DoingMedia

(This three part post is the content of my presentation at DocTrain West on May 5, 2008 in Vancouver, BC. You can view the presentation here.)

Some Streaming Details

Steaming your rich media files has some hardware and software requirements. First you’ll need some way to create the file; your editing software will take care of this. media files are much larger than documents so you will require enough storage for the original footage and the finished edited version. Think hundreds of gigabytes or better, terabytes. To upload and download streamed media files you’ll need high bandwidth connections similar to cable broadband. Some internal IT departments can be hesitant to have media file traffic on the same network as regular business data. The servers that store and deliver media files need to be optimized for that purpose. You can acquire these yourself or you can contract with a company who specializes in streaming media. Most media streaming providers also have specialized networks and data centers specifically designed to handle the high bandwidth traffic of rich media.

The last piece of the streaming solution is playback. Rich media files can be encoded differently depending on your editing facilities or the target computer. Apple QuickTime, Windows Media and Adobe Flash Video are the most popular ways to encode media. QuickTime and Flash are popular Internet formats; Flash is the format used by YouTube and most other video sharing sites. Windows Media is useful on an intranet since the Windows Media Server is often installed as part of an Enterprise Windows installation.

Once your media is streaming you can place it within training applications or as links within documentation. And it can be made available outside of the work environment for personal review or even to promote or demonstrate functionality or product.

Besides desktop or laptop computers, streaming media can be viewed or listened to on all kinds of devices. A player like the Apple iPod can have files loaded on it automatically using RSS and iTunes. Its very portable and so it can go where the worker is. This would be handy in environments where having a DVD player and monitor aren’t convenient or even safe. So, the cab of an earth mover or on a shop floor or in themiddle of a pasture your rich media could be immediately available.

Rich media can be streamed to any kind of screen attached to a computer. For more generalized material that isn’t specific to a job or function large LCD panels like those found in airports for arrival and departure schedules can be placed where needed. In a play on retail’s “point of sale” I call this “Point of Work”. Screen can be scheduled to run standard rich media messages but can have specific, more timely messages “pushed” to them when necessary.

Peek at the Future

Remember what I said about DVD being useful to distribute rich media? Well, I would put your eggs in the “streaming” basket and use DVD as a secondary distribution media. Why? Because DVDs days are numbered. Two factors are causing this. First, was the development of Blue-Ray High Definition DVD. And standard definition media will be retired as international television systems convert to digital and high definition television. Even Blue-Ray has a relatively short life-span. Streaming media over the internet is predicted to overtake Blue-Ray as a distribution media is 5 years or so. So, stream first, make DVDs second.

Big Pipes

As streaming media and the technologies that enable it like compression gets better the next link in the chain are the pipes. First among those is Ethernet or CAT5 cable used in offices and to connect cable modems to home networks. These are essentially a kind of telephone wire. Coaxial cable, like that used to bring cable television signals into homes, can handle more signal like the kind needed for rich media. King of the cables is fiber optic but there hasn’t been enough of it installed to connect home to the internet and it hasn’t been practical or cost effective to install it in homes.

Wireless technology has the greatest promise to reach the most people and carry rich media signals. Include with wireless is technology like WiFi and its big brother WiMAX, but also cellular telephone. Media is streamed to telephone handsets today for advertising like movie trailers or in some cases entire movies.

Once you start streaming your rich media content wirelessly the world is literally at your fingertips. Now, your media can be exactly where your customer or employee is and can be available exactly when they want it. But there’s one more thing.

I know who you are

Besides connecting directly to your audiences’ subconscious location based distribution could be the next best thing. All computers, even those found in a cell phone, have an Internet Protocol or IP address. To use streaming media the user’s computere requests the media. With that request comes the IP address of the computer they are using. on an internal network you can determine which desks or work stations request particular files most often. Powerful for you, creepy for the user when you walk up to their desk to “help” them with a problem they’ve been having. But it gets creepier.

