JISC Digital Media Blog

You are listening to…

Posted by Joel Eaton on Thursday 11 March 2010 at 8:05am
Tags: audio editing | ident | music | news | software | sound recordings

Our new advice document Creating an Audio Ident provides information on what an ident is, desiging an ident, and how-to create an ident using Audacity software.

Photo by robinfeder on Flickr - used under a Creative Commons licence

Vinyl up close

Posted by Steve Hull on Friday 05 March 2010 at 1:12pm
Tags: analogue collections | music

For anyone who’s ever wondered what the grooves on a vinly recording really look like, here’s your answer.

Remarkable photos that, amongst other things, illustrate the importance of getting the dust off before you play the recording.

How to photograph or scan those tricky objects

Posted by Nigel Goldsmith on Wednesday 03 March 2010 at 1:36pm
Tags: analogue collections | cameras | digitisation | negatives | news | photography | scanning | slr

We have just published a new advice document on scanning and photography.

The document is called How Do I Digitise Difficult Objects? and it shows some simple ways to photograph or scan one-off atypical objects including glass plate negatives, small reflective objects and scans from magazines or books.

Axial lighting set up used to photograph coins or medals

Google snaps up online photo editor

Posted by Antony Theobald on Tuesday 02 March 2010 at 11:04am
Tags: image editing | photo sharing | photography

Google has acquired Picnik an online photo editing site.

Photo edited using Picnik by Sandy Redding on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons licence

Picnik is a web-based application that allows users to crop, resize and add effects to their images - all through their existing web browser without the need for additional software.

Picnik has also been available to users of Yahoo-owned photo sharing site Flickr for a couple of years - it will be interesting to see how Google and Yahoo get on with this new partnership. The official Google Blog announcement does not mention Yahoo, but states “we’d like to continue supporting all existing Picnik partners”.

Picnik is one of many options for editing photos - see our Image Editing Software for more information.

Online photo editing is likely to become more and more popular - there’s already an online version of Photoshop. Have you used Picnik, Photoshop.com or any other online image editors? Would you be tempted to in the future?

Fight for your right (to create time-based media)

Posted by Joel Eaton on Thursday 18 February 2010 at 8:00am
Tags: copyright | moral rights | news | performance rights | recording rights

We have just published a new advice document titled Copyright and Other Rights for Creating Time-based Media. The document aims to provide an introduction to what rights exist, how they are allocated, and how they need to be attained when creating time-based media such as audio or video productions.

JISC RSC SW Conference

Posted by Zak Mensah on Wednesday 17 February 2010 at 11:46am
Tags: event

In June, the JISC Regional Support Centre in the south West will be hosting a conference titled “Challenges, Choices and Change in the Age of Enterprise and Engagement”

The conference aims to celebrate and showcase the work of our regional learning and skills providers in meeting the business and community engagement agenda

AAC explained

Posted by Gavin Brockis on Tuesday 16 February 2010 at 8:00am
Tags: compression | file formats | metadata | news | standards

A new advice document covering Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), an audio compression method designed to replace MP3.

AAC improves on the file compression technology behind MP3 and marries it with the flexible MPEG-4 standard to deliver audio in a package designed to offer users the widest range of delivery and playback tools.

Our new advice document AAC Audio and the MP4 Media Format explains the benefits of using AAC in teaching and learning, and how AAC relates to video and other enhanced learning resources. We also look at compatibility and the software which you or your users need to work with AAC audio, and some of the features it can offer.

The MPEG-4 standard, of which AAC is a part, is a large and potentially confusing collection of standards and formats, so we try also to cherry-pick some of the most salient features to enable those working with AAC audio in MP4 or M4A format to understand the place of AAC in the wider MPEG-4 family.

HTML 5 video player

Posted by Zak Mensah on Monday 15 February 2010 at 8:00am
Tags: video

The last 6 months or so has seen a rise in interest from the web developer world with HTML5 (most of the web is built with HTML), as smart folk start to build examples of its new progressive features.

So why should we care? Those of us who are horizon scanning will be particularly interested in one of its powerful new features: the ability to play video without a plugin. Past and present, we rely on various plugins to watch video on the web, which can cause headaches if the final user’s computer does not have the correct plugin.

HTML5 will help us provide video unrestricted by plugin. Below we link to a demo page that has an example of a HTML5 video player in action. At present this will only work in the latest versions of browsers for Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome. My favourite feature is the ability to jump anywhere in the video and have it start immediately.

Visit the SublimeVideo player demo site for full details on this exciting development.

Google blogjam

Posted by Gavin Brockis on Friday 12 February 2010 at 12:12pm
Tags: copyright

Google takes action to address copyright infringement on Blogger.

