Editing Digital Video - Videoshop

 
 

The Powers That Move Us

Click the picture above to open a web page with identical content but in which a movie will play.

The power can be yours.

 

The sample movie above is 1.9 MB in size and takes about 24 seconds to play. It was made using the sample files in the Videoshop tutorial folder. Part of the point here is that very short pieces can be created that will have a significant impact in meeting your communciation and content needs.

At times, getting even the attention and motivation of students will be significant. An enormous industry is built around 30 second commercials that are designed to meet this latter need. Further, there is a global culture entrained to this viewing length. Take advantage of this. Further, use your students to help you build a library of short video clips for unit plans and lesson plans that you do. Also, make videoclips for your own electronic portfolio of yourself at work with students.

These directions are intended for first time users of video editing software. With more experience, there are many different directions that might be taken other than the ones given here. With these directions, you will produce a video file in both Quicktime format and AVI format. These files will later be inserted into a Powerpoint presentation. If the conversion directions are done, your video will be ready to move to a web server if it has sufficient storage space.

If the movie you produce goes to a web page, you must have copyright ownership or permission as educational Fair Use provisions do not apply to non-password protected web pages. If you include others in your video they must sign video release forms.
 

The blue links below take you to screen movies of important procedures in the Videoshop video editing process.

Setup

• Select and bring to the multimedia computer workstation your video source, whether videotape or videodisc.
• Virtual memory should be turned off. If it is not, go to Control Panels, select Memory and turn it off. If you must turn it off you will also need to restart the computer before virtual memory is actually disconnected.
• Make sure that no other applications are running besides VideoShop.

 
• Optional Challenge:
• A worthwhile exercise is to ask the lab assistants for the tutorial booklet for Videoshop and work through its introductory exercise. The booklet is kept in the metal cabinet in K268. It will significantly increase your power to use digital video beyond these initial exercises.

Videoshop video editing

Click the blue links below to see the screen movies of the steps of the process of capturing and editing video. Play and replay the screen movies to help as you work. Use the computer next to your video workstation to play these tutorials as you actually carry out the steps in the video editor.
 
• Open the Video Shop program.
• A button for starting it can also be found on the Launcher screen.
• Size the screen capture area.
• Use the 160 by 120 size until you have gained some experience with the process.
• Record a video source.
• If you cannot record either video or audio:
• Check the video or audio settings in VideoShop to see that it is looking for the proper input. They are found under Recording in the menu bar.
• Check to see that the wires are properly going from video and audio out on the back of the video tape player or other video source and going to video and audio in on the back of the computer.
• If you cannot hear sound on playback, check the Control panels for Monitors and Sound (found under the Apple menu). See if the speakers have been turned off. If others are in the lab, please use your headphones so your sounds do not distract them.
• Load clips into the sequencer window.
• The example in this sequence shows clips being loaded from the tutorial folder. To get to the Recording folder that will hold your files of your recording, click on Desktop in the menu bar, drag down to Folders, then select Recording Folder.  Once you see the files in the Recording folder, you can:
• Click once on your movie file and drag it into the sequencer window as shown in this videoclip demonstration.
• Double click on the file to trim, that is to set different in and out points. This is the equivalent of getting out a pair of scissors and cutting off part of the beginning or ending of your clip. When you are done trimming, click in the picture area and drag it to the sequencer window.
• If you have more than one clip in the sequencer window, they must be bunched tightly together as far left as possible. If not, black areas will appear. To drag clips to the left (or right) move the screen pointer over one of the orange lines in the sequencer window. When positioned there, the screen pointer turns to a white hand. Now you will be able to drag the clips in the sequencer window to where they must be.
• Switch the view from clip view to timeline view.
• Use the icon in the upper left corner of the sequencer window.
• Stretching
• To create a slow-motion effect, select the stretch tool at the left of the sequencer window. Click on the right edge of a video clip in the sequencer window and drag that edge to the right.
• Sequencer Trimming
• To create a slow-motion effect, select the stretch tool at the left of the sequencer window.
• Edit video conceptually the same as you edit text.

 

Saving Files

• If  you use Save or Save As... you are saving the sequencer window. You are not making a movie. Instead this saves your editing decisions until you are done making changes. This file can be used only by VideoShop.
• If you are going to save the sequencer window to do more editing at a later time, you must also save the videoclips that you created in the Recording folder.
• Create a folder on the desktop and save the sequencer file into it.
• Next, carefully record the file names in the recording folder that you need to keep, that you either have used or wish to use in your sequencer window. Once you have this done, quit Videoshop. Move to the hard drive icon and open it. Find the Videoshop folder and open it. Open the Recording folder and drag to your disk the file names that you need.
• If  you are done recording and editing, then you use Save As Movie.... Put the extension .mov at the end of the file name. This makes an independent movie file that can be used by other applications, including the Web and Powerpoint. If you save videoclip recordings and your sequencer window, you can make changes to your sequence and make many different variations on your movie.

Separating Audio for "radio web broadcasts" or Powerpoint audioclips

To create an audio clip from a videotape, repeat the process above for creating a video clip. Once the video footage is in the sequencer window, delete the video track, leaving only the audio. The online movie below will demonstrate this process.
 