Using GPS, or in a pinch, the cellular network you can determine the the physical location of someone not connected to you physical network. Powerful ability when managing training or procedures for field workers. There is one other little creepy thing. Actually, very little, as in very small. Riffid. Actually that’s phonetic for RFID or radio frequency identification. RFID are tiny chips that can carry data and a small radio transmitter. They can be embedded or attached to almost anything. Walmart uses them to track inventory and purchases. With RFID you can tell who has checked out a particular tool and then, using a RFID receiver embedded in a device like an iPod, have the iPod request, through something like RSS, the rich media documentation needed for that tool or that activity. See, told you it was creepy. But cool and powerful at the same time.

So, What Do You Think?

Using rich media in your documentation or training materials may be completely new to you. It may seem complicated. It sounds like “one more thing I gotta do” right? Well, it is. Your audience (I like that term better than “users”) is expecting to be stimulated and to some extent, entertained. That’s their everyday life, not so different from yours. So, rather than do it the way you’ve always done it try incorporating some rich media and see what happens. Try it as an alternative to written procedure. If that works, replace the written material with rich media entirely.

(Whew! You made it! Didn’t read Part 1 and Part 2 yet? What Are waiting for?)

(This three part post is the content of my presentation at DocTrain West on May 5, 2008 in Vancouver, BC. You can view the presentation here.)

You: Media Expert

That sounds like a lot to know and remember. You should keep in mind that you know a great deal about how good media is made. And you how bad media is made. Use your common sense and try to remain objective or at least put yourself in the audiences’ shoes. It’s ultimately about them. And if you agree that you know a lot about good media your audience likely knows more. The audience for your media has likely never experienced black and white television or vinyl records or rabbit ear antennas. They are rich media natives and have strong opinions about how media should be. Pay attention be successful.

Creating good rich media is not brain surgery but it does require attention to detail and attention to people.

People have been making movies since before the turn of the Twentieth Century. So, like many mature industries there are certain disciplines and processes taht are standard. Treatment of subject may vary but the production techniques used have been used for decades. When you first start don’t try to invent the process. Find the best processes and techniques you can and steal them!

The Toolbox

What gear will you need? You can break it down into two cartegories: shooting and editing. Start with a camera. It can use tape or DVDs or hard drives or flash memory to record on. Get what you can afford and what will provide the best picture for your situation. Don’t cheap out; get a high definition camera. These will be described as recording either HD or HDV or AVCHD format. With your camera buy well made tripod.

Small cameras are lightweight and easy to hold…unless you’re holding it for hours on end. There’s a place for handheld shooting. Bit don’t allow camera movement distract form the main subject.

If sound is important get a small shotgun microphone. This picks up sound from directly in front of it and is good for both sound on location or narration recording later. Cables to connect the microphone to your camera and headphones to monitor the sound recording should be part of your production gear.

Virtually any current computer will work to edit what you shoot. The computer can be desktop or laptop but laptops allow you to take your entire production “studio” anywhere you may need to go. If you go the laptop route an external monitor is useful to expand you workspace. Last but not least in the hardware department are hard drives. Get the fastest, largest hard drive you can afford. Speed is more important that storage size when editing media. A disc burner, either standard DVD or BlueRay DVD, will be useful to store or present finished media.

The software you’ll need often comes delivered on computer systems out of the box. Many computers come with video editing software pre-installed. Apple, Sony, Pinnacle, Ulead, Adobe and Avid are names to look for in editing software.

Showtime!

There are more distribution options than ever before. The old standbys like tapes and discs have been joined by online and wireless streaming. Let’s look at your options and talk about the good and bad of each.

Tape and disc (DVD) are widely accepted and viewable by almost anyone on any continent as long as you use the right format (NTSC or PAL). Blue-Ray High Definition

DVD will slowly replace standard DVD over the next few years. the video rental stores are unloading their VHS tapes as quickly as they can and the same will be seen for standard definition DVD. If you need to have a frozen in time version of your material and you have a choice lean toward DVD and Blue-Ray DVD over tape for distribution.

Online distribution is your most flexible option, although in many cases it can’t deliver the picture quality that DVD or sometimes even tape can. By delivering your rich media as a downloadable or streaming file though you’ll save on distribution and dubbing costs. You’ll still have costs for disk storage space. Streaming files have an advantage over downloadable files in that you have greater control of who has a copy of your content. The other advantage of streaming rich media files is that you can place links to the files, in a player, on your site and other sites, making the material more widely available. For even wider distribution you can upload your rich media to sites like YouTube.

