Adding Captions to Flash Video

Looking to make your web video more accessible? Then be sure to check out this

great article

on adding open captions to Flash video. If you are doing video work for the government, then this is often an absolute must.

“The really great thing about this feature, from our perspective as designers and developers, is how simple it is to accomplish and manage. If the timing is out or a caption is wrong, you simply change a few words or numbers in the XML file.”

This tutorial makes it really easy and I suggest you check it out.

Lighting Diagrams with Omnigraffle

Author and video podcaster Richard Harrington as he explains the importance of lighting diagrams and shows you how to make them with

Omnigraffle

.

Hoodman Makes Great Camera Accessories

Richard Harrington takes a look at a wide variety of video accessories in the Hoodman (

http://www.hoodmanusa.com/

) booth at Photoshop World '08.

Turning PowerPoint or Keynote into Podcasts

At the '08 New Media Expo, Richard Harrington talks to David Chmura about

Profcast

, which allows you to capture your presentations to create advanced podcasts.

Two Great Tools for Blogs

Just a quick post.... there are two pieces of tech I’ve been using on my blogs (both are free).

Lijit

adds a great search engine to your site. You can create your own search network including multiple blogs, facebook, youtube, linkedin, flickr, and more. This is really useful.

Widgetbox

lets you turn your RSS feed into a blog widget that can be posted to numerous social sites. Very clean and will help extend your reach.

Be sure to try both out....

Publishing with mDialog

Richard Harrington discusses the mDialog (

http://www.mdialog.com/

) online video platform with Greg Philpott at the 2008 New Media Expo.

More Than One Billion Users Will View Online Video in 2013

Recently came across a new article about the growth in online video viewership. Be sure to check out what

ABI Research

has to say...

“Sparked by increasing broadband penetration and rising connection speeds available to a growing percentage of the world’s population, over-the-top video has seen phenomenal growth in very recent years. A new study from ABI Research forecasts the number of viewers who access video via the Web to nearly quadruple in the next few years, reaching at least one billion in 2013.

 

“The rapid expansion of broadband video creates opportunities across a number of market sectors,” comments senior analyst Cesar Bachelet. “A wide variety of actors aim to gain a share of this fast-growing market: not only content owners such as the BBC and NBC Universal, and Internet portals such as AOL and Yahoo!, but also a range of new entrants including user-generated content sites such as YouTube and Dailymotion, broadband video sites such as CinemaNow and Lovefilm, and Internet TV providers such as Apple and Zattoo.”

See the full article...

Microsoft Zune

Author and video podcaster Richard Harrington speaks to Microsoft Zune podcasting guru Rob Greenlee at the 2008 New Media Expo.

Bill Mandates Closed Captioning for Podcasts

A new bill has been introduced into congress that would target accessibility of web video. The "21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2008" (

H.R. 6320

) covers about a dozen areas. The proposed law has Internet video captioning requirements.

Eighteen months after its enactment, the Federal Communications Commission must set up regulations and deadlines for "an appropriate schedule of deadlines for the provision of closed captioning of video programming distributed to the public over the Internet."

Three kinds of video would be affected:

• Material that has already been captioned for TV viewing
• Live programming
• Video that is "generally considered to be comparable to programming provided by multichannel programming distributors."

It is point three that is sticky. A whole lot of podcasts fall into this category. Closed captioning and transcriptions cost.... many podcasters see little if any profit from their shows. Always nice when congress sticks its nose in the Internet.

How about instead of sending money to worhless causes... they actualy fund this requirement.

New Media Expo Coming Soon

Just a reminder that I'll be speaking at this year's

New Media Expo

in Las Vegas. The event runs August 14-16 and I hope you can come out. My class is called:

Producing Video Podcasts with Multiple Cameras

Want to cut down editing time and give your show more polish? Learn how to create video podcasts using multiple cameras. Join veteran podcaster Richard Harrington as he shows how to harness multiple angles to improve your show. From concerts and live events to demos and interviews, multiple cameras will help you tell your story. Learn how to setup and match your cameras as well as essential editing techniques. This workshop will make multi-camera productions a snap.

