Incorporating Animation into Help Files  

Information clarity, ease of use, and modern computing speeds are reasons to consider animation in Help files. Sharp's article presents three common types of animation and how to make them work for you.

Sharp, Roger A. Intercom (2007). Articles>Documentation>Video>Flash

The InDesigner

The InDesigner video podcast showcases the power of InDesign to automate repetitive tasks, improve productivity and build unprecedented flexibility into the design process. The InDesigner is dedicated to empowering designers to understand and embrace concepts and features that will transform how they work and allow them to both meet their deadlines and satisfy their creative passion.

Murphy, Michael. InDesigner, The. Resources>Document Design>Video>Screencasts

Information About Video Conferencing: What You Need To Know

Video conferencing is the technique of meeting in a group over a network employing video and audio transmission technology and equipment. Armed with information about video conferencing businessmen, technologists, scientists and government heads started to explore ways to bring the world closer together and enable meetings of many people located in different parts of the globe. Video conferencing is the process of being able to see and interact with a group of people located at any point of the world at the same time.

Shakir A. Ezine Articles (2007). Articles>Collaboration>Videoconferencing>Online

Integrating Video in a Flash Movie

Want to integrate video in your Flash movie? You have two choices. You can embed the video in your Flash document, or keep progressively download it into a SWF file using from a FLV (Flash Video) file. In this tutorial you’ll learn to use the Media Playback Component to display a FLV file in a Flash movie.

Cashman, Cyndy. Layers Magazine (2005). Design>Multimedia>Video>Flash

Intriguing Possibilities  

A track matte is a simple (but somewhat hidden) masking technique that you can use in Adobe Premiere and After Effects. You may be surprised to learn how versatile it is, and your audience will think you've gone p

Shuster, Robert. Adobe Magazine (1998). Design>Multimedia>Video

Introduction to After Effects

As a broadcast designer, I'm constantly using Adobe After Effects. Broadcast designers are the people who create TV show openings, bumpers, interstitials, station IDs, corporate IDs, etc. And since After Effects became available, no type or logo on TV is ever stationary. Even low-budget commercials and TV programs now have fancy graphics. Broadcast design used to be a very expensive form of art - companies like RG/A and Pittard Sullivan were the only ones who could afford the equipment to do this kind of stuff. Now this technology is the hands of smaller companies and individuals. After Effects has democratized the whole market.

Suematsu, Dyske. Webmonkey (1999). Design>Multimedia>Video

Jump into Digital Video for Multimedia   

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.

Robbins, David B., Kathleen Wyrwas and Alice Davinich. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>Video

Little Players, Big Shows: Format, Narration, and Style on Television's New Smaller Screens    

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.

Dawson, Max. Convergence (2008). Articles>Multimedia>Video

Magic iMovie

Introduces how to use iMovie 5's 'Magic iMovie' feature to capture video from camcorder and record to DVD.

Jennings, Stephanie and Jennifer Phillips. Studio for New Media (2006). Articles>Multimedia>Software>Video

Making Your First Video: A Case Study  

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.

Medved, Jane E. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Multimedia>Video

The Many Faces of MPEG-4

There's a lot of confusion about what MPEG-4 is and isn't, just as there are many questions as to what it's going to be used for.

Waggoner, Ben. 3Dgate (2001). Design>Multimedia>Video>Standards

Media Player Accessibility

When delivering multimedia content for the three major media players (Windows Media Player, Quicktime and RealMedia Player), the developer must choose whether to have the viewer access the content through a player embedded in a Web page or through a standalone player. Both methods have their advantages. Embedding the player in a Web page allows the user to access the content without another application opening. The standalone players usually have more control options.

WebAIM (2005). Design>Multimedia>Accessibility>Video

Miniature Movies, Big Ideas  

Hundreds of filmmakers, huge audiences, instant reviews, and a door to Hollywood - the cinema comes to the Web.

