Techno-babble by
This document provides a description of the process of digital video
production at the
This is the most important step and should be our first goal. The
process of telling a story is usually more involved than the lay person
thinks. It would be very conservative
for me to say that 1 minute of video will take at least 1 hour to produce.
Using Bow’s “Overview” video as an example, producing the movie consisted of:
a) Preproduction:
(2 weeks):
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I
emailed all of the faculty and staff at Bow to explain that we were going to
start making movies which highlighted some of the ways technology is used in
Bow. I told them that the first video would be an overview of the district,
which featured a “minute of this, and a minute of
that”. I explained that I would be video
taping between the dates of A and B and requested that anyone who had anything
to share during that time allow me to video tape a few minutes of their class.
·
I then
received invitations from numerous faculty members and planned my schedule
accordingly.
b)
Production (2 weeks):
·
Using
the schedule I generated during preproduction, I visited several different
classrooms throughout the district and videotaped the events I was invited to.
Whenever possible, I videotaped the event and then tried to get teacher
commentary afterwards. I discovered that students and teachers act very
different when in front of the camera and, as such, started trying to find ways
to videotape in a less obvious way. For example, although the teachers knew I
was videotaping them, I would often point the camera towards the floor when
asking them questions. I did this with the intention of using just the audio I recorded. This often put them more at ease.
·
After
filming 5 minutes here and five minutes there, over a period of 2 weeks, I
ended up with about an hour of footage.
c)
Post Production: This is where you’ll do most of your work.
·
I first
watched all of my video and logged which parts were useable and which parts
weren’t.
·
I then
used a computer to video-capture all of the useable parts into a video editing
package.
·
I then
broke the captured clips into smaller sections and rearranged them on the time
line in order to “tell my story”. This process is very consuming, as one
watches the clips over and over again, changing the length and order of the
clips, etc… in order to better convey the points you’re trying to make.
·
Once I
had a rough draft of what I wanted to do, I wrote and recorded a narration to
accompany the video clips, went back out to record missing footage necessary to
“tell the story” and created title screens and text overlays for the video.
·
I added
this additional footage and audio, tweaked and cleaned the audio as necessary,
and continued to cut more footage in order to make the video flow well. When
all was said and done, 20 hours of work and 1 hour of videotape resulted in a
12-minute video.
The post production process is easily
accomplished on either the Macintosh or Windows computer platform, though
additional hardware/software may be required. If using a DV camcorder, your
computer will require a Firewire interface (a.k.a.
DV, iLink, ieee
1394) and some sort of video capture software.
Most Macs built since 1999 have this interface and many of the newer
Windows machines do, as well.
Mac users can use Apple’s freely downloadable iMovie software. Windows ME
(as well as Windows XP) includes Microsoft’s Movie Maker software as part of
the operating system. Both of these
packages are easy to use with similar feature sets. As easy-to-use and free,
they also have limitations, but I’ve found that my faculty find
these limitations to be comforting. If your computer lacks a firewire interface, there are numerous packages, which
offer the interface card bundled with entry-level software for $80 or
less. Popular cards would include
Pinnacle System’s DV Studio and ADS’s Pyro DV.
Those who are so inclined can look at more
sophisticated packages such as Adobe Premiere 6 (Mac and PC), Apple’s Final Cut
Pro (Mac only) and Avid’s Xpress
DV (Windows 2000 only) which will run $250 - $1700. Movie makers should also
keep disk space in mind, as one minute of DV video will consume about 250MB of
hard drive space. Bow’s “Overview” started with an hour of video which required
13 GB of hard drive space.
Step 2: Compress the Movie:
Before a movie can be shared on the Internet, it has to be compressed
into a format which is suitable to the type of server that it is going to be
served by as well as suitable for the type of user who will be accessing
it. Since different people use different
types of computers, which run at different speeds and connect to the Internet
via different methods, a single movie should be saved into multiple formats,
such as QuickTime and Real Player. Each
of those formats should include different clips suitable for 28.8 modems, 56kb
modems, ISDN, T1, LAN, etc. The Bow
“Overview” video current resides on the
Compressing itself is a black art and one that can’t be covered in any
depth in this paper. Terran Interactive, Inc. has written a useful book called
How to Produce High-Quality QuickTime, which would be a good place to
start. This art does require knowledge
in such areas as appropriate aspect ratio and frame size, correct codecs for video and frame-rate, correct distribution rates
for video and audio streams, etc.
