DV for Teachers

Alrighty, back at work at Georgia State, and a first working post. With so many people wigging out about Apple’s purported tablet computer, here’s a savvy weigh-in from yesterday’s Inside Higher Ed:

Before the integration of the iSlate and iTunesU it was never possible to bring all the course and learning materials to one device. Course readings and video delivered through the browser were often difficult to navigate, and the reading experience was relatively poor. But with the iSlate and iTunesU it will be possible to download all the course related materials, hosting them locally for easy viewing and reading. At the same time, the browser experience in the iSlate will keep what is good about a Web based learning system – the ability to interact and communicate. Combining both the reading/viewing experience not browser based, with the collaboration/communication experience browser based will converge these activities into one device.

via Blog U.: iSlate / iTunesU / Higher Ed – Technology and Learning – Inside Higher Ed.

I’m cheating twice here; bear with me. First cheat, I didn’t link to Part 1. It, and the point of this post, Part 2, have been floating in open tabs in my browser for too many weeks. It’s embarrassing, really. I should have posted these things a long time ago, but “I’ll do it later” is a constant refrain in my head and my life. (Ask my wife, or several of the people I work with.)

!

(On second thought, please don’t!)

The point, again, of this post: a series on Peachpit about Equipment for Video Podcasting, which covers an extensive amount of information, with pics and links, provides a very good one-stop reference about video podcasting (well, two, really, unless you think of the series as a single thing with separate parts).

And my second cheat? Those links point to the print-ready versions of the articles, because the originals are split into seven or eight shorter chunks requiring reloading the pages and that’s kind of cheating. At least I think it isn’t, so I’m counter-cheating.

Enjoy the articles.

Mark Pilgrim posts a chapter from a forthcoming book about how video will work on the web under the HTML5 specification: Video on the Web – Dive Into HTML5. Heady, technical stuff, but it will become more and more important. I don’t understand the implications of the licensing issues. He finishes this secion this way:

Legally encoding and distributing H.264 video already costs money. But starting in 2011, it’s going to cost a whole lot more.

Hmm. Not sure I like the sound of that.

I’m at altitude, on my way to a weekend away with Ellen to Boulder. Got a free pass for in-flight wifi, so I’m going to post some of the too-many open tabs I’ve been meaning to close among my browsers. Yes, browsers—I use both Firefox and Camino most of the time, and once in a while I use Safari. This post is about a great add-on that makes the web more usable, by controlling all that animated distracting hateful nasty Flash. It’s great when you want to watch a video, but all the ******* ads that I see lurching around the screens when I walk through the labs makes me pity all the folks who don’t know that it’s an option. As the developer, Wolf Rentzch says, “The web is so much better without Flash.” He’s right.

So, with that, read about and (on your Mac, anyway) install ClickToFlash. From the website:

Ever wanted to get rid of the scourge of the web that is Adobe Flash, but still retain the ability to view Flash whenever you want? With ClickToFlash, you can! Using ClickToFlash, all of those icky Flash bits that have infected most webpages on the internets are replaced with a nice, smooth gradient and the word “Flash” set in a nice, pleasing font. When you want to view the Flash, just click on it!

The advantages of ClickToFlash are numerous. Since Flash isn’t loaded until you specifically ask for it, your CPU usage will stay at normal levels when browsing the web. This has tons of benefits: web browsing stays speedy, your Mac laptop won’t get as hot, and your Mac’s fan won’t come on as often. In fact, we guarantee* that ClickToFlash will quintuple your battery life and that it will protect those precious parts of your body on which you rest your laptop! (* note: not actually guaranteed)

Although similar to Flashblock for Firefox and Camino, ClickToFlash offers features over and above what Flashblock offers, and it offers them for Safari. Best among them, ClickToFlash supports viewing all those ADORABLE meowing cat videos, annoying dog videos, and hilarious rickrolls from YouTube without using Flash at all! That’s because YouTube also offers H.264 videos, which are used when viewing YouTube on the iPhone. With ClickToFlash, you get access to those same, higher quality videos.

Come join us! The web is so much better without Flash.

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.

Wow. The University System of Georgia went with VMWare Fusion for Windows emulation on Macs, but that was several versions ago. MacTech testing says their competition has gotten so much better:

In the majority of overall averages of our tests, Parallels Desktop is the clear winner running 14-20% faster than VMware Fusion. The one exception is for those that need to run Windows XP, 32-bit on 2 virtual processors, VMware Fusion runs about 10% faster than Parallels Desktop.

Red the entire test report: Head-to-Head: Parallels Desktop for Mac vs. VMware Fusion. If you’re not running Windows on your Mac, and you’re considering it, there are other options as well.

I used to use iMovie much more often; now I do almost all my video editing in Final Cut Pro. Many in the college either use our small Mac lab for video and DVD creation or have their own Macs now. The new iLife, which incorporates iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, and more, has achieved hit a sweet spot in power and usability. It’s still not a piece of cake for those used to Windows, but it’s stable, flexible, and really easy. Read through this exhaustive review from uber-tech site Ars Technica for a solid learning experience whether you’re a Mac rookie or experienced user.

Ars Reviews iLife ‘09: making the cut with iMovie and iPhoto – Ars Technica.

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.

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.

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—