http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Multimedia/Video A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Multimedia and Video in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Multimedia/Video http://tc.eserver.org/35615.html http://tc.eserver.org/35615.html Have you noticed? There is currently a significant increase in the number of participants attending virtual events such as webinars, tele-events, live podcasts and web TV shows. http://tc.eserver.org/34878.html http://tc.eserver.org/34878.html Can animation bring life to the computer? Can the computer take animation to a new horizon extending from cinema and visual art? This article starts with a scrutiny of the conventional definition of animation and its connection to the continuum of liveliness, followed by an examination of the two furthest points on that scale: lively movement, which is spiritual; and inorganic movement, which is functional. The author shows that, in the digital age, movement of various degrees of liveliness can be significant and meaningful through a wide array of motor—sensory functions. This brings about a new notion of materiality, which constructs an innovative meaning of animation. The author then argues that, when combined with the unique functions of the computer, animation can find a shortcut between the two extremes of liveliness: spirituality and functionality. Therefore, the field of animation could benefit from an expansion of its digital attributes. Finally, the author discusses a corpus of artefacts created in different historical periods and different media that exemplify the spiritual—functional loop. http://tc.eserver.org/34879.html http://tc.eserver.org/34879.html The development of 3D animation systems has been driven primarily by a hyper-realist ethos, and 3D computer graphic (CG) features have broadly complied with this agenda. As a counterpoint to this trend, some researchers, technologists and animation artists have explored the possibility of creating more expressive narrative output from 3D animation environments. This article explores 3D animation aesthetics, technology and culture in this context. http://tc.eserver.org/34671.html http://tc.eserver.org/34671.html The inclusion of audio in online learning courses not only greatly enhances learners' experiences, it also ensures that your courses are accessible to a wide audience. In this article I explore the various ways you can add audio to your Captivate projects. I also provide a number of tips on adding a narration to product demonstrations and presentations. http://tc.eserver.org/34631.html http://tc.eserver.org/34631.html Video has the potential for enhancing documentation. But is video the be all, end all? Is it really the next stage in the evolution of documentation? Will it supplant text and static images? This post looks at the pros and cons. http://tc.eserver.org/34621.html http://tc.eserver.org/34621.html This basic guide will show you the steps how to convert any video to high quality flash video, MP4 with H264 and AAC audio, and put it on your website with a Flash video player using free software only. http://tc.eserver.org/34254.html http://tc.eserver.org/34254.html When I talk to most technical writers, video is a format they haven’t done much with. This surprises me, because I find that, as a user, video tutorials are often the most helpful type of material for me to learn software. Video most closely simulates the universal desire we have for a friend to show us how to do something in an application. Perhaps I’m a visual learner, but the majority of us (some say 60 to 65 percent) are visual learners. But video doesn’t appeal only to end users. Video can be an appealing format for technical writers as well. Creating videos can turn your career around, especially if you find technical writing a little dull. http://tc.eserver.org/34218.html http://tc.eserver.org/34218.html A video's Engagement Curve is a visual representation of the audience's cumulative interactions with the video. An Engagement Curve quickly reveals which parts of the video clip the audience finds compelling -- in the example above, viewers are clearly rewinding to re-watch a segment in the middle -- and which parts do not hold the viewers' attenion -- in this case, the end. An Engagement Curve is read from left-to-right, with the left edge representing the beginning of the video and the right edge representing the end of the video. The dashed grey line shows the view-count, while the blue line shows many times that particular segment of the video was watched http://tc.eserver.org/34219.html http://tc.eserver.org/34219.html In support of their Hyperdunk basketball shoe, Nike recently launched a viral video featuring basketball superstar Kobe Bryant recklessly leaping over a speeding Aston Martin. The video's low-end production quality makes the clip appear to be user-generated. As our analysis uncovered, this video was spread far and wide as the online viewing audience tried to figure out if one of the world's biggest sports stars would actually attempt such a stunt. Watch the clip below and read on to see just how effectively this campaign drove audience reach. http://tc.eserver.org/34203.html http://tc.eserver.org/34203.html The first and most common mistake made when producing for streaming is shooting in an interlaced mode. All streaming video is progressive. And if you shoot interlaced, you start with two fields that may not combine into one