Have Demo, Will Travel: Presenting Demos Outside the Studio

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.

Levy, Marshall. Event DV (2008). Articles>Presentations>Multimedia>Video

Set Design for Online Corporate Video

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.

Ozer, Jan. Event DV (2008). Articles>Multimedia>Video>Business Communication

Producing Corporate Web Videos

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.

Sweetow, Stu. Event DV (2008). Articles>Multimedia>Video>Business Communication

Adding High-Impact Filters to Your Titles

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.

McManus, Joe. Event DV (2008). Articles>Multimedia>Image Editing>Video

The Nonlinear Editor: On the Bubble

Not every tale of striking out on your own and following your bliss ends happily. In our industry, plenty of event videographers who’ve enthusiastically "taken the plunge" and quit the 9-to-5 grind to become video entrepreneurs have found themselves back in the work force within a few years, after their businesses failed. Sometimes the problem is ability, other times it’s lack of business sense or strategy; just as often, especially in trying economic times, it’s simply that a given market won’t bear another videographer who is unable to distinguish him- or herself from the existing competition.

Nathans-Kelly, Stephen. Event DV (2008). Careers>Freelance>Video

Posting HD: How Much Power Do You Need for Speed?

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?

Franklin, Marc. Event DV (2008). Articles>Multimedia>Video>High Definition

Essential Tools of an XML Workflow

This webcast is for those publishers who have made the decision to pursue digital channels for their content. What tools are out there? What do all those acronyms mean? How can publishers implement new strategies without disrupting current workflows? Here we explore the alphabet soup of digital publishing, sort out the tools that are most useful, and help publishers find some solid ground.

Dawson, Laura. O'Reilly and Associates (2009). Presentations>Information Design>XML>Video

Converting a Photoshop Mockup (Part 1 of 3)

In this first-ever video podcast, I start the conversion process of an Adobe Photoshop mockup of a website, into a real live CSS based website.

Coyier, Chris. CSS Tricks (2009). Articles>Web Design>Video>Screencasts

How to Produce a Two-Person Video Blog Post

We've produced a handful of bloggingheads video posts the past few months, sometimes resulting in polite golf claps. Afterward, a common question has been: how do you do them? Here's a 9-step tutorial. On a Mac, the technology is pretty simple. If you're on a PC, sorry, we can't help.

McConnell, Ben. Church of the Customer (2009). Articles>Web Design>Video>Podcasting

Stripped Bear

An introduction to Usability: What's The Use? by Shaun Fensom from Manchester Digital, followed by a short primer to usability by Paul Rouke, User Experience Director at PRWD.

Fensom, Shaun and Paul Rouke. Vimeo (2009). Presentations>Usability>Streaming>Video

The Importance For Internal Business Systems

Talks about the importance of usability for internal business systems, specifically around staff productivity and process efficiency. The presentation touches on common barriers to staff productivity, some of the main reasons for these barriers, plus a short video of a manufacturing company who are embracing user-centered design as a way of combating the traditional software development issues on a companies productivity. The presentation also asks business owners a few key questions, such as do you listen to your staff, do you staff waste valuable company time doing repetitive tasks, and do you know what is the on-going cost to your business if you use un-usable software systems.

Rouke, Paul. Vimeo (2009). Presentations>Usability>Workflow>Video

The Importance for Customer Facing Websites

Talks about the importance of usability for businesses communicating with both new and potential customers. Featuring a case study of how a company improved their revenue-per-employee by 95% over a 2 year period, along with some attendee participation, this 17 minute presentation touches on a wide variety of websites and activities, such as lead generation sites, information portals and search engine marketing campaigns. Most significantly conversion rates for e-commerce websites are discussed, where usability can have a remarkable affect on a companies bottom line, if the right decisions are made in making improvements.

Rouke, Paul. Vimeo (2009). Presentations>Usability>Web Design>Video

FrameMaker 9 User Interface onDemand eLearning Session

An explanation of the logic behind the new FrameMaker interface and a tour of how it works.

Jacquez, R.J. Adobe (2009). Presentations>Document Design>Video>Adobe FrameMaker

Accessible Web Video: JW Player Controls

Our JW Player Controls is an attempt to get around the limitations for access that Flash presents, to provide a richer user interface to the JW FLV Player, and to enhance the contrast and readability of captions by providing an alternate viewing area for caption content.

Ohio State University (2009). Resources>Accessibility>Streaming>Video

Video Format Guide

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.

Geeks.com (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Video>Standards

The Moving Picture: Mistakes and All

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.

Ozer, Jan. Event DV (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Streaming>Video

Cut Lines: Using the AVCHD Format in Final Cut Pro

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.

McManus, Joe. Event DV (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Video>Final Cut Pro

Measure Audience Engagement with Internet Video

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

Visible Measures (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Video>Assessment

Engaged Reach Case Study of the Nike Hyperdunk Viral Video Campaign

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.

Visible Measures (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Video>Social Networking

How Video Can Turn Your Career Around

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.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>Video

Relatively PC and Reliable Confusion

The videos have been collected by the Inclusive Digital Economy Network. They present many of the challenges that older users often face when interacting with new technologies. The purpose of these videos is to highlight the issues in an insightful and thought-provoking way.

Inclusive Digital Economy Network (2009). Resources>Accessibility>Video>Elderly

Weer Not Bad Spelerz

Whether you are a new caption viewer or someone who has been using captions for many years, as you watch captioning, the thought may cross your mind that the captioner either (a) is from a foreign country and has little facility in spelling or (b) is a lazy typist who doesn't want to check their spelling some of the time. Nothing could be further from the truth.

White, Patty. Caption Colorado (2009). Articles>Accessibility>Video

Technical Communication in the 4th Dimension

A discussion of how to plan for the use of time in video documentation projects.

Miller, Harry. Microsoft (2009). Articles>Documentation>Video>Screen Captures

How to Convert to High-Quality MP4 and Display in Flash on Your Site

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.

VideoHelp (2009). Articles>Multimedia>Video>Flash

Video, Documentation, and You

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.

Nesbitt, Scott. DMN Communications (2009). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>Video