With so many digital cameras in the market and the prices of storage going down, the tools to create and edit videos are now more accessible to everyone. We will have a look at some techniques in the following sections, namely:
- Grabbing video selections from DVDs with VLC
- Editing videos using Windows Live Movie Maker
- Creating photo slideshows (videos made of photos) with YouTube
- Creating an online TV with Google Hangouts and YouTube
- Creating screencasts (screen recordings) with Google Hangouts
- Creating a stop motion movie with JellyCam
Let's begin by using the work of others in our creations and extracting video selections from DVDs.
Extracting video selections from a DVD can be really useful, for example, if we want to edit a video that we have created with a digital camera that records onto DVD discs, or extract a selection from a regular DVD. In our course, in Module 3, Music and media, students are asked to create a movie trailer for the Tears of Steel movie (as we saw earlier), so they will be required to extract several slices from the original DVD.
This is a Creative Commons licensed movie, so we don't have many copyright restrictions, but note that these instructions will still work with copyright-protected DVDs (which includes most DVDs that you buy). Also, be careful that you are not breaking any laws by doing so. Refer to Chapter 8, Common Multimedia Issues in Moodle, for further guidance on this.
After putting the DVD in the computer's DVD player, let's open the VLC Streaming/Exporting wizard again, as we saw with the CD ripping. Go to File | Open Disc…, select the title we want to open. DVD movies are organized according to titles, which are the main video files (Title 1 is usually the main movie and Title 2 could be, for example, some extra material—most of the time, there is no need to change the subtitles or audio tracks' values), and these titles are made out of chapters. The best thing to do is to open the disc in VLC (File | Open Disc… | DVD) and try the title numbers before performing the transcoding, to see if VLC plays the title that we intend to rip.
Then, let's select the checkbox that says Streaming/Saving: and click on the Settings... button.
In the next window, we should now check the File field at the top and then click on Browse... and select where we want to save the file. We should also add an extension to the file, in this case, .avi. Then, in Encapsulation format, we must select MPEG TS.
Do not choose either of the options shown, that is, Video or Audio under Transcoding options.
Then click on OK.
After we click on the Next button on the initial Disc screen, VLC will start converting the file and we will see this in the status bar. The time will advance as the process continues and depending on our CPU, it can be faster or slower. Either way, as we are not transcoding (converting it to another video format), the process will be a quick one (probably less than 10 minutes for the entire Tears of Steel movie).
The resulting files in this kind of process can be quite large. This is because we are not using any encoding of the original file (remember VOB files that make up a DVD are MPEG-2 encoded), making the process faster but demanding more in terms of the amount of disk space required. Each minute of video will need around 50 MB of disk space, meaning that the 12-minute movie we are extracting will need approximately 600 MB! We are using this process because it is the best way to work with the video in a video editing software application, in this case, Windows Movie Maker (something we will see right away). Later on, after editing it with this tool, we will transcode the final video to the MPEG-4 format, which can save us some disk space.
Editing video nowadays has become as easy as editing text. In contrast to the time when we had to use scissors or Video Cassette Recorders and lots of cables, we can now film and edit raw videos with a cheap camera or mobile phone and a few clicks, with great contributions to the education field, for example:
- Debating scenes from a film.
- Publishing a study trip video.
- Creating an end-of-year school presentation with several video clips from the school year.
- Creating simple documentaries (in science or social sciences, for example about a national or regional nature park, a school, a community issue, and so on).
- Organizing a contest of student-made videos of practical activities (science experiments, artistic performances, and so on).
- Creating video tutorials about playing a musical instrument or, for example, to teach a gestural language.
- Creating video "papers", for example, in a teacher training context, where a trainee is filmed during a class and then creates a web document where he embeds video clips and text about several key events and reflects on them. This can also apply to comments on presentations or daily events in general.
We will now see how we can make this kind of video using Windows Movie Maker, starting first by creating a two-and-a-half minutes trailer of the movie Tears of Steel that we have ripped previously, and adding a new soundtrack to it.
