Next Section: Blogs

Video on the web used to have one major problem: video files are huge. Delivering large video files online is a problem because people can’t download them quickly enough to make them usable. But, with the advent of the Flash video format, services that compress, host and stream video files have proliferated. Before the days of YouTube and Vimeo, there were two possible ways to publish video online: Cut your video files down to small clips that can be downloaded in a reasonable amount of time. Stream Read more [...]

As you set about shooting video, you may want to consider hiring an expert if you don’t already have one in-house. With patience and creativity, a novice videographer can shoot like a professional, but you must invest the time to develop the expertise. If your budget permits, hire a freelance journalist with videography experience and accompany him or her on a shoot or two to see how it’s done. It’s important to remember that online video is more about the content and relevance than serious production Read more [...]

Next Section: Animation

Digital sound is created by a process called “sampling.” Most digital sounds, whether on a CD or from the Web, were created by recording hundreds of very small snapshots of sounds as they were played. These snapshots build the waveform that is a digital sound. A 44.1 kHz file for example, uses more than 44,100 samples, or snapshots, per second. The quality, as you might expect, is fairly high – CD-quality, in fact. Four or five minutes of 44 KHz-sampled music creates a file of about 50MBs. Digital Read more [...]

Recording audio isn’t rocket science, but it’s definitely a skill that requires practice and attention to detail. There’s no doubt you’ll get the cleanest, quietest, best recording in a sound-proof studio using high-quality microphones. But studios are also “dead” environments, devoid of the kinds of sounds that help evoke a sense of place. In radio production, sounds that “take you there” are called ambiance; the sounds you don’t want are simply called noise! Studios are good places to record Read more [...]

Upload audio files in the same way you upload any other file using an FTP (file transfer protocol) program. You may find it useful to create a folder on your Web server to store all audio files. This keeps your media organized on the server. Standalone Audio Files Stand-alone audio files — those that must be downloaded completely before being played — can be linked to on any HTML page, much as you create a link to another Web page or to a PDF or other file. Creating a link to the audio file Read more [...]

To begin a new Audacity project, open the program and then click File > Preferences. Under theAudio I/O tab, select the recording device you would like to use. Under the Quality tab, select the sample rate you want to make your recording in. Whenever possible, choose 44100 Hz. Click OK. New! Check out this step-by-step Audacity tutorial for multitrack editing made by one of Mindy McAdams’ students. To make a new recording, simply click the red Record button at the top of the Read more [...]