Video Editing Resources
The faculty lab has a variety of video editing resources available for faculty and staff to use. From industry standard programs such as Final Cut Pro on the Mac operating system and Adobe Premiere on the Windows operating system to more user friendly programs such as Windows Movie maker and Imovie. The lab has a variety of ways to help you get your video into a computer for editing. We are currently set up
to capture from VHS video tape and to interface with any Firewire complaint video device. And of course, you can just walk in with your video files on a disk or USB key as well.
Yes, we offer a seminar in how to edit video. Click here to see times and to register.
What should you expect when creating a video?
The biggest surprise that people discover when beginning to edit video is that it takes a long time. How long? Well the standard rule of thumb for professionals is to set aside about an hour for every minute of video. Here is a general breakdown of how much time you could spend on each step of the process.
Deciding what you want your video to be (set aside at least an hour)
- You have to plan a video much the same way you plan a class. You need to decide which goals you want the video to touch on and how it will present the content. People who have made several videos tend to use a technique called storyboarding. The scenes that you want in your video are drawn out and described so that you know what to video when you start shooting your video. Read here for further information about storyboarding.
Getting your content (set aside at least two hours for an hours worth of video)
- You need to capture the video that will illustrate your points. This may be as easy as having someone video you as you do a task or it could be as complex as setting up actors with scripts and props.
Getting it into the computer (set aside at least an hour for an hours video)
- You need to import the video from your camcorder (or other source) into the computer. Unless you are using a relatively rare hard drive camcorder system, this will take the same amount of time as the video you have shot. One hour of video will take a little over an hour to transfer to the computer.
Editing your content (set aside at least an hour)
- You need to string together the video clips into something that illustrates the points you want to make. This may include creating titles, having transitions between various video clips or putting a voice over the video to explain what is being viewed.
Producing your final video (set aside at least an hour)
- Once you have the video edited into the product you were hoping for, you have to render it into a form that can be distributed. Most video editing programs want you to work with as high a quality version as possible during the editing process. But this high quality version may not be the best version to distribute the finished video. for example, if you intend to distribute the video across the web, you need to make a version that is small enough to be downloaded within five to ten minutes using a telephone dialup connection. This is a fairly small and highly compressed version. However, if the video is mainly to be viewed in a computer lab on campus, then you can save it as a higher resolution video that will play full screen. Finally, if you intend to put your video on a DVD, you will need to render it to the MPEG 2 format as this is what DVD's use. Each of these conversions will take a while even if you have a very faster computer. The faculty computer lab has some of the fastest desktop computers on campus
Burning a DVD (set aside at least an hour)
- Even after you have converted your video into something that can be burned to a DVD, the DVD burning program must organize it according to the DVD industry standards. You have to build a menu, it must create specific subdirectories as well as files to tell the DVD player how to present the video information.
Burning which type of DVD?
There are several choices you must make before being able to press the burn button in the DVD burning software.
- What type of media are you going to use or that your DVD burner can burn to? There are a variety of different type of media available. Each with pros and cons for a particular project.
- DVD-r most compatible with all eras of TV set top DVD players. The newer the DVD player, the better chance that this does not matter.
- DVD-RW Rewritable version of above. Good for practicing as it can be erased. Con: it can be erased, not best choice for distribution.
- DVD+r formatting that allows easier additional writes to the disc. Great if you need to add stuff to the disc later. May not play in older TV set top DVD players.
- DVD+RW Rewritable version of above. Good for practicing as it can be erased. Con: it can be erased, not best choice for distribution.
- Dual layer version of each of the above The single layer discs above will hold 4.7 gigabytes of data or about 120 minutes of video. A dual layer will hold twice that. currently each disc costs four to five times what a single layer disc costs. If your video is less than 120 minutes considerable savings can be had by using single layer discs. Also, only newer DVD burners marker Dual layer can burn to a dual layer disc. The faculty lab has several dual layer burners.
- Disc speed (1x, 2x, 4x, 8x) A disc burned a 1 speed (1x0means that a 120 minute DVD will take 120 minutes to burn. A 4 speed (4x) burner can burn the same disc in 1/4 that time or 30 minutes. Both the DVD burner as well as the blank DVD itself have to be built to burn at a particular speed in order to be able to burn at that speed. Blank DVD's rated for 2x burn will take 60 minutes to burn even in an 8x burner. 8x discs are currently more expensive that 2x discs.
Copyright
We do support the rights of content owners to control how their property is used. This means that you will be asked to describe how the video that you are wanting to work with was acquired and how you intend to use it. The faculty computer lab with assist in any way that it can in helping you legally exorcise your rights but we will not knowingly allow copyright violations.
Examples of video copyright violations:
- You bring a DVD over from Blockbuster and want to copy it so that you can return the rented disc and still keep a copy to use in class. (same as number three below)
- A student submits a video to fulfill a requirement in a class. You like it and decide to post a link on your web site for others to see. (Easy fix by getting permission from the student)
- You bring a DVD that you want to copy a few minutes from a movie to use in your class. This is actually a fair use of this material. Unfortunately, current federal law (DMCA) prohibits you from decoding the encryption to get at the video file. So, you could use it but you can't legally get to it. the solution here is to get a copy that has no encryption like a DVD. AKA a VHS tape.