Windows Movie Maker is an easy-to-use, free video editing software that comes with Windows. The advantage of this kind of software (and its equivalent in Mac OS, iMovie) is that it usually comes with the operating systems of the computers in schools, so it's easy to start working with. I've chosen this software and not iMovie because Windows Movie Maker is more widely spread and because there is no free or open source software that can match it unfortunately (in terms of interface, functionality, and simplicity). So we will have to stick to the Windows solution. Some of the processes are common in Windows Movie Maker and in other video editing software, so it is hoped that they will also be helpful for Mac and Linux users. To install it, just go to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/get-movie-maker-download and follow the instructions.
After we open Windows Movie Maker, the first thing that we need to do is create a project. Just like in Audacity, this application organizes several elements (videos, sound files, images, titles, and transitions) in one file, the so-called project file, with the .wlmp extension. So we can first create a folder in our computer, with the following subfolders: audio, video, and images and then in Windows Movie Maker, go to File | Save project as in the previously created folder and save the project with a name of your choice (just make sure that you don't use spaces or uppercase, just plain text with underscores replacing the spaces—this is a good practice if we want to share these files in Moodle later). The best practice in video editing (and editing in general) is to have all the files for the project in a single folder, as it makes it easier to not lose our sources when we back up our data, and makes it easy to transfer the project and all of its files to another workstation.
We will now import the main video file that we have extracted from the DVD into the Movie Maker project. After moving the original .avi file that we extracted with VLC to the video subfolder of the project, we have to click on the active area on the right-hand side of the main window application and browse for it.
Just like in Audacity, we can use the Space bar to start and stop the playback of the movie file in the previewing area. This is very practical, because we can find the right moment where we want to split the video and just press Space bar instead of using the mouse and clicking on the Pause button. We can also fine-tune our splitting frame by using either the buttons in the monitoring window, or the J and L keys for the previous and next frames respectively.
To split the video clip, after selecting the exact moment of splitting, we have to click on the Split button or press the M key. We will get another clip on the right of the main application window that we can later split or remove.
Inserting animations and visual effects is as easy as selecting the clip to which we want to apply them and then the desired effect. If we click on the Animations or Visual Effects tab in the ribbon, we get thumbnails of the several effects that are available to us. If we click on each of them, we can preview it in the monitor by clicking on the Play button or by pressing the Space bar.
We can try some of the transitions and effects, specially the Cross Dissolve, Fade Out, To Black, and Fade In, From Black. We can add multiple effects to the same clip.
To remove a transition, we just need to select the clip and then the No effect/No transition box in the respective ribbon.
To add a title at the beginning of a clip, go to the ribbon and select Title in the Home tab. There are many options we can go through, such as the font, size, color, transparency, effects, and others.
Movie Maker also allows us to insert images, which will be displayed for a certain amount of time. For that we just have to go the Home tab, click on the Add videos and photos button, and select the image. It will be added as a clip to the main window. If we click on it, we can change its duration in seconds in the ribbon.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind when we add images to a movie. One of them would be the size of the picture in pixels. Its size should be at least the same as that of the video or, if larger, keep the same proportions. This will avoid distortions and loss of quality in the final movie. We can also add visual effects to images.
Despite the fact that Movie Maker has a narration option, the best thing to do is to capture voice and remix it with the rest of the music and sound effects in Audacity, and then import it to Movie Maker and define it as the movie soundtrack. One of the reasons for this is that Movie Maker only allows one audio track; so if we wanted to add voice with background music, that would be a problem. Another reason is that you cannot control the quality of the voice recording and mixing in Movie Maker as you can in Audacity.
To add a new soundtrack that will replace the clips' soundtrack, go to the Home tab, click on the Add music button, and select the audio file. A new row will be added to the clips. If we click on it, we are presented with some options such as Fade in: and Fade out:.
To get the best quality possible, the export format for the completed trailer should be AVI. But we have already seen that this format is space-consuming, and as we want to send the video to YouTube, Movie Maker is ready for that. On the Home tab, click on the Save movie button, select the YouTube option, name your movie, and finally, click on the Save button.
