Google has added Automatic Captions, Automatic Timing to YouTube
This is too cool and I want to make a video just to try it out.
The automatic speech recognition technology being used in Google Voice was combined with the existing captioning technology used by YouTube to create automatic captioning. The captions are created without any extra input or effort on the part of the person who created the video. It does it for you. It's not perfect so they're not making it available to everyone yet but there's a list of channels at the end of the article above that have it available.
The automatic timing is also cool and it is available to all YouTube users. It makes it easier to add captions to videos by figuring out when the words are said for you. All you have to do is upload a text file containing all the words in the video. If it's a video that you wrote a script to create you have that anyway.
My only question at this point is how do you add non-verbal captioning with these tools. Sometimes captions will explain off screen sounds and describe the music being played. Perhaps that's to be left to the annotation tool.
Cushing Academy's Library Goes Digital
I first heard about this story on NPR. Cushing Academy not only added a huge database of books to their library but they removed most of the physical books. The latter had some people upset: The president of the American Library Association said that it will hurt the students who don't take to the technology; they'll learn better if they can handle the material. The Dean says that students weren't using paper sources for research anymore.
It's an interesting argument from the president of the ALA. Some people are visual learners. Are some people tactile learners? Or perhaps she simply meant that frustrations with an electronic device would be a barrier to learning.
Electronic sources have the potential of making the material more accessible to the disabled but the text-to-speech capability only works in the Kindle if the author and/or publisher allows it.
More on Accessibilty: Introduction to Web Accessibility from the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative
Showing posts with label rich media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rich media. Show all posts
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Week 9: Video - Now featuring audio*
So you want to make a video that's going to be viewed on or downloaded from a web site. What's the best way to go about that? Before you blurt out, "YouTube", here are some things to consider first.
Streaming vs Downloading
This will depend on how you want users to view your video and your budget.
The easiest, cheapest thing to do is to have visitors download the file from your web site. It works but it requires your visitors to get the entire file onto their computer before they can watch it.
Streaming video is the more expensive option. A streaming video allows the user to view the video as it's being delivered to them instead of waiting for the entire file first. It costs more because it requires the server to be running an application specifically for streaming video. However, in addition to users being able to view the video faster, a streaming video can detect a user's connection speed, broadcast live events, and handle larger traffic loads.
There is an option in between the two called progressive downloading. It mimics streaming in that it allows users to start viewing the video as soon as the beginning of the file has been downloaded but it lacks the additional benefits of streaming video. It's cheaper than streaming since it doesn't require the additional software on the server.
Which to pick? If you want visitors to be able to keep the file you can allow them to download it. If you want users to start viewing the video as soon as possible but don't have a big budget or do anything else special with it use progressive streaming. Sites with large amounts of traffic and want to do live events, like Hulu, need to use streaming.
Format
There are a few formats available: Windows Media, Quicktime, MPEG-4, Flash, and, more recently, Silverlight.
If you are a business, use Flash or Silverlight. You want as many people as possible to be able to view your video so you should use a format that works across multiple platforms and browsers. Flash edges out Silverlight in that regard since Silverlight does not work in Opera on Macs yet and Microsoft does not plan to update IE6 so that Silverlight will work in that browser.
This article comparing different aspects of Flash and Silverlight is useful for considerations beyond compatibility such as the ease of creating animation, sound quality, and accessibility.
You'd want this on your personal web site as well but since Flash video is expensive. In this case a MPEG-4 format that works in multiple players may be the way to go. However, if you do plan to have your videos on a site like YouTube or Vimeo they will convert your file to flash for you.
The Video Itself
This is information I learned years ago in a New Media class so it is not universally applicable. If you want people who are on slower connections to be able to see your video clearly you should consider this during video production if you intend to stream your video.
No rapid movements: Avoid having a lot of unneccessary movement in the video and nothing fast. The video will become pixelated and blurry on a slower connection.
Close up shots: Do not use wide shots for videos intended to be viewed on slower connections. The less color information the better. Like fast motion, a wide shot will be blurry when streaming on a slow connection.
The Pew Research Center has a survey of dial-up vs broadband use but note that they do not ask about how fast anyone's broadband was and the survey is only relevant to the United States.
Copyright Law: Using Other People's Stuff
The Center for Social Media has a video and article for their Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video. Generally, if your video has copyrighted material in it then it should fall under at least one of the scenarios that constitutes fair use:
*That's not mine, I'm quoting the home page of Adult Swim
Streaming vs Downloading
This will depend on how you want users to view your video and your budget.
The easiest, cheapest thing to do is to have visitors download the file from your web site. It works but it requires your visitors to get the entire file onto their computer before they can watch it.
Streaming video is the more expensive option. A streaming video allows the user to view the video as it's being delivered to them instead of waiting for the entire file first. It costs more because it requires the server to be running an application specifically for streaming video. However, in addition to users being able to view the video faster, a streaming video can detect a user's connection speed, broadcast live events, and handle larger traffic loads.
There is an option in between the two called progressive downloading. It mimics streaming in that it allows users to start viewing the video as soon as the beginning of the file has been downloaded but it lacks the additional benefits of streaming video. It's cheaper than streaming since it doesn't require the additional software on the server.
Which to pick? If you want visitors to be able to keep the file you can allow them to download it. If you want users to start viewing the video as soon as possible but don't have a big budget or do anything else special with it use progressive streaming. Sites with large amounts of traffic and want to do live events, like Hulu, need to use streaming.
Format
There are a few formats available: Windows Media, Quicktime, MPEG-4, Flash, and, more recently, Silverlight.
If you are a business, use Flash or Silverlight. You want as many people as possible to be able to view your video so you should use a format that works across multiple platforms and browsers. Flash edges out Silverlight in that regard since Silverlight does not work in Opera on Macs yet and Microsoft does not plan to update IE6 so that Silverlight will work in that browser.