In a draconian move, Google has recently removed several music blogs from its Blogger and Blogspot services. Citing complaints about the legality of music posted by bloggers as the reason behind their actions, some well known and sometimes longstanding music blogs have been summarily deleted. The owners of the blogs concerned had apparently already been politely but firmly informed that they were in violation of Google’s terms of use, and receiving no adequate explanation, Google has pulled the plug.

The bloggers themselves are widely outraged, claiming that much of the audio they post is sanctioned or even supplied by the record companies concerned. However, mostly legal is not completely legal. Complaints of uncleared use of audio in these blogs, in violation of the USA’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, have highlighted some grey areas and assumptions in the use of copyrighted audio, which some bloggers have allegedly failed to address or clarify when asked to do so.

Some of this material may of course have been used perfectly legally, but the failure to follow Google’s procedure has led to shutdown.

Currently this all centres around American copyright law, but it also starkly demonstrates the importance of gaining permission to use copyrighted material, lest you spoil your ship for a ha’pworth of tar. As always, if you’re not sure, don’t use it!

If you want some guidance on audiovisual copyright for your own resources you may want to take a look at our advice documents Copyright: an Overview and Audiovisual Copyright Frequently Asked Questions.

Catch a wave - uncompressed digital audio

Posted by Gavin Brockis on Wednesday 10 February 2010 at 3:35pm
Tags: audio editing | bit depth | digitisation | file formats | news | sound recordings | surround sound

We’ve just published a new advice document covering uncompressed audio file formats.

This short guide to Uncompressed Audio File Formats summarises the essential features of common uncompressed digital audio formats, focussing particularly on the WAV family.

Suitable for archiving and working with high quality audio, uncompressed files are the best quality medium for digital audio, and figure prominently in the audio workflow at many stages. Here we examine their comparative strengths and how they have evolved to fill different needs, and take a look at the latest developments, including Multichannel Broadcast Wave Format and iXML metadata.

Watch this space - further advice on the AAC audio and the MP4 media format will be published shortly!

Happy 1st Birthday JISC Digital Media!

Posted by Karla Youngs on Tuesday 09 February 2010 at 8:00am
Tags: news

Today JISC Digital Media celebrates its first Birthday!

Although the service, previously known as TASI, has been in existence for more than ten years, the team re-branded last year to reflect the growth in the service offering increased support and advice to the FE and HE sector.

JISC Digital Media - a JISC Advance service - provides advice, training and guidance on the creation and use of digital media collections (still images, moving images and sound) and their use in learning, teaching and research within the UK FE and HE communities.

From help with finding and using the right media, to advice on creating and delivering digital formats or consultancy on managing a digitisation project, the team promotes good practice, technical expertise, the use of appropriate standards and the sharing of knowledge within education.

The achievements of the last 12 months have also given the team added cause for celebration - in addition to developing new advice documents and training courses for all media (audio, still image and moving image), the increase in team numbers has given us the opportunity to attend and participate in a wide range of both education and media specific conferences and exhibitions. We gained the platform at many events, promoting the JISC Digital Media team’s expertise and services.

In June 2009 the JISC funded project Video Assist was launched by the team. To date, four institutions have been successful in their bids for Video Assist and have benefited from the team’s film expertise.  A final call for the third and final round of entries closes on 26 February 2010 - go to the Video Assist page for further details.

September saw two launches: firstly, our fortnightly on-line surgery - a one-hour online help and support session, with themes ranging from Basic Microphone Technique and Placement to Using Flickr as a Source of Free-to-Use Images. Secondly, the launch of the service’s first newsletter Intermedia - a quarterly update on the work undertaken by the service and happenings in the world of digital media.

Happy Birthday JISC Digital Media!

If you would like JISC Digital Media to attend or present at your event or require any further information please contact Karla Youngs, Director on 0117 331 4380; email info@jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk or call 0117 331 4447.

All you need to know about copyright

Posted by John Hargreaves on Wednesday 03 February 2010 at 1:47pm
Tags: copyright | news

We have just published three new advice documents on copyright and digital media.

Meadows in Imperial Valley, California. Photo from Oregon State University Archives on Flickr: The Commons. No known copyright restrictions

The first is Copyright: An Overview which provides a broad introduction to the subject: What is copyright? How long does it last? What are the exceptions that allow use of copyrighted works?

We also have Audiovisual Copyright: Frequently Asked Questions which answers the most common enquiries we receive through our helpdesk.

Finally there’s Copyright and Still Images: Frequently Asked Questions - these too are based on helpdesk questions.