JISC Digital Media Blog Archive
April 2009

NEW - ‘Creating an Audio Podcast’

Posted by Gavin Brockis on Thursday 30 April 2009 at 1:32pm
Tags: e-learning | news | podcasts

A new, simple and step-by-step guide to making a podcast is now available in our Advice Documents area. It offers tips on recording, editing and delivery techniques, as well as how to plan and structure your podcast episodes.

Creating an Audio Podcast - everything you need to know to get started with podcast audio for teaching and learning on your PC or Mac.

Real life in miniature: tilt-shift video

Posted by Antony Theobald on Thursday 30 April 2009 at 9:45am
Tags: photography | tilt-shift | time-lapse | video

A great piece of timelapse/tilt-shift video.

I was familiar with tilt-shift photography - where a very shallow depth of field and selective focussing gives the impression of a miniature model scene - but this is the first example I’ve seen of tilt-shift video.

Keith Loutit uses a combination of time-lapse photography and tilt-shift techniques to create these extraordinary videos:

Helpless by Keith Loutit on Vimeo

You can watch more of Keith’s films on Vimeo or on his own site.

Flickr has some good examples of fake tilt-shift miniature photos created using Photoshop.

April training update

Posted by Zak Mensah on Thursday 23 April 2009 at 11:39am
Tags: news | training

Due to high levels of demand JISC Digital Media is putting on an additional course for Audio Production: Recording Lectures, Seminars, Interviews and Podcasts on the 3rd June.

For the same reason we are also scheduling an additional date for Digitising Analogue Video Recordings on the 3rd July.

We are also currently well into the process of writing a host of other new courses involving moving images and audio which will be appearing in the autumn term - more details to follow very soon.

Our new Finding Free-to-Use Images course debuts today and has filled up.  Another one is scheduled for 10th June and has spaces still available.

If you are interested in Copyright and Digital Images there are a couple of spaces left for the course on the 19th May and several for the course taking place on the 7th July.

Our training page has the full range of courses available.

All of these courses are scheduled to run in Bristol.  However, we are often able to provide training for you in your institution and almost all of our workshops can be requested as a one-to-one (see the training page for details).

If you would like any further information about the training that JISC Digital Media can offer, or you would like to discuss your training needs, please contact us.

JISC Digital Media goes analogue

Posted by Antony Theobald on Tuesday 21 April 2009 at 11:29am
Tags: flickr | photographs | photography | pinhole | printing

Yesterday lunchtime a few of us got back to basics learning a little more about pinhole photography.

Pinhole shot of JISC Digital Media’s home in Berkeley Square

Under Nigel’s expert tuition, we were soon up and running. Here are some of the results - more examples of our efforts are in the JISC Digital Media Flickr photostream.

Coincidentally, next Sunday April 26 is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

This is how one of our prints looked after we developed it - note that it is a negative:

After scanning the negative print, we converted it to positive using image editing software:

Pinhole shot of the gardens in Berkeley Square with the University of Bristol’s Wills Memorial Building in the background. If you look at the larger version on Flickr, you will see that the depth of field extends from the grains of the bench in the foreground (a couple of centimetres from the ‘lens’) to the Wills building 200-300 metres away.

Step-by-step this is what we did:

1. Find a tin with a tight fitting lid (e.g. sweet tin, coffee tin)
2. Snip a hole out of the lid
3. Cover the hole with a piece of aluminium (cut from a drink can) and carefully gaffer tape it down around the edges to stop any light leaking in
4. Prick a tiny hole in the aluminium using a very thin pin/needle - the larger the hole the less sharp the image will be
5. Sand down any rough edges round the hole
6. Place a small blob of blu-tack over the hole - this is your shutter
7. Put a loop of masking tape in the bottom of the tin
8. In a darkened room under a safe light, place a test strip of black and white photographic paper on the masking tape and close the lid
9. Seal the lid with gaffer tape
10. Back in daylight, place your tin somewhere stable and remove the blu-tack for 60 seconds
11. Depending on the time of day and amount of light, you will need to adjust this exposure time, so be prepared to repeat this process several times with different test strips and different timings to work out the best exposure time
12. In your dark room place the paper into a tray of developer until your image appears (1-2 minutes), then straight into a tray of stop for a few seconds, followed by a tray of fix for a few minutes. Rinse in a bucket of water and allow to dry
13. If your test strip is too dark, it means it has been over-exposed: too much light has fallen on the paper and you need to expose the next strip for a shorter period
14. If it is too light, it is under-exposed and needs a longer exposure time
15. Note that if the paper goes completely black, you probably have a light leak; if it stays very light it may not have been exposed for some reaon, or you may have placed the paper upside down in the tin
16. Once you have worked out the ideal exposure, you’re ready to set up the camera for a ‘proper’ shot - so long as you do so under the same light conditions

More examples of our efforts are in the JISC Digital Media Flickr photostream.

