I've been playing around with video lately and wanted to convert various video files from one format to another.
This is a task that I think PR folks are well served knowing how to do given the role video is going to play in PR as time goes on. Whether that's converting video for use on YouTube, iPhones, BlackBerry's, the Web or a variety of other mediums. Each outlet has its own video format preference.
With the right video converter though formatting your video to suit the medium is as simple as a click.
Some of the programs I've tried out and like have included:
WinAVI (my favorite)
NHC Prism Video Converter
Ojo Total Video Converter
There are lots of others on the market, but I find these ones do the job just fine. Generally speaking you can rip a 100 meg video to another format in less than five minutes.
I've also been playing around with Magix Movie Edit Pro. This is more for editing videos... slicing up sections and re-arranging them, or merging different sections from different videos. Lots of features like adding titles, subtitles and transition frames with effects.
It's fairly intuitive and I give it a thumbs up on its ability to keep audio and video synchronized (which is one of the biggest issues you encounter when playing around with video, it's very easy for the audio stream to get unsynchronized with the video stream). The big flaw I'm seeing in the program right now is its export capacity. Once you have assembled your finished video it can take a long time to output the file (we're talking an hour or more). I have a fairly good PC so it's safe to say this is what the average user would experience. That said though I think this is fairly common for video editing software.
Anyway, it's really given me an appreciation for how much time and effort goes in to creating a polished video. Once I play around with various programs a bit more I'll have some videos to show folks.
A program like Magix is again important for PR folks to learn how to use because YouTube for instance has a 2 gig cap on video uploads. Which may sound like a lot (and in most cases it is) but you may find yourself with a 10gig video and you'll have to know how to slice it up in to five separate videos, each 2 gigs in length.
Or alternatively, you may want to have various formats to the video. One that is a continuous stream and another where the video is broken down in to sections, each as their own video file.
While PR traditionally offloads this kind of thing to marcom or outsources it to a creative agency, there's no reason PR folks can't learn to do some of this stuff themselves. It's not rocket science, it just takes a little time and practice.
This is a task that I think PR folks are well served knowing how to do given the role video is going to play in PR as time goes on. Whether that's converting video for use on YouTube, iPhones, BlackBerry's, the Web or a variety of other mediums. Each outlet has its own video format preference.
With the right video converter though formatting your video to suit the medium is as simple as a click.
Some of the programs I've tried out and like have included:
WinAVI (my favorite)
NHC Prism Video Converter
Ojo Total Video Converter
There are lots of others on the market, but I find these ones do the job just fine. Generally speaking you can rip a 100 meg video to another format in less than five minutes.
I've also been playing around with Magix Movie Edit Pro. This is more for editing videos... slicing up sections and re-arranging them, or merging different sections from different videos. Lots of features like adding titles, subtitles and transition frames with effects.
It's fairly intuitive and I give it a thumbs up on its ability to keep audio and video synchronized (which is one of the biggest issues you encounter when playing around with video, it's very easy for the audio stream to get unsynchronized with the video stream). The big flaw I'm seeing in the program right now is its export capacity. Once you have assembled your finished video it can take a long time to output the file (we're talking an hour or more). I have a fairly good PC so it's safe to say this is what the average user would experience. That said though I think this is fairly common for video editing software.
Anyway, it's really given me an appreciation for how much time and effort goes in to creating a polished video. Once I play around with various programs a bit more I'll have some videos to show folks.
A program like Magix is again important for PR folks to learn how to use because YouTube for instance has a 2 gig cap on video uploads. Which may sound like a lot (and in most cases it is) but you may find yourself with a 10gig video and you'll have to know how to slice it up in to five separate videos, each 2 gigs in length.
Or alternatively, you may want to have various formats to the video. One that is a continuous stream and another where the video is broken down in to sections, each as their own video file.
While PR traditionally offloads this kind of thing to marcom or outsources it to a creative agency, there's no reason PR folks can't learn to do some of this stuff themselves. It's not rocket science, it just takes a little time and practice.
Comments
Post a Comment