Streamed rich media can be made even more effective using RSS for subscription and syndication. this is essentially how podcasting works. People “subscribe’ to audio or video podcast “feeds” and then when a new file is uploaded by the author the subscribers are notified and the new file can be automatically downloaded to their player. So in a documentation or training scenario you create a piece of rich media documentation and your users “subscribe” to the media’s “feed” using RSS. A few days or weeks or months later the procedure described in the media changes. You make the change and upload the new file and your user is notified about the new file or the new file is automatically downloaded. the next time your audience needs to see the file they will see the latest version. RSS can act like an automatic updating service.

(Well? You’ve come this far. You may as well read Part 3!)

(This three part post is the content of my presentation at DocTrain West on May 5, 2008 in Vancouver, BC. You can view the presentation here.)

It’s not enough to create a manual or job aid in today’s “instant media” environment. Today’s employees have grown up with and expect a rich media experience wherever they are. Your audience expects to be engaged and stimulated by the media they consume.

OK, so now what? How do create those rich media materials and experiences. Let’s take a look at how this all came about, Then we can tackle the techniques, tools and technologies you can use to get the job done. We’ll wrap up with a look at what’s to come.

Cheap. Good. Fast.

We may actually have hit the point when we don’t have to choose cheap or fast or good. We can almost get all three.

The cost of technology has dropped so much that creating rich media is in everyone’s hands. (But that’s another problem.) The stuff that enables today’s video cameras are tracking Moore’s Law pretty closely. The CCDs (Charge Coupled Devices) that make the pictures, the LCDs that display the pictures, even the chips and processors have enabled very powerful features. Fifteen years ago you couldn’t get the same quality picture or all the features of today’s $300 camera for less than $20,000.

The hardware advances have created a playground for software developers. The big enabler has been compression math. The theory had been figured out a decade or so ago but today’s fast processors and fast hard drives have made it viable. And the same technology advances have led to user interfaces that can be made simpler and less complex. So, let’s see. We’ve covered Cheap and Good. How about Fast?

There’s no way to speed up electrical signals. But we’re able to pack more information into the wires so things seem faster. Sending compressed digital signals over coaxial cable or fiber optics or over the air has led to the Hundred(s) Channels of programming
our homes. Digital television will make more or higher quality channels available to more people. But it can’t compete with cable or DSL or satellite. A little more than a third of the U.S. and almost half of Canada have broadband internet (and digital TV) delivered by cable television wires.

But what about wireless? Direct Satellite can transmit signals pretty quickly but it depends on standard telephone to receive instructions about what to send. Closer to home we have the various cellular telephone networks and, on the horizon, wide WiFi coverage. The “small screen” as the industry refers to telephones and PDA is the delivery platform for the future. It makes since nearly everyone has a telephone.

There is one more thing driving the rich media revolution. People. As businesses see the new opportunities there is a rush to control the “pipes” and the content inside them. The music industry has seen this as a threat and the motion picture industry doesn’t want to get caught flat-footed like they did when VCRs became standard household appliances. Broadcast television is also a big player. But it’s media consolidation that is having a big effect. Deregulation of the media landscape has been a contributing factor. But it’s not that just fewer companies are owning more media properties. It’s because they are.

Consumers are challenging the status quo. Ordinary people can now be creators of content that can be seen internationally almost immediately. Try that with a movie studio or broadcaster! Ultimately, its the bits and bytes and boxes that have made it possible but it’s people who have seen the possibilities.

But Nothing’s Changed

Even with all the changes technology has brought the basic discipline for rich media remains the same. We still need to pay attention to our audiences’ needs and the program or segment’s message and goals. Key to the audience’s needs are accessibility concerns like subtitling, translation or enabling screen readers or pointing devices. And key to the message and goal are evaluation. How did the program do?
Web server logs provide some information but more detailed information about how the audience feels about the media has to be gathered some other way.