clean frame (even if you check the deinterlace box before rendering), especially when motion or sharp diagonal lines are involved. This can result in simple jaggies or bizarre artifacts, such as a table edge that looks like twisted wrought iron in a video produced by one of the largest retail chains in the world. Second, if you do shoot interlaced, remember to deinterlace the video. Streaming producers make this mistake all the time and end up with horizontal slices, almost like Venetian blinds in higher-motion sequences. http://tc.eserver.org/34204.html http://tc.eserver.org/34204.html One issue with AVCHD is that (like HDV) it’s based on a codec that is not really built for editing in the way that DV is. DV is an intraframe codec, which means that each frame of video is compressed using redundancies within the frame itself, and thus can be reconstructed and interpreted by your computer’s processor without having to refer to other frames in the video stream to gather the necessary image information. HDV, being MPEG-2-based, and AVCHD, being H.264-based, use both intraframe and interframe compression, which means most of the frames in your video stream need to be referred to other frames to gather all the image information that constitutes the frame. Because all this cross-referencing is so processor- and memory-intensive, it can really slow down your editing. http://tc.eserver.org/34137.html http://tc.eserver.org/34137.html When people talk about video formats, they're referring to something called a container format. The container format is a detailed description of what's inside a video file. It describes the structure of the file, as well as the kind of data that the file contains. http://tc.eserver.org/33534.html http://tc.eserver.org/33534.html In this installment of Cut Lines, we’ll look at cropping and rotating several images at once and how nesting your composition can make it easier to manipulate your images together. http://tc.eserver.org/33535.html http://tc.eserver.org/33535.html We’ll begin this series by discussing one of the most important features in any pro nonlinear editor: color correction. The first thing you need to do before beginning any type of color correction work is to determine what "correct" color looks like. Rarely does your computer screen display colors correctly. http://tc.eserver.org/33538.html http://tc.eserver.org/33538.html When I teach Time Remapping in the Apple classes I lead, we all work on the same clip. But I often find that giving this overview of the tools right off the bat helps my students grasp how to control Variable-Speed Remapping faster and easier. http://tc.eserver.org/33539.html http://tc.eserver.org/33539.html This installment of Cut Lines is Part 1 of a two-part tutorial about Time Remapping in Final Cut Pro (FCP). We’ll take a quick look at Constant Speed Remapping and the mechanics that go into FCP creating it so that you more fully understand why your results look the way they do. My hope is that this understanding will enable you to visualize what the effect will look like before you even apply it, making your workflow faster and your creativity more enhanced. http://tc.eserver.org/33541.html http://tc.eserver.org/33541.html When I was asked to write about the process in which I show demos of my company’s work, I initially thought of what I used several years ago to show clients my samples—a time when DVDs didn't even exist and my home office setup was not such that I could do demos effectively there. Those were days when I had to travel to a meeting with a VCR deck, a tube-style TV, a bunch of cables, a cart to carry everything on, and, of course, VHS tapes, all properly rewound to the correct starting points. http://tc.eserver.org/33542.html http://tc.eserver.org/33542.html In this article, I’ll discuss four design-related areas: how to create a simple set for in-house use; how to choose the best background for location shoots like case studies and testimonials; current trends in set design for internet-only media sites; how to dress your subjects for optimum compression. The importance of many of the set design principles discussed in this chapter relate to your distribution data rate. If the bitrate of the video you’re delivering is very high, say in the 400Kbps range for 320x240 video or 650Kbps or higher for 640x480, you have a lot more flexibility, since the compressed quality of your video will remain quite high. Once you sink below these rates, quality degrades. Choosing a poor background or set will only make the problem worse. http://tc.eserver.org/33543.html http://tc.eserver.org/33543.html Website videos are a natural for event videographers. We use them to demonstrate our work to prospective clients, and they have proven to be a vital marketing medium to showcase our range of products. We might even post short video testimonials from happy clients or put our own talking heads on our sites. http://tc.eserver.org/33544.html http://tc.eserver.org/33544.html Words go so well with video. They can give an emotional punch to a scene or simply announce what is going to happen next. I love using romantic quotes, Bible passages, and other forms of text in my work. The best part is that you can be just as creative with how those words are presented as you are in picking out the text in the first place. http://tc.eserver.org/33547.html http://tc.eserver.org/33547.html When working with HDV footage in post, your computer is constantly trying to compile