Shooting Progressive

Author and video podcaster Richard Harrington explains why he recommends shooting your video podcast in 24p (or 24 frames per second, progressive).

Lighting With Cookies

Author & video podcaster Richard Harrington shows you how you can make "cookies" and use them to enhance the look of your sets or locations.

Does the World Need Another Media Player?

The fine folks over at Layers Magazine have published the article:

Does the World Need Another Media Player?

This time its had the benefit of being scrubbed by an editor (not just spell-checker). You can read it here:

http://www.layersmagazine.com/column_adobe_mediaplayer1.html

.

A few folks have commented on the length of the article... here’s the Spark Notes version:

• Flash Video is getting really popular
• The Adobe Media Player will be easier for corporations, schools, and government to use due to Adobe's greater acceptance over Apple (and especially iTunes).
• The media player supports several models that are attractive to content creators
• The media player supports very rich statistics on media consumption
• The application is going to move onto all sorts of devices and platforms in the near future.
• If you are a podcaster... I predict the Adobe Media Player will have as great of an impact as iTunes did on podcast consumption.

The article is long... but worth the read... I promise.

Interesting Video to Explain Podcasting

Adobe Demos Future Technology at NAB

Adobe has actually posted their "secret" presentation from NAB. Hart Shafer talks about four cool things Adobe has up their sleeve.

You

SO

need to watch this... trust me. BTW (for those of you waiting... they did show

OnLocation

for Mac in this demo).

School of Podcasting Interview about Video Podcasting

Thanks to the

School of Podcasting

for having us on the show. I had a chance to catch up and talk with the host about what folks need to think about when moving into the world of video podcasting. The interview also features my co-author (and business partner) Mark Weiser.

You can get the interview for free right here (

http://www.schoolofpodcasting.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=330803

) and you should also check out their other shows which offer great perspective.

-Rich Harrington

’Toon Your Video in Adobe CS3 Production Premium

Want to create a cartoon effect for your video? Be sure to check out this step-by-step tutorial I wrote for Layers Magazine.

“Sure, clients want it…that “cartoon look.” But let’s face it; good animation is hard to come by. Unless you have a gaggle of animators locked in your closet, you’ll need to get creative. Sure, you could break out the pencil and paper (or maybe even try shadow puppets), but we’re here to offer you a different solution. By harnessing the power of Adobe CS3 Production Premium, you can convert video frames into vector art into film-resolution movie files. Curious? It’s all possible with the power of the Production Premium.

Read on

.”

Two Updated Final Cut Pro DVDs

I just released two newly updated Final Cut Pro discs. We updated our Absolute Training for Final Cut Studios Disc 1 & 2. Both DVDs are full current for Final Cut Studio 2 and include hands-on training files as well as HD resolution training and iPod files.

Apple Final Cut Pro

Volume 1: Getting Started in Final Cut Pro

Volume 2: Going Deeper in Final Cut Studio

Also, you may have missed that we recently released the following titles. These also include HD and iPod versions on the same disc.

Apple Color

Volume 11:

Introduction to Color

Volume 12: Advanced Color

Bundled for Savings

Apple Motion

Volume 13: Getting Started with Apple Motion

Volume 14: Going Deeper with Apple Motion

Volume 15: Advanced Techniques with Apple Motion

Bundled for Savings

Animoto Creates Rocking Slideshows

Looking for something different? I discovered

Animoto

at this year's SXSW conference... Load up your photos, pick a song, and within a few minutes you have a rocking music video. You can use their cleared music or load up your own. Thirty-second movies are free, full-length videos cost $3. You can get a full year's access for $30.

The whole process is a piece of cake. Be sure to check them out – 

here.

You can post the videos to a website, download them for an iPod, or even use YouTube to share. The videos you download

Here are a two more of mine that you can check out.

Three-Point Lighting

Author & video podcaster Richard Harrington explains a fundamental of video production - Three-point lighting.