We have two ways of adding a video to Moodle. The first is to send the video files to the course files, later linking to it. The other is to upload the video to an online video service and later embed it in Moodle.
Moodle, as we saw, has several multimedia plugins that automatically recognize a link to a multimedia file, such as a video, and automatically embed a player. If we upload the video in the YouTube format (MPEG-4 with the H.264 codec) to our course, it will play it in the browser window, thanks to Moodle's multimedia plugins.
Uploading our videos (including our students' videos) to a service such as YouTube has several advantages:
- If we don't have much space on our Moodle server, this will not load it with more files, particularly a video that is usually associated with large file sizes
- If we have many students trying to watch the same video in Moodle's files area, this will affect the server's performance
- As it uses the Flash or HTML5 video player, problems of different formats, players, and operating systems are solved
- If we publish it on these online services, other people can see and comment on it (this could be an advantage, depending on what we want; however, we can make some videos private)
We will now see how to send the published video to YouTube.
After we create an account in YouTube (through a Google Account), we should set up our channel page.
After clicking on Continue, we are taken to our channel page. This is where we will manage our videos, playlists, and other settings that will be of use while setting an online TV later in the chapter.
After we click on the Upload button, we need to click on Select files to upload or drag-and-drop the file from our computer to the active area of the screen on the left.
The next steps are to wait for the video to upload, fill in some information about it, and select the privacy options (whether we want the video to be public or private—the second option can be useful if we are concerned about e-safety, refer to Chapter 8, Common Multimedia Issues in Moodle for this).
It will take some time until the video is ready but then, as we saw in Chapter 1, Getting Ready for Multimedia in Moodle, we will just need to use the embed code associated with the video to add it to Moodle and show our trailer to everyone.
Stories made out of photos are a good way to describe an event, make a presentation, or create a storyboard for a movie made out of scenes. In our course, in Module 5, Being a musician, every student will have to build a presentation of his/her favorite artist, based on some photos of their performances, albums, or daily life. I will use as an example António Carlos Jobim, the great Brazilian bossa nova composer who left a great part of his work available to the public after his death at http://www.jobim.org.
A good way to start a photo slideshow project is to create a folder for the project and subfolders for the photos (for example, based on the periods of the life of the artist and/or types of images that we have gathered, such as CD covers, photos, or screenshots). Remember that the photos should have approximately the same quality and at least a minimum size in pixels according to the desired photo story size (640 x 480 or larger is good if we are planning to publish the photo story with this size or less). After obtaining these and saving them in the correct folders, it's time to go to YouTube.
Creating photo slideshows in YouTube is very easy and allows us to create videos out of photos by combining audio, text, effects, and transitions.
So again, after we go to our YouTube channel and click on the Upload button (as we saw in the previous section), we should now click on the Create button below the Photo slideshow label on the right of the active area for drag-and-drop.
Now we should select Upload photos on the left and drag-and-drop the pictures that we want to add to the photo slideshow to the active area on the screen.
We can reorder the pictures by dragging-and-dropping the thumbnails in the desired order.
Source: Instituto Antonio Carlos Jobim (2013). m01f026, m01f046, m01f049, m01f054, p37f011, p61f028, p61f054. Retrieved June 1, 2013, from http://www.jobim.org
After clicking on the Next button, we are taken to the basic photo slideshow editor. If we want to make one using a quick template, that's the way to go, so we would just need to select the slide duration, slide effect, and transitions between the photos and an audio track from a collection provided by YouTube and hit Upload. Instead, we will use Advanced editor and work some more details.
In Advanced editor we have access to more editing options, including a timeline view, audio tracks, transitions between photos, text on photos, titles, and photo effects.
Let's begin by adding a soundtrack to the slideshow. In the Audio option in the top menu, we can search by genre an audio track from a long list of songs made available by YouTube. After selecting the song (we can preview it by hitting the Play button to the left of the song title), we just need to add it to the timeline's audio track either by dragging it there or clicking on the plus button on the right of the song title.