• Delete the Video track then save the audio..
• Creating an audio only movie requires deleting the video track and saving what is left. Remember to save your audio file with the extension .mov
• For example, teststuff.mov could be a sample file name. You are creating a movie file that contains only the audio portion when you follow this procedure, but it is still treated as a movie.

Optional: For the Web

If you wish to use the audio or video files as a part of web pages, then they must be converted to different formats. This can be done in different ways.

Optional: Web Audio

• Convert the Audio Format for the web.
• Use the ConvertMachine application to convert the audio in this example to Sun's AU format. Other formats can work. This free program can be found in shareware download sites.
• Use Quicktime Player if you cannot find ConvertMachine. The more powerful pro version in our labs can open and convert your audio files. This can be found on both Windows and Mac computers in Killian 268.
• Click on File in the menu bar and select Export. Export as a ulaw file.
• Setup your web page.
• Copy the code below including the angle brackets. The sounds will play as soon the the web page is opened. Make sure you use the actual file name of your file, not the one provided.
• <EMBED SRC="nicesound.au" WIDTH="160" HEIGHT="130" ALIGN="MIDDLE" AUTOSTART="TRUE">
• Open the web page in Netscape Composer that will display the audio file. Use the Insert command in the Composer menu bar and select HTML tag. Paste your bgsound data into the box that appears. Change the file name between the quotation marks to the name of your file.
• Transfer your audio file to your web server. Also transfer the web page that now contains the link to the audio or video file.

Optional: Web Video.

• Use Quicktime Player.
• The more powerful pro version in our labs can open and convert your video files. After you have opened your video file, click on File in the menu bar and select Export. Export as a Quicktime file. When you save this file, change the file name slightly so that you can tell which one has been quicktime player converted. The file must still use .mov as the extension.
• Setup your web page.
• Copy the code below including the angle brackets..
• <EMBED SRC="bookmarking.mov" WIDTH="160" HEIGHT="130" ALIGN="MIDDLE" AUTOSTART="TRUE">
• Open the web page in Netscape Composer that will display the audio file. Use the Insert command in the Composer menu bar and select HTML tag. Paste your bgsound data into the box that appears. Change the file name between the quotation marks to the name of your file.
• Transfer your audio file to your web server. Also transfer the web page that now contains the link to the audio or video file.

Required: For Powerpoint

• If the audio and video movie files go to a Powerpoint presentation on a Mac, this can be done immediately using the Powerpoint Insert command in its menu bar without any converting to different formats.

 

Requirement

• The movie files will also go to a Powerpoint presentation on the Windows platform. They must be converted to different formats.
• Use Quicktime Player. The more powerful pro version can open and convert your video and audio files. This program can be found on both Windows and Mac computers in Killian 268.
• Use Quicktime Player to open the audio file. Click on File, select Export and save it as a WAV format file.
• Use Quicktime Player to open the video file. Click on File, select Export and save it as an AVI format file.
• Put these files in a folder called WIN multimedia. These Win files are now ready for insertion into Powerpoint on Windows platforms. Your Mac files are also ready for insertion into Powerpoint on the Mac platforms. In both case you will use the Insert command in the menu bar to find and place your movie files.

Impact of format Decisions

Different formats have different options that can affect file size, transmission time over the net, and the quality of the sound.
 
 Test your ear
• Observe the difference in file sizes created by the ConvertMachine application.
Listen to both of theses different formats. Listen to audio quality, and note the time it takes for them to transmit and be playable. Hmm. This should have been audio only but I see that a single frame was not deleted. This provides you with another way to prepare an audio file that takes up very little space because it includes only one frame of video.
• On the Moor, small file size, an AU audio format, 128KB in file size.
• On the Moor, large file size, quicktime 2.0 format, 1.2 MB.

Saving Files to Appserver on the Network and your ZIP disk

If you have followed the directions so far, there should be several files on the desktop area of the computer screen. Create a new folder with a your name on the Mac desktop and drag all your files into that folder.

These need to be moved to the Share folder in our course folder on the network's Appserver. Open up the Share folder and drag your folder on the desktop into the Share folder. This provides you with one level of backup for your files. But this is not enough.

Move to a computer workstation with a ZIP disk drive. Again open the Share folder in our course folder. Copy the folder with the files that you just put on the Appserver to a ZIP disk.

Now that you have these files safely backed up, return to the Mac station where you did your editing and delete all your work files. Drag that desktop folder of yours to the Trash Can.  Then also on this workstation, go to hard drive and open the Application folder, its Avid Videoshop folder, its Recording folder and drag all those files to the trash can.  Finally, Empty the Trash Can. This frees up space for the folks who come after you to carry out their work. Thank you for taking care of what to the next person will just be "litter".

Invitations

Congratulations. You have made your first digital movie. You've been empowered to grow. Look for opportunities to make many more. Perhaps this will occur in other courses or while observing and working in area schools. Look for ways to keep a camcorder close at hand and ready to go. There is never time to run and get the camera when the right moment comes along. Bring others to this page and show them this process as well. Our Killian 268 Lab is open from 10-12 pm on Saturdays this semester. Bring your cooperating teachers to campus after school or on Saturday if you can and help them produce their own work too.  I'd like more examples of video clip projects. Please share with me what you create. I will use your work to help bring others along.

Pub. 2.1999. Updated: 3.3.2000     Page author: Houghton