July, 2013

• 16 July

  Simple Lighting for Two-Person Interview

  I was scanning through some news videos for a consulting project and noticed a CBS News interview with special prosecutor Angela Corey after the Treyvon Martin/George Zimmerman verdict. The scheme as simple and produced an elegant look, so I thought I would share. As you can see in the image below, the interviewer and interviewee sat across from each other, …

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• 4 July

  Producing Closed Captions in Adobe Premiere Pro CC

  One of the coolest new features in Adobe Premiere Pro CC is the ability to create, edit and output closed captions. In this tutorial I’ll introduce you to those caption-related features, using some of the content that I used in my book, Premiere Pro CC: Visual QuickStart Guide, which is available now on Amazon. Click over to the main article to view …

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• 2 July

  DASH Standard Solidifies (Ho-Hum)

  I’ve long been a DASH skeptic, for multiple reasons, including the fact that the standard was so broad so as to be almost unusable. That is, since DASH supports multiple codecs and container formats, there’s no mechanism to ensure compatibility. So, if Mozilla adds DASH playback support that decodes WebM encoded video in an MPEG-2 transport stream, and Elemental produces …

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• 1 July

  Review: Harmonic ProMedia Xpress

  We put the first generation of the recently released ProMedia Xpress through a variety of tests, looking at performance, quality, closed captions, and more.

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• 1 July

  Commentary: Standards Are Meaningless (Until They Mean Something)

  Two early experiences shaped my view on standards and industry coalitions. Since I’ve been so publicly down on WebM, HTML5, and DASH, I thought I would share them. The first experience was in the mid-1990s. I was running a small company that sold PC fax boards that allowed computers to send faxes to fax machines, which was a desired functionality …

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• 1 July

  Jan Ozer to Instruct Poynter Webinar on Multiple Screen Delivery

  I’ll be teaching a webinar for the Poynter News University on Thurday, July 18 at 2:00 PM EST. The title is How to Make Video Play Across Multiple Screens, and that describes the content. The course is entry level by design, so won’t get bogged down in technical details. Here’s the description from the sign-up page. Video engages viewers, expands …

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June, 2013

• 26 June

  Adobe Premiere Pro CC Visual QuickStart Guide now Shipping

  During the first few months of 2013, I had to privilege to write the Adobe Premiere Pro CC Visual QuickStart Guide (VQS) with Shawn Lam, who penned three of the fifteen chapters. I’ve always liked the VQS format, which features quick hit, detailed answers, rather than the start to finish tutorials provided by the Classroom in a Book series. This …

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• 18 June

  Download Handout – Choosing an Enterprise Encoder

  Here’s the description; click below to download the handout. This session will discuss factors to consider when choosing an enterprise video encoding system from the likes of ATEME, Envivio, MainConcept, Thomson, AmberFin, Elemental and others. Factors include performance, output quality, quality control options, format support, expansion options, programmability, and other variables.

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• 14 June

  Multiple Screen Delivery book in iBookstore for $19.99

  Just a quick note to let you know that Producing Streaming Video for Multiple Screen Delivery is now available in the iBookstore for $19.99, a savings of $20 over the paper book version. Ever since I saw iBooks Author, I’ve wanted to convert a book over to the rich format, where pictures are in full color and scalable to full …

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• 13 June

  Consumer Brands Flock to YouTube (67%!)

  Sam Walton would have liked YouTube. The site provides viewers with a range of file options in a well-featured player that offers comments, ratings, likes and captions. Companies who post videos can create their own channels and a host of viewing statistics, plus gazillions of eyeballs. In addition to that, of course, it’s free. I’m guessing that Sam would have …

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