Online Journalism Backpack

WordPress Video Plugin

orj — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:38:52 +0000

This video plugin from http://www.daburna.de/blog/2006/12/13/wordpress-video-plugin/ links videos from almost any source to your WordPress site.

Download, FTP to the plugins folder in your directory, activate in the plugins panel in WordPress. After that, when you write a piece of script in this format…

[youtube xxxxxx]

… in a post or a page (just write it in visual mode), the desired video will show up. You’ll find all the info you need on the plugin’s website.

Blip.tv:

For video stored on Blip.tv, you go to the FLV code. It looks like this…

http://blip.tv/file/get/Letsrun-USACrossCountryMensFinish296.flv

Copy/paste the part between “get/” and “.flv” which is the movie’s ID, and paste it into the script like this…

[bliptv Letsrun-USACrossCountryMensFinish296]

Youtube:

For video stored on Youtube, locate the URL for the video. It looks like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DHOZW_8OPk

Copy/paste the bold part of the code after the equation sign - into the script like this…

[youtube 8DHOZW_8OPk]

Record Skype interviews

orj — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 09:25:35 +0000

The combination of Skype and a call recorder lets you record telephone (skype) interviews directly on to your harddrive.

For Mac we suggest the 15 USD recorder from Ecamm http://www.ecamm.com/mac/callrecorder/. Calls are recorded manually or automatically (great option for those who forget to press the record button) and in different quality MOV files. We suggest the highest quality.

Example: These soundbites were recorded from at Skype interview, recorded with Call Recorder, edited with Audacity and finally exported in mp3 format and linked into a Word Press blog.

iMovie HD Manual

admin — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:35:27 +0000

Download the iMovie HD manual in PDF format from Apple.com:

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/iMovie_HD_6_Getting_Started.pdf

This is the same manual as you will find in iMovie (Help menu > iMovie HD Getting Started). The advantage is you can print it (it is about 40 pages) or you can view it on a PC - you do not have to access the manual from within iMovie

Report on online video

admin — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:07:02 +0000

The Pew Internet & American Life Project’s first major report on online video (2007/07/25) shows:

“Fifty-seven percent of online adults have used the internet to watch or download video, and 19% do so on a typical day. Three-quarters of broadband users (74%) who enjoy high-speed connections at both home and work watch or download video online.”

Download the report in PDF format here: http://pewinternet.org

EyeTrack reports from Poynter

admin — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:50:01 +0000

EyeTrack III report
‘News websites have been with us for about a decade, and editors and designers still struggle with many unanswered questions: Is homepage layout effective? When is multimedia appropriate…’ This research from the Poynter Institute for Media Studies gives the most up-to-date answers.

EyeTrack 07
Is not published yet but see the highlights (includes video presentation)
Link to Poynter Institute for Media Studies (poynter.org)

Soundslides download

admin — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:38:47 +0000

Soundslides Plus is a cheap (USD 70) easy to use online storytelling tool. Download a free demo version from http://soundslides.com (link opens in new window). Soundslides lets you create professional yet still basic photo and sound stories.

Soundslides uses jpg and mp3 files and export swf

Recommended book: Interaktiv multimedia (in Swedish)

admin — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:43:05 +0000

Astrid Haugland, Ulf Larsson: Interaktiv multimedia med Flash 8 (including CD with tutorials) ISBN 91-636-0838-3

URL to the book: http://www.pagina.se/bok.html?63608383

Recommended book: Flash Journalism

admin — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:39:23 +0000

Mindy McAdams, Flash Journalism - How to Create Multimedia News Packages (Focal Press 2005). The book is accompanied by a website http://flashjournalism.com (link opens in new window). This is all you ever want to know about Flash as a tool for journalists.

Note: The book relates to Flash MX or Flash MX2004. While we are waiting for the updated version, the book is still very useful. The website is being updated to later Flash versions.

Online journalism tutorials from Berkeley University

admin — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:21:01 +0000

Berkeley University has this great multimedia training website:

http://journalism.berkeley.edu/multimedia/

The training site covers video, audio, photos (equipment, tips and tricks, software tutorials etc.) as well as storyboarding, Flash, HTML, and web design.

South African workshop set-up

admin — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 07:33:37 +0000

For the South Africa Online Journalism Workshop we build a setup based on (almost) free software that is worth copying. There is no reason why we shouldn’t benefit from the swarms of open source resources, free- or shareware. So here is how we did it:

For video editing we use whatever comes with the computer and since this workshop was PD based, we used Windows Movie Maker. We did encountered a problem though: DVD cameras (Sony Handicam dcr-dvd7e) do not plug right into MovieMaker. So you will need a converter that rips the DVD and changes the movie into a format that Movie Maker recognizes. We found that AVS Video Converter from www.avs4you.com works well. It is shareware and works only with Windows.

For sound editing we choose Audacity which is free and available for both Macs and PCs. Together with the ad-on Lame Mp3 Encoder, Audacity lets you create mp3 files. Again, the problems we encountered were between the recording device and the computer. We used Olympus recorders and they need drivers and their own programs before you can access the sound files.

For photo editing we use Adobe Fireworks. Could have used anything free too, but we choose Fireworks because we can download a 30-day free trial version. Use any software that can do simple photo editing and generate JPG files. We are not into advanced photo editing.

For simple sound/photo stories we use SoundSlides Plus which costs 70 USD. It takes photos and mp3 files and turn them into very nice multimedia stories.

For multimedia we use Flash. It is state of the art and there is no way around it. Try the 30-day free trial before you do anything else.

For the website we use WordPress. It is also free and straight forward. All you need is a webserver. We use www.jourlab.com for that purpose.

As our photo server we created a Flickr.com account.

For video we did the same, created a Youtube.com account.

That’s it.