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Every year, the Streaming Media Sourcebook features tutorials to help streaming media professionals perform their daily tasks faster and better and buyer’s guides to help them purchase the right gear and software. This year I focused my articles on video production topics.
Here are the tutorials with a brief description:
Connecting a DSLR or Camcorder to an External Mic – If you want to produce high-quality audio to go along with your video, you need to know how to connect a microphone or soundboard to your camcorder. This tutorial will show you, first for a traditional camcorder with XLR connectors and then for a DSLR with a 1/8″ jack.
Tutorial: Setting Exposure on iPhones, DSLRs, and Camcorders – All camcorders have automatic exposure modes that you can use for interviews, meetings, performances, and the like. However, auto-exposure doesn’t always give you the best result, particularly under challenging lighting conditions. While auto-exposure certainly has its place, for most meetings and talking-head shoots, you’ll get a better result if you manually control exposure. In this article, I’ll discuss how to “go manual” with a professional camcorder and DSLR.
How to Create a Screencam-Based Video Lesson – So you’ve been charged with producing a screencam-based training lesson for your organization, and you’re wondering where to start. Well, you’re in the right place, because this tutorial will tackle the hardware and software needed, plus the planning, recording, editing, and output of the lesson.
Here are the buyer’s guides:
Buyers’ Guide: Lighting Kits – Lighting is the single most important determinant of video quality. Fortunately, the cost of quality lighting gear has plummeted over the last few years. So with a little bit of knowledge, which I’ll supply here, and a very modest budget, you can provide great lighting for your online conferences, webinars, and presentations.
Buyers’ Guide: Video Mixers – This buyers’ guide is for newbies trying to understand the different types of mixers available and their strengths and weaknesses. Accordingly, I’ll start by identifying different categories of mixers, discuss their characteristics, and then conclude with a list of questions to ask before buying. As always, product mentions are not exhaustive but rather are representative of products in that category. If your product isn’t mentioned, please feel free to add it via a comment on the web version of this article.
Buyers’ Guide to VOD Encoders – This video-on-demand buyers’ guide is meant to walk newbies through what an encoder is and how to choose one, rather than help a serious buyer choose a vendor or approach in any of the categories covered. If you’re new to the market, you’ll learn a bit about who’s who and what’s what; if you’ve been in the streaming business for a while, you’ll probably not get a lot out of this.