editable frames from frames that include only a portion of their own frame information, and thus needs to work a lot harder to process HDV natively than DV. Which raises the question: How powerful a system do you need to make HDV postproduction as smooth as DV editing is today? http://tc.eserver.org/32712.html http://tc.eserver.org/32712.html While almost completely invisible for years, Apple’s progress in media has resulted in overturning Microsoft’s domination of the entertainment industry, established a resistance to unchecked DRM, and has extinguished Microsoft’s efforts to establish new proprietary technologies as de facto industry standards. http://tc.eserver.org/32713.html http://tc.eserver.org/32713.html Apple's work to aggressively build upon QuickTime and compete in the market against Microsoft--rather than just handing its technology over and “partnering” with the company--launched Apple ahead and established major new markets for the Mac platform. Final Cut Pro initially established the Mac as an essential tool among editors. http://tc.eserver.org/32351.html http://tc.eserver.org/32351.html Creating video tutorials is no trivial task. When you sit down to create 20+ video tutorials for a project, you’re faced with dozens of questions. What screen size should the videos be, what recording tool should you use, what microphone is best, how long should the videos be, what file size is acceptable? Should you use voice or captions? Where will you create the recording? You can create video tutorials using dozens of different methods. There are no official steps to create videos, because situations and audiences vary so widely. http://tc.eserver.org/32045.html http://tc.eserver.org/32045.html I have spent the last two weeks switching between Captivate and Camtasia Studio. Talk about schizophrenic. I spent a lot of time trying to remember which command I had to use in which program, but overall it’s been an interesting experience. http://tc.eserver.org/31053.html http://tc.eserver.org/31053.html Current developments in high-definition technological systems for home viewing link definitively with early Home Cinema, as practised from the late 1890s, as an alternative to public spectatorship. The traditions of Home Cinema, in encompassing degrees of informality, interaction and control within domestic exhibition, served to lay foundations for a televisual experience which, today, having come full-circle, is defining itself once more as `Home Cinema'. http://tc.eserver.org/31051.html http://tc.eserver.org/31051.html This article highlights the role that aesthetics play in television's current convergence with mobile telephones and portable media players like the iPod. I contend that contemporary television style does not just constitute a response to the demands of technological convergence -- it is rather an integral component of that which allows television to merge with new devices in the first place. When we engage with style as a precursor to these developments, important continuities emerge between the aesthetics of the small screen and those of the new smaller screens. These continuities underscore that convergence is at once a technical and aesthetic process that entails the hybridization of hardware and cultural forms. http://tc.eserver.org/31029.html http://tc.eserver.org/31029.html Here is a breakdown of how we might handle the typical 'low budget' television demo or competition, such as a local cooking show, sporting event, or how-to-do-it. http://tc.eserver.org/31026.html http://tc.eserver.org/31026.html Digital video production in composition courses is both new and exciting. However, this newness comes with challenges and obstacles as well as more questions than answers. What exactly is so fun, attractive, liberating, and transgressive about digital video work? Is it the time invested in editing minutes or hours of footage into seconds of film clips? Is it the sheer thrill of having the power to overlay images, words, and sounds to produce an effect impossible in the real world and highly effective in the multimodal, rhetorical one? Is it that the composition teacher is finally asking for a product where grammar (understood as punctuation and sentence structure) is mostly invisible? Is it the crisis moments when the software, the hard drive, and/or the accompanying hardware crashes and we are still left with a classroom full of students to teach? Or, is it the mesmerizing effect of the screen that promises sustained attention to a composition assignment? The answer, we think, in all cases is 'yes'--yet sometimes that yes is a hesitant one. http://tc.eserver.org/30588.html http://tc.eserver.org/30588.html A video camera is an excellent tool for preparing technical illustrations and procedures. A video tape of a procedure provides chronological information. It provides visual images that can be used as the basis for technical illustrations. Visual images and details are recorded permenantly so that they are not forgotten. The research information can be passed on to another author. A case study illustrates how a video tape can be used to document a procedure and produce electronic illustrations. http://tc.eserver.org/30243.html http://tc.eserver.org/30243.html Interactive media for distance training require special presentational strategies. Compressed video, an interactive medium using fiber optics, has unique characteristics which users must know. The video creates a lack of direct eye contact and