By default, the basic editor adds cross-fade transitions between all the photos. If we want to change the transition effect, in the Transitions item of the top menu there are many to choose from. After choosing one, we just drag it onto where we want it in the timeline. We can also change its duration clicking with the mouse on the gray bar on the left or right of the transition and dragging it onto the desired duration.
To add a title to our slideshow, we should click on the Text item of the top menu and select one of the templates, dragging it onto the right place in the timeline. Then, with the mouse over it, we should click on the a button to edit the title text.
Besides titles to the slideshow, we can also add text to single photos. Then, with the mouse over the photo in the timeline, we should click on the a button to edit the photo's text.
Who would have guessed that we would live a time when anyone can make his/her own TV station with a computer, an Internet connection, and a cheap camera? And you can ignore the camera if you wish? With so many videos on the Web, it's really simple to get the raw material for your programming. Imagine a TV in our Moodle course with several programs, with live news directly from a webcam and videos made by you or by others who are part of this programming, and you will have an idea of what am I talking about. And you can set it up in 15 minutes. Yes, 15 minutes!
I can imagine 100 ways that we could use this in a school and in Moodle in particular to broadcast:
- A live school event, such as a school play
- Old school events, such as a history of our school
- Classes roleplaying, games in physical education classes, science experiments, and so on
- Shows made by students and teachers
- Meetings, workshops, and club activities
- Online videos selected by teachers or students, something similar to a pick of the day
In our course, students will be required to create a course channel that will be available in a side block. They will be using Google Hangouts and YouTube again, and design all of it in a collective way. They will start by building a foundation document for the station, with editorial standards and policies, the main theme, the programs, and the team's responsibilities using a Wiki to develop each of these aspects.
Google Hangouts (http://www.google.com/hangouts) is an online service that broadcasts live video conversations between Google users. This means that we can have live video in our YouTube channel for the world to see. For that, we will just need the Google Hangouts browser plugin and a webcam.
So, going again to our YouTube channel and clicking on the Upload button on the right menu, we can start broadcasting right away by clicking on Broadcast below Google+ Hangouts On Air.
We will be asked to connect our Hangout to Google+ and accept the terms of service, so we just need to follow the instructions. When all is set, we can start setting up our Hangout on air.
In the following screen, we are presented with a set of options on the left to broadcast our webcam, YouTube videos, our screen, or a remote screen. For now, let's just have a look at the webcam and YouTube videos.
We can start broadcasting our webcam by clicking on the START BROADCAST button on the top menu. The information on air will show next to the title of the Hangout.
We can also add guests to our broadcast by clicking on the Invite people button on the left menu.
Then, we can search by people on our contact list either by name or e-mail and when we're done, just hit the Submit button.
When we have several people in a conversation with us, it can be useful to broadcast the webcam of one of our guests. For that, Hangouts has a Cameraman tool, accessible again from the menu on the left. When we click on it a window shows on the right and we can leave the default settings untouched.
When one or two guests join, they will be added automatically to the broadcast. More than that and as we kept the default Cameraman settings, they will all be muted when they join.
To change the broadcast status of a guest, there are three buttons to keep in mind below the thumbnail of our guest when we hover our mouse on it:
- Hide from broadcast: This turns off the the guest's video signal from the broadcast
- Mute: This turns off the guest's audio signal from the broadcast
- Eject: This removes the guest from the broadcast
We can also add YouTube videos to our broadcast using the YouTube link on the left menu.
We then have to add or search videos for our broadcast by clicking on the Add videos to playlist button on the top right of the screen, entering your video search query or YouTube link, and clicking on the green plus button to add it to the playlist.
When we are ready, we can click on the Back button and we are taken back to the broadcast main window, showing the video that is now playing in our broadcast. If we want to comment on it using our microphone, we just need to hit the Push to talk button.
Remember that all of this will be automatically recorded for later on-demand watching.