DV for Teachers » MPEG

Converting AVCHD files for iMovie

Tim Merritt — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:23:58 +0000

Macworld’s Chris Breen offers valuable info in Converting AVCHD files for iMovie. The lack of direct support for AVCHD in out-of-the-box iMovie stinks though. Camcorder manufacturers often include Windows-only conversion utilities, and one commenter suggests installing them using VirtualBox, a free Windows operating system virtual machine. That’s a lot of hassle for an increasingly common video format that will rapidly become ubiquitous.

Macworld’s HD Camcorder Buyer’s Guide

Tim Merritt — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:08:20 +0000

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.

Online Video: Codecs, Encoding and Compression

Tim Merritt — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:56:29 +0000

Debra Kaufman reports on a Digital Cinema Society session on encoding video for the web: Online Video: Codecs, Encoding and Compression for the Studio Daily Blog It’s a quick report of what must have been a much more in-depth discussion, but go for the take-away formats that have, for now, the widest reach among potential viewers.

Mark Pilgrim’s GIVE: A Gentle Intro to Video Encoding

Tim Merritt — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:20:19 +0000

This introduction is “gentle” only in technical terms; Mark Pilgrim’s language can get quite salty, so if your school’s filters block four-letter words, you’ll need to read this at home. Nonetheless, the four part A Gentle Introduction to Video Encoding (part one, part two, part three, part four) is an excellent introduction to concepts, terminology, patent status, and limitations of the formats. It does not provide any instruction or tutorials, but those are widely available through the Google.

Labnol.org: How to Embed Almost Anything in your Website

Tim Merritt — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:40:54 +0000

This list is very thorough. In Amit Agarwal’s How to Embed Almost Anything in your Website you’ll find tips on embedding:

RSS feeds
MP3s and other audio
Flickr photos and slideshows
High quality or HD YouTube videos
Picasa web albums
Google calendar events
Large photographs
Charts and graphs
GIF animations and screencasts
MS Word documents and PowerPoint presentations
Spreadsheet data
PDF files
Flash (SWV) or Flash video (FLV)
LinkedIn profiles
Google maps
Another web page
Windows Media or QuickTime
Other fonts

Lifestream
Via the delicious feed on popurls.

Bonus: looking for an “embed” image for this post at Google, I found this—

VLC media player Gets an Update

Tim Merritt — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:00:56 +0000

The fine coders at the VideoLAN project have updated their fine media player and encoder. Did you know that VLC, the VideoLAN client, can do all of this? From the VLC site:

It is a free cross-platform media player
It supports a large number of multimedia formats, without the need for additional codecs

It can also be used as a streaming server, with extended features (video on demand, on the fly transcoding, ...)
Add it to your video toolbox now – it’s safe and immensely useful for playing and transcoding odd video files. Download now for Mac, Windows, or Linux.

Color Workflows With Different Types of Sources

Tim Merritt — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:34:33 +0000

Ahh, formats. There are so many: still using DV tape? Or have you switched to a DVD-based MPEG-2 format? Maybe you use a hard-drive or flash-memory kind of camcorder? Whichever you use, do you know the ins and outs of what it takes to edit that format properly? You need to make sure your system is up to the task, but what about that codec, and I need to output to DVD and the web, but yikes everyone looks blue in that shot, and….

We don’t have all the solutions here, but Andrew Balis, a long-time contributor to Ken Stone’s site and major FCP maven, provides one piece of the puzzle as he explains Color Workflows With Different Types of Sources:

One of the most confusing issues that comes up frequently with new users of Color is how to get in and out of Color with different types of video formats. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to clear up the confusion by presenting the four main workflows Color can utilize, as well as how each format can be handled by Color. This article relates to users of Color version 1.0.2 or later. Well look at how to handle video formats captured via capture card, as well as how to work with “native” formats captured via FireWire such as DV, DVCPRO 50, DVCPRO HD and HDV.

Even if your footage is color correct from the word “Action!”, if you need some help understanding aspects of the different types of video, this article is worth reading and bookmarking.

A Beginners Guide to High Definition Video

Tim Merritt — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 15:16:50 +0000

I still shoot Standard Definition: MiniDV, 720×480, 29.97 fps, 4:2:2 compression, etc. etc. But HDV is coming to education. It will be a while before schools and colleges have the funds to upgrade their TVs and display systems to show HDV, but those of us who produce and teach video in education need to know about this format. From Consumer Electronics.net.

A Beginners Guide to High Definition Video.

Consumer Electronics: Creative’s Video Blaster Editor

Tim Merritt — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 14:24:37 +0000

This isn’t the first external video-to-USB adapter I’ve seen, but as reported in Consumer Electronics.net’s Creative’s Video Blaster Editor, it offers lots for formats and more than one editing package, including a full version of the estimable Premiere Elements 2.0.

Video editing can be a daunting task for those who are unfamiliar with the terminology and hardware that is required to capture video to the PC. And not all PCs come with a FireWire, composite, or S-video connection that enables the capture of video from a camcorder, VCR or other video device. But all PCs today ship with USB ports, and people know that plugging a device into a USB port enables them to do magical things. Creative’s Video Blaster Editor has turned what traditionally has been a “crack open the PC case solution” into a plug the USB cable into the PC solution, easing the way for people to capture and edit video.

For $199 retail, it’s worth a look.

Lifehacker: Any Video Converter for Windows

Tim Merritt — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:15:52 +0000

Lifehacker points to Any Video Converter. Looks good, but couldn’t download this at posting time; seems their server was overloaded, thus I haven’t tested it. Lifehacker’s recommendations are pretty reliable, though, in my experience.

Windows only: Convert nearly any video format to nearly any other video format with the aptly named Any Video Converter.

The program supports just about every video format known to man, including AVI, DivX, FLV, RM, and VOB. It also comes with output profiles for devices like the iPod and PSP, though you can easily create a custom profile with the audio and video specs of your choosing.

AVC couldn’t be much easier to use, and it supports batch conversions—always a nice perk. You’ll definitely want to add this utility to your video arsenal (though don’t overlook Videora Converter, arguably a better choice for converting videos for mobile devices). Any Video Converter is free for Windows.