a sense of separation. The compression creates flattened images and extremes of colors. Effective presenters in this medium must plan concise, horizontal graphics. They must schedule short, varied activities with limited use of uninterrupted lecture. And they must plan frequent interactive activities--such as questions, group work, and demonstrations--for an effective session. http://tc.eserver.org/30088.html http://tc.eserver.org/30088.html Digital video (DV) is relatively easy and inexpensive to produce and has an expanding role in technical communication. It is a powerful media for communication and can be included in favorite online formats such as WinHelp, HTML help, Acrobat (PDF), and web pages, as well as training presentations produced with tools such as Asymmetrix Toolbook and Macromedia Authorware. Delivery of DV spans a range of electronic media including CD, DVD, and the Internet. New technology offers the potential to synchronize the presentation of video, audio, and other multimedia forms. This paper introduces DV concepts. It gives practical tips for investing in DV equipment and producing video and audio. http://tc.eserver.org/29679.html http://tc.eserver.org/29679.html This article helps technical communicators become better informed producers of interactive, cinema-like new media objects (help systems, public information and ordering kiosks, promotional technical presentations on the web, and so on) by providing a summary of how cinema works, and then by proposing a few ways that some basic cinema editing and display techniques can be integrated into on-screen technical communications practice. The author makes the claim that if we are to begin thinking and working like film makers, the fundamental poetics and information designs we use in our new media design and development work must also change. http://tc.eserver.org/27645.html http://tc.eserver.org/27645.html The availability of powerful yet easy-to-use multimedia tools enables technical writers to consider a powerful new form of embedded user assistance: show-me help. This paper provides an overview of who is currently using show-me help--some current research, some history, and some definitions. It offers some guidance in choosing tools, designing show-me help, and deciding when to include then, concentrating on consideration of your users, potential topics, subsequent releases, and translation. It also suggests how show-me helps can be reused as part of product education and single-sourced into user assistance from the Web. http://tc.eserver.org/27111.html http://tc.eserver.org/27111.html e-Video is divided into four major sections: Opportunity, Production, Compression, and Delivery. Although these can (and must) get a bit technical to be useful, I found Alesso's style understandable. http://tc.eserver.org/26980.html http://tc.eserver.org/26980.html Introduces developing multimedia using the 'prosumer' Canon GL2 digital camcorder. http://tc.eserver.org/26979.html http://tc.eserver.org/26979.html Introduces how to use iMovie 5's 'Magic iMovie' feature to capture video from camcorder and record to DVD. http://tc.eserver.org/26625.html http://tc.eserver.org/26625.html Eyetracking data show that users are easily distracted when watching video on websites, especially when the video shows a talking head and is optimized for broadcast rather than online viewing. http://tc.eserver.org/23681.html http://tc.eserver.org/23681.html Why would someone make a movie and call it The Technical Writer? I did a quick rundown of similar titles from a movie web site, but I couldn't detect much of a pattern. http://tc.eserver.org/22915.html http://tc.eserver.org/22915.html This paper summarizes the fundamentals learned in writing a script and helping to coordinate the production of a medium- to high-quality motivational video. New to this experience, our team worked hand-in-hand with an experienced video production company. Our video served as a companion to an environmental guidebook. The primary purpose of the video was to inspire viewers to read and make use of the guidebook in their work. http://tc.eserver.org/21650.html http://tc.eserver.org/21650.html Presents guidelines for developing videos from technical material and discusses the process of video production. http://tc.eserver.org/18530.html http://tc.eserver.org/18530.html Although electronic whiteboards come in several sizes and shapes, their main function is the same – to capture written annotations, notes and drawings and store them for future reference. This is accomplished with infrared sensors, radio-signal-emitting pens, plasma overlays and other technologies. The end product is a file of digitally stored notes that can be e-mailed, posted online, or printed and handed out to an audience immediately after a presentation or training session. Beyond these basic features, some electronic whiteboards are interactive – letting you connect a computer and projector to the whiteboard to combine its features with common software programs. A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, for example, can be projected onto an interactive whiteboard where it can be marked up with colored pens to highlight important numbers or trends. Or, using an interactive whiteboard's touchscreen feature, a presenter can navigate the Web using a finger to move the cursor and double-clicking with taps on the screen. Even videoconferencing functions have been integrated into electronic whiteboards in the past year.