DV for Teachers

Top Drag-and-Drop Audio Apps – O’Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog

A quick post there from David Battino, describing a handful of free (!!!) apps for converting audio from one format or sampling rate to another. If you need to import some music or a voiceover into a video editing application, use one of these to make sure it matches the audio you already have in the project.

(Does Windows have so many useful freebies so widely available? I really don’t know.)

Telestream has issued an update to the Flip4Mac components for playing Windows Media in your Mac’s QuickTime player.

via Macintouch.

Adobe Audition 2.0 Workspaces

We’ve got Audition on our workstations in the ITC. It’s a good editing app; I tend to use Audacity, but since we’ve got it I need to know more about it, and if you edit audio you should too. This article should help.

MacDevCenter.com: How Does Open Source Software Stack Up on the Mac?

An exhaustive – who knows if it’s complete – survey of Open Source software in several categories for the Mac. I use several of these, and strongly recommend educators use and teach at least some of these. You and your students should know that software can be free without being copied with a wink, have an understandable and usable interface and provide excellent results.

I’m showing a Gwinnett County Math teacher how a blog works… he just might get one at edublogs.org. These things are pretty cool.

How to use Apple’s Remote Desktop For Presentation, Instruction, and Collaboration > Remote Desktop in the Classroom

Another link before it gets away.

Working Smarter with Photoshop’s Adjustment Layers > Creating an Adjustment Layer

Always good to keep pointers to specific tutorials in Photoshop.

Video Production Q&A: Multicamera Production

Q: Can you produce a multicamera shoot with low-cost switchers and cameras? We’re currently producing school productions with two and sometimes three DV camcorders…

Charlie White offers ideas for multi-camera shoots for later editing. This is not the last word, but it offers some decent workarounds for those of us with “generous” education budgets.

QT Movie NoteTaker .5 RELEASED! (free) at DVcreators.net

This application lets you load a Quicktime movie, then click a button to stop the movie, enters the movie time into your notes automatically.

Every entry has a timecode stamp hyperlinked to that point in the movie. I’d previously dabbled with Transana for transcribing and notating video, but it only likes MPEG files. QT Movie NoteTaker works with anything QuickTime can play – even WMV files with my Flip4Mac plugin. There’s a Windows version, too – I haven’t tested that one yet.

It’s a “point-five” release – not even version 1.0, but it’s functional and useful. DV Creators.net says they’re continuing development with more features to come, and that a fuller-featured Pro version. This app definitely bears watching for editors, of course, but for the many educators and education researchers who depend on video for research, this looks great.

O’Reilly—Seven Steps to Noise-Free Digital Audio

A very good article. Bruce Fries discusses various sources of noise and distortion and ways to reduce or remove them, with graphs and screenshots. A great way to understand more about recording and processing audio.