Nicely explained, with step-by-step instructions and links to relevant (FREE) apps and codecs needed to make this work. Multimedia authors need lots of tools to insure they reach the most people. Don’t assume your audience is locked in to one format, and definitely don’t try to lock them in yourself. Open is good.
This article is remarkable for its mainstream recognition that blogs have increasing acceptance in education at all levels. It cites the Fearless Leader in K-12 edublogging, Will Richardson of weblogg-ed, as it should. The article was linked from Stephen Downes’ invaluable OLDaily.——-
The fall semester starts today. The lab PCs are fully reconfigured, the carpets have been cleaned, and we’ll be doing lots of orientations this week. Welcome to new folks, and welcome back to old friends.——-
“Now that Motion 1.0 has shipped, many of us have just begun to thumb through the tutorials and the Grand Tour book provided. The Grand Tour book lacks an appendix and an overview of the preference settings.
Though these settings are obvious to most, I must admit one of them in particular has thrown many of us off. This is how to output projects, both those provided in the tutorial and those we create on our own through our common DV-based VTRs and in turn, our NTSC monitors.”
Actually, it’s Motion, not FCP, but I’ll make a new category shortly. For the moment, new Motion users are unlikely not to be FCP users.——-
“ARD 1.2 had a few quirks, and I was looking forward to ARD 2 for the fixes. So, I got a copy of the software recently, and put it to the test. I liked what I found.”
This link is a reminder. I’m reconguring the G5 lab, and once the test machine is done, I’ll copy the image and push it out to the other machines. Right now GSU has ARD 1.2, and now I’ll find out if we have a license for ARD 2.0. I’m teaching myself as I go, so it’s slow. I dread making mistakes, but with OS X I have much less concern about security issues – virus problems or trojan horses and so on.——-
“So here’s a primer on what to look out for when shooting a three-camera interview.”
Charlie White gives tips to make your interview footage look professional.——-
Seems like it might be useful; the beta is free (but it’s beta, so be careful). I haven’t tried it. YMMV:
“Manages a user’s movie database in easy-to-use libraries and playlists. Searches the web for data to populate the database. Provides a built-in web view to allow browser-style access to movie data on the web. Contains a built-in movie/media player supporting most available formats. Provides access to multiple movie stores. Cool usage of drawers and drag-and-drop to allow uncluttered access to movie data and content. Integrates with many other Mac applications.”
Cleaning up in the edit room, I came across some Verbatim CD-RWs. Good brand, as far as I know, and the discs had no writing on them. I didn’t notice the small “DirectCD Format” print under the large red “CD-RW ReWritable.”
“Aha,” I said, “I’ll see if they’re usable.” I popped one in my PowerBook and opened Toast 5. I chose Disc Info from a menu, and it told me the disc could hold so many bytes, etc. I clicked OK and planned to erase the disc. A moment later, I had my first kernel panic since I got this PowerBook in May.
“Oh, expletive,” I said.
I restarted my Mac, holding down the mouse button so the disck would eject before the unit started up. I inserted the same disc into a G5 in our lab, opened Disk Utility, and easily erased the disc.
“That was funky,” I thought. I pu the second disc into the G5 to erase it. Kernel panic.
Take a look at the link the title of this post points to on Roxio’s site (soon to be a part of Sonic, by the way). I haven’t found out why, yet, but apparently, even though I have a recent version of their software on my machine, their own DirectCD format can cause a hard crash on arguably the most stable consumer OS out there. Hrmmm.
My conclusion is that I will erase these discs, and any more RWs I find in DirectCD format, with Roxio EasyCD Creator on an XP machine and never look back.
DirectCD is E*V*I*L.——-
The News & Observer talks to Tracy Futhey, Duke University’s chief information officer and vice president for information technology, about the intiative to give an iPod to every student. [Link via MyAppleMenu] Excerpts below:
Newsobserver.com: What prompted the iPod initiative?Futhey: Duke has a strategic plan. ... And one of the main goals in the strategic plan talks about intensifying our use of information technology. Since I’ve been here, one of the things that’s been very high on my agenda is being on the lookout for projects and initiatives that can spur greater use of technology throughout the classroom, throughout research and throughout just day-to-day life on campus. When we started talking about ideas and projects, this idea was one that really seemed to grab hold.
Newsobserver.com: Was there something special about the iPod, versus a Palm handheld or another device?
Futhey: The iPod has some interesting aspects to it in terms of the storage space and the ability to be a huge drive as well as a convenient audio player. It also has the distinct advantage that it’s hugely popular among 18- to 22-year-olds, and many others. This was a device that we knew was already likely to be widely accepted by students. ... They’ll look forward to having this. How can we now take something that is a consumer application and see if it has significant value as an educational tool as well? It’s an experiment.
Newsobserver.com: What do you hope to accomplish by having iPods on campus?
Futhey: We will have both general campus information and content. Orientation starts in a couple weeks, and the iPods will come preloaded with the orientation schedules and introductory and background material about campus life, about academics, about advising, about recreation, social life on campus. ... Throughout the academic year, we will have a Duke-specific iTunes site where students can go and download additional content. There will be a great deal of educational content. Without having beat the bushes and asked faculty yet … we’ve already had broad interest. We see a lot of interesting uses growing out of that. Some will be, for example, language courses where students will listen to exercises. ... With foreign languages here, much of the emphasis tends to be on real-life uses, students listening to songs in the native language.”
Read the full article here.——-
This will change the landscape a bit: “Introducing Production Suite, the essential software suite for film and video production that delivers real-time production tools in one comprehensive and integrated package.
Combining Apple’s industry-leading Final Cut Pro HD, DVD Studio Pro 3 and Motion, Production Suite offers the most comprehensive collection of professional graphics, video, audio and DVD authoring applications to deliver real-time interactivity on a desktop or notebook computer. With common user interface elements shared across all the applications, Production Suite provides a seamless, intuitive and integrated workflow for film and video production.”——-