Plan, Plan, Plan

Like most things, rich media starts with a plan. An outline of the program is a starting point but written scripts and storyboards may be needed to share the concept with team members. Creating media is not a “Gee, I’ve got a barn, let’s put on a show!” effort. A production schedule and, in some cases, a budget, will be needed to know what’s happening when.

The best Hollywood motion pictures are simple stories. That’s a good lesson to remember. Keep the language simple. Break down technical language into plain English, even for experienced audiences. People are used to having conversations not be spoken at so keep it conversational.

Simple picture composition, making the main subject the center of attention, helps keep the audience focused. Sound is similar; use what is necessary to explain the concept but keep the complicated audio mixes for your next CD release.When you put together your production schedule having just a few locations keeps the project moving and cuts down on dead time. But do what’s right to keep the information authentic; audiences, especially expert audiences catch on quickly when you fake it.Size Matters

There are two kinds of size considerations for rich media. The first is length. Audiences are used to shorter program segments with shorter shots within the segments. Blame music videos. But keeping segments short and focused on one main topic makes it easier to repurpose. The second size consideration is height and width or screen size. Smaller screens mean that your main subject must be larger in the frame shot using close-ups. Delivery of rich media is moving to smaller and smaller screens. What might have worked on a 26 inch television probably won’t work on a cell phone screen.

Classic cinematic editing techniques are your best friend. Current media creation software enables all sorts of special effects. They are not your friend. Use the most appropriate framing for each shot based on your goal for the program. Use basic transitions likes cuts and dissolves. Even if audiences are used to shorter shots and faster pacing, shot pacing is ultimately dictated by the audience, the subject, your message and goals.

(While you’re at it read Part 2.)

As we (OK, me) get older we start to think about the stuff we accumulate. Personally, I have 4 large totes (those plastic boxes with the two-part lid) filled with my life’s work. It goes back more than 20 years to television programs I shot in grad school. I’ve always kept them in the house, in a closet, much to the chagrin of my wife since they chew up a lot of space.
So what do I do with my media archive?  Well, it sits in the boxes in the closet. I purchased a DV camera with AV pass through with the intention of transferring my stuff to DV or archiving to it to DVD. But that hasn’t happened.
I came across a great resource on media preservation and an organization that conducts workshops.
Two organizations have partnered to produce workshops on media preservation.
Independent Media Arts Preservation, Inc. (IMAP) is a nonprofit service, education, and advocacy organization committed to the preservation of non-commercial electronic media. They conduct workshops on media preservation. And they have some basic information in the form of handouts from their Introduction to Media Preservation workshop.
Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) has a very complete section on their website about media preservation. (from their website) Founded in 1971, EAI is a nonprofit organization that distributes and preserves a major collection of new and historical video artworks. For 35 years, EAI has fostered the creation, exhibition, distribution, and preservation of video art and, more recently, digital art projects. EAI is committed
to providing audiences with access to media art.
I realize that everything is new, everything is digital, but there is an awful lot of history back in the analog archives stored in our basements, storerooms, (heaven forbid) storage units and, in my case, a valuable clothes closet. Once that material is gone how will we know where we’ve been or what mistakes we made that aren’t worth making again?

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Tags: media, formats, videotape, preserve, preservation, VHS, U-matic, 3/4 inch, Betacam, quad, Type-B, Betamax, one inch, 1, 2, two inch

This audio production tip will save you in editing maybe not every time but when you need it you’ll have it.

While you’re still at your recording location, whether you’re in a studio or under the bleachers or at the local Starbucks, record one minute with no one talking. Keep everyone in the same position, including your subject if possible. This is called “room tone”. Every place has a certain “sound”, even a room with no one in it in the dead of night.

Now, when you get back to your editing room/studio/suite/airplane seat and you have clean up a bunch of “ahs” or a burp or some other extraneous noise don’t cover it up. Cut it out. Then on another track put some of your “room tone”. Do it right and no one will ever know you had to edit your audio.

This is a reply to a message I posted to the Refresh-Austin listserv. The original question wa: “Does anybody have a recommendation for good video resource websites or forums or mailing lists, etc?” And then I got a bit verbose on the topic of streaming media, etc.