This article comparing different aspects of Flash and Silverlight is useful for considerations beyond compatibility such as the ease of creating animation, sound quality, and accessibility.
You'd want this on your personal web site as well but since Flash video is expensive. In this case a MPEG-4 format that works in multiple players may be the way to go. However, if you do plan to have your videos on a site like YouTube or Vimeo they will convert your file to flash for you.
The Video Itself
This is information I learned years ago in a New Media class so it is not universally applicable. If you want people who are on slower connections to be able to see your video clearly you should consider this during video production if you intend to stream your video.
No rapid movements: Avoid having a lot of unneccessary movement in the video and nothing fast. The video will become pixelated and blurry on a slower connection.
Close up shots: Do not use wide shots for videos intended to be viewed on slower connections. The less color information the better. Like fast motion, a wide shot will be blurry when streaming on a slow connection.
The Pew Research Center has a survey of dial-up vs broadband use but note that they do not ask about how fast anyone's broadband was and the survey is only relevant to the United States.
Copyright Law: Using Other People's Stuff
The Center for Social Media has a video and article for their Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video. Generally, if your video has copyrighted material in it then it should fall under at least one of the scenarios that constitutes fair use:
- Commenting ON OR CRITIQUING OF COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
- USING COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FOR ILLUSTRATION OR EXAMPLE
- CAPTURING COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL INCIDENTALLY OR ACCIDENTALLY
- REPRODUCING, REPOSTING, OR QUOTING IN ORDER TO MEMORIALIZE, PRESERVE, OR RESCUE AN EXPERIENCE, AN EVENT, OR A CULTURAL PHENOMENON
- COPYING, REPOSTING, AND RECIRCULATING A WORK OR PART OF A WORK FOR PURPOSES OF LAUNCHING A DISCUSSION
- QUOTING IN ORDER TO RECOMBINE ELEMENTS TO MAKE A NEW WORK THAT DEPENDS FOR ITS MEANING ON RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE ELEMENTS
*That's not mine, I'm quoting the home page of Adult Swim
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
6th Week of Class: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
I'm watching Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long blog and the first notable thing occurs before the show even starts. I'm given a choice of which show to see an advertisement for: Ugly Betty, Castle, and Life on Mars. I like Castle so I clicked on that.
While I've only gotten a choice of what kind of ad to view on Hulu (sometimes you can get the rest of the show ad free if you watch a long ad at the beginning, sometimes you can choose between two different ads for the same product) ABC's player does sometimes have interactive ads at their commercial breaks. I've seen a car ad that is completely silent and lets the user click around to see the vehicles features. I've seen another ad that actually contains a game.
One of the trends with video on the Internet is that advertisers are going to take advantage of the medium and allow users to interact with the ads. It's one I personally hope continues, if only so I can 'dislike' all the ads I hate and never see them again. So far I've only seen the option to dislike or like an ad on Hulu.
But one of the things all the video sites for major networks have done is to make the content free for the end user. They're all ad supported and while they do tend to include the same number of commercial breaks that you'd get on television they all only show one ad per break on the Internet. The other trend I haven't found an exception for (at least for sites owned by networks) is the choice of Flash video. Although some sites players that require you to install an additional plugin to use their player the video itself is still Flash.
Everything else seems to vary: the quality of the video, whether the video will have the option of HD, whether the player works in multiple browsers, DRM (I assume that's what the plugin is really for but it was really explicit when trying to view videos on TNT's site, at least at first), even whether the video can fill the screen. (Lifetime's videos for Project Runway do not fill the entire screen even on the full screen setting. It's not letterboxed either; there's black around the whole picture.)
There's a lot that must go into this: loads of storage for the video for one thing. Then there's the database for the shows, their episodes, reviews, discussions, user accounts, etc. They must have a way of automating the commercial breaks: there's too much content to have someone going into the Flash and hard coding it for each video. Not to mention the fact that the videos will have a different number of commercial breaks and at different points in the video, even for videos of the same length.
While I've only gotten a choice of what kind of ad to view on Hulu (sometimes you can get the rest of the show ad free if you watch a long ad at the beginning, sometimes you can choose between two different ads for the same product) ABC's player does sometimes have interactive ads at their commercial breaks. I've seen a car ad that is completely silent and lets the user click around to see the vehicles features. I've seen another ad that actually contains a game.
One of the trends with video on the Internet is that advertisers are going to take advantage of the medium and allow users to interact with the ads. It's one I personally hope continues, if only so I can 'dislike' all the ads I hate and never see them again. So far I've only seen the option to dislike or like an ad on Hulu.
But one of the things all the video sites for major networks have done is to make the content free for the end user. They're all ad supported and while they do tend to include the same number of commercial breaks that you'd get on television they all only show one ad per break on the Internet. The other trend I haven't found an exception for (at least for sites owned by networks) is the choice of Flash video. Although some sites players that require you to install an additional plugin to use their player the video itself is still Flash.
Everything else seems to vary: the quality of the video, whether the video will have the option of HD, whether the player works in multiple browsers, DRM (I assume that's what the plugin is really for but it was really explicit when trying to view videos on TNT's site, at least at first), even whether the video can fill the screen. (Lifetime's videos for Project Runway do not fill the entire screen even on the full screen setting. It's not letterboxed either; there's black around the whole picture.)
There's a lot that must go into this: loads of storage for the video for one thing. Then there's the database for the shows, their episodes, reviews, discussions, user accounts, etc. They must have a way of automating the commercial breaks: there's too much content to have someone going into the Flash and hard coding it for each video. Not to mention the fact that the videos will have a different number of commercial breaks and at different points in the video, even for videos of the same length.
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