Compressing can also be very time consuming. The BHS News, which we
produce twice a week, is only 7-9 minutes long. I typically compress 9
different versions of each broadcast and the process ties up one of my
computers for 8-10 hours. After the video is compressed, I have to
complete the following steps:
1. It must be uploaded to the appropriate
server.
2. A reference movie has to be built (which
tells the end user’s computer which movie to play (i.e. 28.8 modem vs T1).
3. The reference movie has to be uploaded onto
the web site, and the appropriate html code has to be entered into the web page
in order for it to display the movie.
Here is the html code needed to display the movie on the web site:
Real Player example from the “Overview” video:
<EMBED
WIDTH=320 HEIGHT=240
SRC="http://www.bownet.org:8080/ramgen/pt3/overview.rm?embed"
CONTROLS=ImageWindow CONSOLE=one NOJAVA=true>
<EMBED
WIDTH=375 HEIGHT=100
SRC="http://www.bownet.org:8080/ramgen/pt3/overview.rm?embed"
CONTROLS=All CONSOLE=one NOJAVA=true AUTOSTART=true>
At a minimum, you will require QuickTime Pro ($30) and Real Producer
(free) to create these compressed movies. With these “minimum” tools, you need to
load the original movie and then “save as” into each of these formats with the
correct settings as mentioned above. A
product such as Media100’s Cleaner 5, allows the user to load the movie once,
run a wizard to determine the correct settings, and then have it generate all
11 movies at once. For best results, the user will still need to tweak the
automatically generated Cleaner settings to fit their needs.
Step 3: Serving the Movie:
QuickTime: FastStart QuickTime movies (
Real Video: Real Video clips, which work at a single download speed, can also be
served from any web page. However, clips that adjust for different connection
speeds such as 28.8 modem vs. T-1 (known as Sure Stream)
must be served from a Real Video server. Real Video Server Basic is free but
limited to only 10 concurrent connections. It must be installed on either a
Linux or Windows NT/2000 server.
DVD - an Alternative:
You can totally bypass the cost and QOS (Quality of Service) issues of
putting the videos online by distributing them on DVD. A single 4.7GB DVD can
hold around 2 hours of high quality video, more hours of lower quality video,
and/or data such as pdf files, etc.
There are currently 2 types of DVD-R recorders on the market, both of
which create discs, which can be played back on most consumer DVD players, and Mac/PCs with DVD drives.
·
You can
use DVD-R Authoring, which can
produce encrypted (copy-protected) media. The Authoring player costs $4,000
(Bow has access to one now) and the discs are $25-30 each.
·
DVD-R General has just been introduced as Apple’s
SuperDrive and in high-end Compaq computers. The recorder is currently in short
supply outside of Apple and Compaq computers, which bundle the drives, but it
should run around $1,000 as an add-on for all computers by Fall
2001. DVD-R General records on less
expensive discs which run $10-15 each, however this alternative does not allow
for copy-protection.
Producing a DVD consists of compressing the video into MPEG2 video and
audio clips and then programming how users will access the video through menus
and chapter stops. Bow already has the software necessary to author these discs
in the form of Apple’s DVD Pro ($500 for schools). The PC equivalent is Sonics’
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Producing |
Compressing |
Serving |
|
Minimum: Apple’s iMovie (free and Mac Only) requires Firewire Microsoft’s MS Movie
(free and Windows Only) requires Firewire Or (includes Firewire) Pinnacle’s Studio DV, ADS’s Pyro DV, etc…($80-90) |
Minimum: Apple’s Quicktime Professional ($30) and RealVideo Producer Basic (free) |
Minimum: Apple G4 with OSX Workstion and free Quicktime Serving Software Windows NT/2000 serve and free RealVideo Server Basic (only 10 connections) 512kbps now available (2 concurrent high bandwidth users) |
|
Good: Adobe Premiere ($250) requires Firewire |
Good: Media 100’s Cleaner 5 ($300) |
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Better: Apple’s Final Cut Pro ($500 and Mac Only) requires Firewire Avid’s Xpress
DV ($1500 and PC only) requires Firewire |
Better: Media 100’s Cleaner 5 Compressor Suite ($1100) |
Better: Stand Alone T1 – please check prices but I’m guessing $2000-2500 for 1.4mbps (5 concurrent high bandwidth users) |
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Best: You don’t want to know |
Best: Media 100’s Cleaner 5 PowerSuite ($5800) – greatly accelerates the compression process |
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