New Toys!

Since I last wrote I have downloaded (and then received a CD) of Premier Pro CS4, and a 4-pin to 4-pin FireWire cable (also called 1394 from the IEEE specification). It's so COOL!! I have been working through a tutorial from Adobe (with "Premier Pro CS4 Classroom in a Book") and am really impressed with the tools that are built into the new version. I've always known that I can edit a video taken with my camcorder, and put a smaller "Picture-In-Picture" effect when I wanted to show a computer screen-shot or photo. Now the software has many many more transition effects for editing the change between shots (or after I cut out the parts where I screwed up in a long shot). There also a lot of effects that can be applied to the film itself to give a more antique look, or textures, or grunge. I'm not sure where I would use those, but experimenting with the options has been a lot of fun.

The software also comes shipped with something called OnLocation which allows the camcorder to record directly to the computer's hard drive rather than to tape, and then doing a "capture" from tape to hard drive. I haven't tried that feature yet, but I'm guessing one less copy process will result in a slightly cleaner and brighter final output. (The less I have to manipulate the data the cleaner it ends up.) There is also Encore included in the package which is designed to optimize the output process (which I haven't gotten to yet). I did hit a few buttons last night to see what output to Adobe QuickTime would involve and in just a couple of minutes I had a video that would run on either a computer monitor or on a cell phone. The default process for QuickTime seems to include a "mobile" version of the video that is displayed through a program called "Device Central" as if it were actually playing on the cell phone. You can even click on the cell phone buttons to see what that does to your video. I hadn't planned on sending the videos I create to a cell phone, but it's interesting to know that I can.

The last new toy was a cable that connects my camcorder to my new laptop. Using the FireWire connection I can actually control the camera from my keyboard. After I plugged in the camera and started the program I used a feature called "Capture" to rewind the tape, start a recorder on the computer, and play the tape. Once the tape played what I was interested in I was able to stop the tape and save the file (it is saved as an AVI if you are interested). All of this is done from the keyboard and is pretty simple

That's it for my new toys – lots of fun and lots of possibilities. I'm already thinking about how I can make a video and superimpose the class syllabus on part of the screen as I am talking about it. (Premier Pro can import Photoshop and Illustrator files directly – then those files can be sized to fit the portion of the screen available and timed to appear at just the right moment. I may have to make some test files and post them for folks to take a look.)

John