Brunette, Peter. Adobe Magazine (2000). Design>Multimedia>Video

(Novice) Audio for Television: Mixing the Basic "Event"

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.

Ginsburg, Fred. Equipment Emporium (2006). Articles>Multimedia>Video>Audio

Offset and Displace

Creating an interesting title sequence can involve many different techniques. But here's one simple trick that can be used for almost any type of project--Offset. Used in conjunction with the Displacement Map fi lter, it can also add much reality to a shot.

Holmes, Steve. Mac Design Magazine (2005). Design>Multimedia>Video

On-Target Color

You'll probably recognize this color effect used by a certain department store that plays on the colors in its logo. The effect essentially reduces the image to three colors--a white background, red image content, and a darker red for some depth; but you can choose any color combination or mix any number of colors for a solarized or false color effect.

Hodgetts, Philip. Mac Design Magazine (2005). Design>Multimedia>Video>Color

Planning Ahead in Technical Communication

Describes the course of study that new students in the field of technical communication should consider. Describes what high-tech companies in the Northwest are looking for in prospective employees, and provides information about how to employ particular TC skills to cope with an unsettled job market.

Jacobson, Peggy. EServer (2001). Presentations>TC>Streaming>Video

Podcasting and Vidcasting: The Future of Tech Comm

Advancing technology allows us to use the new technologies of podcasts (audio recordings delivered as .mp3 files) and vidcasts, or more properly, broadcast video to convey technical information. Effective audience analysis will determine whether multimedia is right for our users. We use the same correct rhetorical principles to communicate information aurally and visually as we do when creating text.

Agnew, Beth. Seneca College (2006). Presentations>Multimedia>Video>Podcasting

Portfolios to Demonstrate Professional Skills

Explains how electronic portfolios bring together all the assignments in a TC core course, including learning the tools supported by the profession, student assignments, design rationales, and students' reflections on the tools and their skills and abilities.

Turns, Jennifer. University of Washington-Seattle (2001). Presentations>Education>Streaming>Video

The Power of Film Translation

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the great power of film translation. This aim is accomplished by presenting the major modes of film translation, their world distribution and history, which are then followed by an analysis of dubbing and subtitling from the perspective of domestication and foreignisation.

Szarkowska, Agnieszka. Translation Journal (2005). Articles>Language>Translation>Video

Previewing Video Data: Browsing Key Frames at High Rates

As the amount of video data in digital libraries increases, support for fast and easy access to this information has become necessary. Our approach is to empower users with direct control of video surrogates and provide interaction flexibility. A video browsing interface prototype using a slide show-style presentation of video key frames was built and tested for user performance and subjective satisfaction. The interface allows display rates to be adjusted interactively. Subjects in this preliminary study performed two browsing-related tasks, object identification and gist determination, at display rates of 1, 4, 8, 12, and 16 key frames per second (kfps). A possible functional limit in accuracy for object identification (OI) was detected between 8 to 12 kfps. Performance for gist determination (GD) tended to degrad with increased display rates. However, no significant performance differences were detected. Furthermore, it was observed that lower rates were required for object identification than for gist determination. Suggestions for designing fast video browsing interfaces are provided.

Ding, Wei, Gary Marchionini and Tony Tse. ISRDP in Digital Libraries (1997). Articles>User Interface>Video

Publishing is Dead  

What does the internet mean for Traditional Publishing? It means death. Not one to pull punches, Mike Scantlebury expounds his theory in a humorous and direct way.

Scantlebury, Mike. FreeIQ (2007). Articles>Publishing>Online>Video

Putting the Poetry of Film to Use Online  

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.

Gillette, David. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>Video

A Review of Digital Video Production in Post-Secondary English Classrooms at Three Universities  

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.

Meeks, Melissa and Alex Ilyasova. Kairos (2003). Articles>Education>Multimedia>Video

Revisiting the Webcam  

Considers the current state of webcam technology.

Archee, Raymond K. Intercom (2004). Articles>Technology>Telecommuting>Video