Thursday, February 08, 2007

Technological Blonde ALERT

The SMC Alumnae Association, in lieu of asking me for a whole bunch of money again, has asked for the video file of last week's reading. However, it's an hour long and like forty bazillion megabites or moonpiebits or whatever it is they're called. They've asked me to quote, "trim the file," which means they might as well have asked me to sprout a 3-D model of Zimbabwe directly from my forehead.

...help?

missing competence at: mb@blondechampagne.com

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry, not really my area of expertise, although I do know that most new macs are packed with the software Imovie, which is said to be fairly easy to use as an editing tool. Any Mac worshippers in the room?

Anonymous said...

No Mac help, please. They're pretty and all, but I don't have access to one.

zaftiguous said...

How was the video taken? On digital cameras, the video is taken in uncompressed form. If you run it through compression software (like Windows Media Encoder), it makes it smaller. Not by a huge amount, but it helps. Here's the link: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

zaftiguous said...

P.S. Sorry I don't know how to link properly!! (I need my own technological blonde alert, apparently)

Anonymous said...

It's on a digital camera, but I've been told which parts of the reading to leave in and which parts to cut. So I guess I need software that will let me... edit.

OSA said...

Hey MB,
I took a broadcast journalism class and we used Finat Cut Pro. You can ask around to see if you can get access to an editing lab.
Googling around I found this open source (read: free) video editing software. It does look rather painless.
http://www.jahshaka.org/
Or even easier you can use the "Windows Movie Maker" which should come with your computer. Look for it under "Start" "Programs"
Shoot me an e-mail if I can help anymore. bluekelebek )at( gmail )dot( com

Anonymous said...

Oooooh, good stuff. Thanks K :)

Anonymous said...

Leave it to the alumnae association to be a pain even when they aren't asking you for money.

They should have forgone the swirled napkins and had a professional videographer. (God knows with all the "give us money" phone calls they have the funds.)

Anonymous said...

Oh, no, Kelly, all that videographer money went to the campus prayer maze.

Anonymous said...

There's a wide range of possible solutions and, no suprise, and equally wide range of quality in the result. Now would be a great time to ask them what they want it for. Something you can stick in a DVD player for a TV in a classroom or kiosk is very different from something you can throw on a web site for users to download inline to their browsers. Personally, I'd squeeze it just enough to fit a DVD; it fits most needs, is easily portable, and carries enough of the original to let the recipient play with the contents if they need something smaller.

Anonymous said...

It's to be downloaded off the College's website. Probably also as a torture device of some kind.

Anonymous said...

If you have QuickTime, you can format it as an .mp4 file, which should reduce the size. It also allows viewers can download it to Video iPods in case they have a need for MB-on-the-go.

I have QuickTime, but I've never monkeyed around with the editing portions of it before, so I can't guarantee it will look pretty.

Anonymous said...

Hey MB, this is your soon to be cousin-in-law, Alicia. Did you get help with this problem?

You can email me at alicia AT crumley.org if you want.

Anonymous said...

MB--

Do I even want to know what the prayer maze is? It sounds like something those liturgical dancers would design.

Anonymous said...

Hi Alicia! Still working on the file trimming :)

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