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Creativecow.com, dv.com, videomaker.com and streamingmedia.com are two pretty good resources for video . The former has some active forums and information on production while streamingmedia.com has information, on well, streaming.

Two things to keep in mind about video in general and video on the web. First, its relative high cost to create a compelling experience. Just like anyone can build a web page, anyone can create a video. Youtube is evidence of that. Being creative and compelling so people want to watch (either willingly or not) is either kismet (you just KNOW how to do it) or expensive (you have to hire someone who knows how to do it.)

Consider that watching video (or listening to audio) is an optional experience while visiting a website. You could argue that’s becoming less so today. “Compellng” is the operative word. Why would someone want to view something from a (your) library of 30 clips (I assume instructional in some way?). Did the site visitor audience ask for the clips? Demand them from the site owner? Are the clips offered as “value add” by the site owner to attract or retain visitors? Are they necessary to “get” whatever information the site is trying to convey? Are they just eye candy or cool factor? So, that’s one factor: why are you presenting audio or video? The other factor is if you do present audio or video how can you hold the audience’s attention for 30 minutes? That has to be really good video: creative-can’t-take-my-eyes-off-it-must-stop-watching video. Or it has to be some kind of requirement for a job or certification. So the audience WANTS to watch or is TOLD to watch. No matter, to get decent video or audio programming produced takes a level of expertise that you generally don’t find on Youtube or other user generated content (UGC) sites. If the video is egotistical like UGC and your audience is left out of the picture so to speak then you’ve spent good money to produce and stream media that no ones wants to watch or listen to.

Once all that work is done (”We will deliver media because it is valuable to our audience. We will pay for creation of that media because our audience demands/deserves the highest quality we can deliver.”) then the delivery options are almost too abundant. I would forget the streaming server for now and go with a service provider, especially for media files that long. They will store the media for you, stream it from high speed, high volume points of prescence and can then provide reports (logging) as to who watched, how much was wtached for how long, etc. All for the cost of storage and throughput. Google “streaming media providers” or check streamingmedia.com (Dan Rayburn’s Business of Online Video blog should have good info). I would checkout Vitalstream.com. I recently webcast 30 hours of a 5 day conference (don’t ask) and Vitalstream provided great upfront service and a simple interface to track my audience usage and throughput (we didn’t store anything.) I have a contact number if you need it.

Streaming audio is almost not worth it since the files are relatively small and, depending on your audience, a podcast might be more appropriate. Audio is great for timeshifting; video needs to be sat down and watched. Don’t get wrapped around tge Digital Rights Management (DRM) axle. If the media is proprietary then offer behind a log in and only stream it, do not allow download of any kind. At the other extreme, consider offering it through a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike license. Not DRM but it provides some level of content protection and your client can start establish subject authority in the space through public distribution.

The Latino Congresso project required a live, switched feed that needed to be webcast. (We also provided a video feed to the room’s video projectors.) I looked at a few options but the simplest way I found to do all that was with the Newtek Tricaster.

Now, the only time I had seen a Tricaster was sitting on a client’s desk. We exchanged some “That’s cool!” comments but he never fired it up. So I had never seen it actually operate but had seen the screen shots — same thing, right (See my post on preparation.) Here’s what I found.

The Tricaster is a two-shoebox size Windows computer with a keyboard, mouse and flat screen monitor. It has all the normal computer connections on the back but the front is filled with a connector geek’s wildest dream: XLR, BNC, 1/4” phone, RCA, S-Video. We were using the Tricaster Pro which allowed for 3 camera switching, record to disk and web streaming (Newtek’s site has more information on the vanilla Tricaster and Tricaster Studio.) We also purchased the accessory external switcher box, which had an actual fader bar for “old timers”(sic), according to Newtek’s manual. There are actually three operating modes: Live Production (which we used); Capture Media; and Edit Media (built in video editor.)

I was able to carry the entire package, less the switcher box, from room to room throughout the conference center. A little cart would be nice if you had external drives or an audio mixer.

