DV for Teachers

I’ve been tasked with specifying a method for archiving a bunch of old analog videos, from 8mm and VHS mostly, to a networkable digital format. One interim method is to make DVDs of the recordings, but the long-term stability of DVD media is of course dubious.

I have lots of experience with video capture to computer (mostly Mac, some PC) for editing as well as transcoding from one video format to another for various short-term purposes. I’m largely ignorant though of the issues pertaining to viable long-term storage, and I want to find a sweet spot that balances good video quality, manageable file size, and some degree of editability for excerpting and recombining clips at a later time.

I found information on MPEG-4 as an archiving format at the Library of Congress Digital Preservation site, but there’s just too much info to digest without some help. And that kind of help is what librarians are for, so I’ve contacted the Reference Archivist at the university library, and I’ll follow up when I’ve found out more.

Thanks to the Goddard Space Flight Center for the Creative Commons photo from their flickr site.

Chris Breen offers Macworld’s HD Camcorder Buyer’s Guide. There are several kinds of HD cameras now and Chris goes through lots of options to consider. HD is a whole new ball game, so read up and don’t make assumptions about what will work with your existing editing software or computer.

Printable Paper offers free downloads of all kinds of forms. I was looking for a storyboard template, and they don’t have them, but oy do they have other forms, like crazy. Calendars, note paper, music staff paper, graph paper, receipts, all kinds of forms.

I found it via Jason Moore’s Xinsight.ca, who has a nice storyboard template here. He’s also got a 16×9 template for widescreen video planning. A well-planned storyboard can save you TONS of time when you’re actually shooting the video. Get’em, use’em, love’em.

Oh it’s a wet rainy gray Spring day in Atlanta, and the wind down Peachtree Street, crossing from the MARTA station, was as strong as I’ve known in 11 years. I look as though I’ve gone wading up to my thighs.

This map is just a few minutes old as I post this, by the way. It’s from the iPhone version of the weather site Weather Underground. If you’ve got mobile internet, iPhone or not, it’s a great page to bookmark. I’ve tried other free weather iPhone apps from the iTunes store, and I keep coming back to this one: like the others, it uses U.S. Weather Service data, but I find it easier to read, and I love the ability to turn on radar animation so I can see the direction a storm may be going. Useful in many situations.

Today is a day for cleaning stuff up and sorting things out and making room for some storage cabinets which come tomorrow.