews Totally Hip’s HipFlics and Sorenson Squeeze: “How can a piece of software that sells for less than 1/5 the price match up against something like Cleaner, a ‘real professional’s’ tool? Well the answer is, much to my surprise, ‘Quite well.’”

Online Video about Palms in Schools
My colleague and cubicle neighbor Anne Davis pointed me to Planet 5th to see QuickTime movies of students using Palm handhelds in the classroom. The students made the movies too—nice use of the technology for teaching and learning. [The site has poor navigation, though – I clicked on the Home link to see their main page and could find no link back. Ack.]

Anne has built a number of useful Schoolblogs just a couple of months after discovering them —Schoolblogs on Lesson Plans, Technology Standards, and on Palm Pilots in the classroom. Weblogs can do a lot; if you’re an educator at any level, Schoolblogs will let you make a blog.

[Testing a temporary wireless connection in the Student Center for a conference here in a couple of weeks. It seems to work.]——-

“[T]ips for creating characters that live to an audience....This is the first in a Screenwriters series here at the COW and is offered as part of our new Screenwriters forum.” Creative COW is the Creative Communities of the World, and they’re posting new and valuable DV production tips all the time.

DV for Teachers is sometimes too Mac-centric; the COW has forums and tips on every kind of platform, editing app, motion graphics, image editing, web design; the folks who founded the World Wide Users Group have made a site that’s wide open, unclogged by ads, and seeks to meet the needs of users in every area. I first listed them a last month. We like ‘em.——-

“The following is a general overview of digital video cameras.”: DV.com’s John Jackman heads a Special Report on DV cameras from basic consumer to nearly George-Lucas-level pro, with accompanying articles on important accessories, lenses, filters, tripods, and HD.
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Movie Template Projects: “Created with AppleScript Studio 1.0, these projects are templates for creating your own floating movie players.” How about a movie player built around your school’s mascot? Or a given theme – videos about the Iditarod, or the Oregon Trail, or your school’s academic achievers? Or give it to your students, and let them make a skin for their movie. Everyone ends up learning.
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Looking Glass is a not-yet-released-or-priced video editing/multimedia authoring tool from MediaTools that captures via USB as well as Firewire, and allows combining any format QuickTime recognizes on the timeline. Looks very promising. As usual, thanks to the Little QuickTime Page for this and other good news in its weekly update.

LaCie Hexa Media Drive reads all of these media types for about $60:
CompactFlashô (type I and II)
Memory StickÆ
SmartMediaô (3.3V only)
Microdriveô
SD Cardô
MultiMediaCardô

Not strictly video, but if you do stop motion animation, or use just about any type of digital camera, this removes worry about what type of media the camera has. Nice to have this versatility.

Stop. Pay toll. Download. Salon covers the MPEG-4 conflict; they talk to someone from Bisk Education, who doesn’t find the new fee structure prohibitive. Bisk provides online distance learning for a number of university programs.

“It was Audio night…” at the LAFCPUG meeting last February 27. Many useful tips, and their meetings are available on DVD so you can share the information with the leading industry FCP users.

Another Busy Day
From the breakfast table: many links saved on the work computer, found during yesterday’s occasional forays on the web while waiting for installers to do their thing on the server. I’ll post them in an hour or so when I hit the office.——-