Since I had never used a Tricaster we hired an operator, Bob Anderson, from the vendor, TS Computers. The other option was to go through a one day training session and this project had neither the time or the budget. When I walked into the ballroom on the morning of our first event, Bob was already there and the Tricaster was set up. I let him know I hadn’t used the Tricaster before and would need to learn on the job and that I would be depending on him during the day. (I would solo on the Tricaster for an evening session.) The gist of our conversation went like this: “Hi, I’m Bob and my job is pretty simple; I just have to push a button!” (NOTE: If you are a freelancer and your job is simple or easy, or if you can make it look simple or easy, but it’s critical to the job, shroud things in mystery somewhat. Otherwise your clients will wonder why they need you.) As the day wore on I realized Bob was right. The Tricaster is very easy to use.

What I Found Out on Day One

• Audio and video connections are simple. The Tricaster is truly, really plug and play. Connect a cable and the signal flows into the Tricaster.
• Streaming is as easy (Really) as 1, 2, 3.

1. Connect an input (video and/or audio)
2. Enter the streaming server URL, user name and password which your streaming media provider has given you.
3. Press the “Stream Output” button.

• We monitored the streamed webcast output on another computer to check that we were “on the air.”
• There is no XLR audio out (on the Tricaster Pro).
• Audio levels are tricky to set or change.
• The whole Tricaster set is easy to move from one location another.
• There are built in templates for things like lower thirds, with very simple text changes, but the templates are somewhat complicated to modify.
• Video clips are simple to make available.
• There are a lot of transition effects that are flashy but not useful.

Bob created a spinning “The Webcast Will Begin in a Moment” bumper for me in Lightwave on his machine. (See my “Preparation” post.) Lightwave is not included with the Tricaster. He also showed me the “overlay” function and its lower third templates and told me about some keyboard shortcuts. I checked off “Training on the Tricaster” from my to do list.

What I Found Out After That

Tricaster Day One was over, my affable operator Bob had left for the day and I was on my own. Now I started to play.

• I asked the client for names and titles for the evening speakers but the agenda changed. Using the Overlay function and the included lower third templates I created session identifiers for the webcasts. I used lower third IDs like these for all other webcast sessions.
• We were feeding the room PA’s balanced Line audio output through the Tricaster to one or more cameras. The lack of XLR outputs (the Tricaster Pro had only a 1/4” phone jack for audio output) required “gender changer” XLR Male/Male adapters. A standard, male XLR “Out” connector on the Tricaster was expected. (We lost one of the adapters on the second day and the nearby Radio Shack didn’t have any left – because we had bought them all.)
• The Tricaster’s built in mixer looks good but is hard to operate. The user interface uses a “knob” metaphor (like a Mackie mixer) for adjustments. You operate the “knob” by hovering over it with the mouse until the right/left arrows appear, then left click and drag right or left to adjust up or down. A “slider” metaphor would have been easier to adjust since the mouse drag and slider motion would have been similar. (It’s cool that there is an audio mixer at all. The Tricaster built in mixer has two external mic and one line input and one internal “VCR” input.) Some kind of keyboard shortcuts would have been helpful.
• I would use an external audio mixer next time. I would feed its line output to the Tricaster line input and match those so I could have more control on audio level. Not sure if it was my user error or not but I couldn’t get good audio levels to my cameras. A built in 1kHz tone generator would have been helpful to set good camera audio. There is an audio clip for it.
• There is no color bar generator. That would have been handy. There is a video clip for it.
• To make lower thirds easier in Live Production mode a character generator type interface would be excellent. (This is only available in the “Edit Media” mode.)
• Cool, undocumented feature: the Tricaster remembered my streaming media provider entries between shutdowns.
• Playlists for “overlays”; that’s how the Live Production mode does lower thirds; were very handy.

I didn’t get a chance to try the built in VGA input (so PowerPoint slides could be included in the switched feed.) This is great idea.

The whole Tricaster experience was excellent for me. I was pretty skeptical going in. My (long ago) past experience with live conference events was multiple “flight packs”. These were four rack mount cases, on wheels, for switcher, camera control, character generator, graphics computer playback and record VTRS and audio mixer. The Tricaster replicated all of that to different degrees — and I could carry it room to room.

I’d say my little Tricaster trial by fire went pretty well. And there I was ready to get burnt!