Video Survival Guide
While not in-depth like other guides or faqs found on the Web, Current.tv’s flash-based Video Survival Guide is concise and easy to follow, a good intro to video production. Topics covered include what gear to get, how much it will cost, tips on shooting, editing, and compressing video for online viewing, and links to additional info. Each topic covered also includes a printable pdf; just click the “take away” button at the bottom of each section.
With that said, unless you’re going to upload a video clip to Current.tv, ignore the section on Compression. Broadband and p2p technologies like bittorrent have made downloading large files easier, but 200MB is still huge. I also disagreed where the guide says that datarate is measured in kilobytes-per-second (kBps). While factually true, a lot of encoding software lists the datarate in kilobits-per-second (kbps). Even in the Final Cut compression how-to, the narrator says “and limit the datarate to 90 kilobytes-per-second,” when the screenshot shows that the datarate option is listed in kilobits-per-second. Call it a personal pet peeve, but I found that annoying.
January 9th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Hey — Robin from Current here — I put together the compression section. I’ve definitely seen the datarate measured both ways, though in my experience it’s more often kBps than kbps. Note, however, that I do include both in the bitrate calculator that’s included in the compression guide.
You’re right about the FCP video mismatch, though… now that you’ve pointed it out it’s a pet peeve of mine too. Ugh.
Glad you like the project overall!