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Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine Vol 01 Issue 07
------- Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine -------
Vol 1, Issue 7
This past weekend was an exciting time for me. On Saturday
morning Lisa and I went down to the Karate school where I train,
for the second in a series of tests for my next Black Belt. My
family is pretty spread out, so having everyone come in for the
test wasn't particularly practical. The solution? A digital
camera, some Windows software, and YouTube. See this issue's
article for more info.
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In This Issue...
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1. Article: Sharing the Good Times
2. Blog Posts
3. Shameless Self-Promotion
4. The Fine Print
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1. Article: Sharing the Good Times
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The scene: Saturday morning at Keith Hafner's Karate.
The characters: A plethora of Black Belt students surrounding our
hero, dressed in blue. Each pair holds a single wooden board --
five boards in all.
The atmosphere: Electric with anticipation.
OK, so maybe it's a bit difficult to convey the exact emotions of
the moment. Still there I was, ready to take part in my second
examination for my next Black Belt -- to shatter those wooden
barriers with a series of hand strikes and kicks. Unfortunately,
the duration of my performance (about 3 minutes, including setup)
and the travel distances required, prevented me from inviting my
whole family to attend. So, we tried the next best thing: a
digital camera and YouTube.
Our camera, a Canon PowerShot S80, has, as many do these days,
the ability to shoot short video clips. In our case we can get
up to sixteen minutes of reasonably good video. It shoots
640x480 pixels at 30 frames per second -- the speed and
resolution necessary to make the action appear smooth and
relatively clear. The S80 can get higher resolution (a clearer
picture), but the frame rate drops to 15 per second which looks
pretty jerky when you watch it. Your camera may vary, so check
your manual before you try to capture those once-in-a-lifetime
events.
Lisa wanted to watch the actual events live, so we cajoled one of
my young students, Max Mortimer, to shoot the footage. Later, he
thought it exceedingly clever to tell me, with my lovely wife's
permission, that he had messed up and forgotten to push the
"record" button. What a couple of comedians. That aside,
though, we ended up with some pretty decent raw footage.
A couple of days later, I uploaded the footage onto my desktop
machine and fired up the MovieMaker software which comes with
Windows XP. Much as I am decidedly *not* a Microsoft fan, I will
admit that this application does most of what is needed to do
some pretty nice video editing. It has the ability to make
simple titles and credits, do storyboarding, cut your clips
(without damaging the original footage), add a musical
accompaniment, and even do some fun video transition, including
fade-to-black and cross-fading. Some of the interface is a
little clunky, but, in general, it does what you need it to do.
In short order, I had added a simple title and edited the video
to contain only the important parts. Note: *Please* edit your
video. There is absolutely no reason to make your loved-ones sit
through five minutes of you begging, "Say, daddy! Say, daddy!"
before they get to hear your darling cherub uttering her first
words. Then it was a quick command to save the resulting file in
Windows Media format and we were off to the Internet!
YouTube (youtube.com) has a great free service which allows you
to upload your videos in a variety of formats to their site for
anyone to use. The only limitations are that it has to be less
than 100MB (a pretty big video) and less than 10 minutes long (no
one really wants to sit through anything longer). After you have
signed up for an account, just click on the "Upload a video" link
and follow the simple steps to make your masterpiece available to
the masses. Or, you can keep it private, available for only
those select few with whom you wish to share your vision.
One caveat: YouTube automatically processes the video you upload
to be a lower quality image. Don't be surprised that it doesn't
look as clean as the original.
In today's world where our families and friends can be separated
by more miles than they dreamed of back when our grandparents
were young, it's nice to know that we can make use of a little
technology to bring us a little closer. Check it out and let me
know what exciting images you can bring to the little silver
screen.
Oh, my video? You can access it from my blog post describing the
board-breaking event:
http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2007/05/another-step-to-third-degree.html
(Yes, you can even embed the resulting video in other pages.)
Copyright 2007, Greg Peters
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2. Blog Posts
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Links to posts on the "Clearing Up the Confusion" Blog from the
last year (or so):
Tuesday, April 04, 2006 -- Free Books and Audio Books
http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2006/04/free-books-and-audio-books.html
Monday, May 07, 2007 -- Quick Fun: DIY iGoogle Gadgets
http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2007/05/quick-fun-diy-igoogle-gadgets.html
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3. Shameless Self-Promotion
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The "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-Zine is a production of Greg Peters,
owner, chief cook, and bottlewasher of Cyber Data Solutions. CDS has
been helping nonprofit and charitable organizations develop their web
presence for more than a decade. Visit us on the Web at
www.cyberdatasolns.com to see how we can help your organization.
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4. The Fine Print
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Questions:
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Up the Confusion E-zine, please email Greg Peters at:
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