Analogue isn’t dead yet…

Posted by Steve Hull on Friday 17 April 2009 at 4:01pm
Tags: analogue collections | music | sound recordings

The Tape Project is releaseing a series of recordings on 1/4 inch, reel-to-reel, 15 ips, half track, analogue tape.

Their intention is to recreate as closely as possible a “master tape” listening experience without the bother of having to buy a record label.  Recording are made from the original master tapes by what they call a 1 1/2 generation copying process.  As one might expect, the results have received ecstatic praise.  As one might also expect, the tapes cost  more than the average MP3 from iTunes.  And if you don’t have a machine to play your tape on, you can buy that as well…

Gonna get myself connected

Posted by Joel Eaton on Friday 17 April 2009 at 3:32pm
Tags: analogue collections | conversion | news | sound recordings | video

A new advice paper Audiovisual Signals Types and Interconnects, is now up on the website in the cross-media advice section.

The paper is written to help identify and define connector types used in analogue and digital audio and audiovisual equipment,  and also discusses some of the common signal types of video and sound.

If you wish to see information on any further signal types or connections which are audio or video specific then please get in touch.

Free loudness optimiser for spoken word

Posted by Gavin Brockis on Thursday 16 April 2009 at 3:29pm
Tags: audio editing | podcasts | software | sound recordings

From the Conversations Network, a free and incredibly simple tool for maximising the perceived volume of your recordings, and compensating for differences in voice levels in a recorded seminar, workshop or interview.

Many casual recordings suffer from differences in the levels of different speakers’ voices, or variations in level caused by a speaker moving about. Even carefully planned location sessions may not present the opportunity to place microphones exactly where you might wish, resulting in alternating quiet and loud sections. Many post-production tools offer the facilities to correct this problem - as well as others of insufficient or inconsistent level - such as compressors, limiters, sonic maximisers and normalisation. However, the process is often laborious, and may require specialist skills and knowledge.

At the other end of the scale, and offered free-of-charge by the non-profit Conversations Network of California is their tool The Levelator. With a simple drag-and-drop interface, and no user adjustments required (or indeed possible) at all, The Levelator makes a series of adjustments throughout the WAV or AIFF file with which it is supplied, and aims to compensate for these differences in level and achieve maximum and consistent subjective loudness, without the need for advanced audio engineering skills. After deliberately making some poor recordings (which naturally we found quite difficult…) our tests indicated excellent results with the simplest interface imaginable. All popular operating systems are supported, and their development process is very transparent. Well worth a look for all our users dealing with spoken word recordings at any level (sic)

Tip - Silence the phones

Posted by Zak Mensah on Thursday 16 April 2009 at 9:08am
Tags: e-learning | sound recordings | tips | workflow

You’re on a roll, you’re recording your best piece of audio ever….. and then one of your phones in the room rings, throwing you completely off. Although it seems obvious, you would be surprised at how easy it is to ruin a recording by being thrown off due to the phone ringing.  Remember to turn off/silence/unplug your phones when recording. More recently this also applies to computer noises such as twitter/facebook alerts. If you hear the Microsoft Windows shutting down sound then you have probably lost your recording anyway! If you have any tips yourself, please do add them to the comments.

Spare places on Finding Free Images course

Posted by Antony Theobald on Wednesday 15 April 2009 at 1:56pm
Tags: finding images | news | teaching | training

Following a cancellation, we now have two spare places on next week’s training course.

The Finding Free-to-Use Images Online course on Thu 23rd April is aimed at anyone who needs to source images for use in teaching and learning.

Naught-to-Digital Media in Five Seconds: A Greener OS

Posted by Stephen Gray on Wednesday 08 April 2009 at 2:40pm
Tags:

ASUS have released a new generation of motherboards with ‘instant on’ Splashtop feature. The user has the choice: wait for the full OS to load (Windows XP for example) or dive straight into photo management or web browsing in less than 5 seconds. Although only suited to basic tasks, a fully functional OS at you fingertips would seem to have its uses. Splashtop is a built in Linux-based operating environment and is being promoted as a green alternative: no boot up time = less energy consumed. Are immense electricity bills a necessary evil of digital media or should green issues always come first?

Pedagogical Uses of Presentation Software

Posted by Zak Mensah on Wednesday 08 April 2009 at 10:50am
Tags: e-learning | news

We are pleased to announce a new advice document called Pedagogical Uses of Presentation Software which covers how to improve your PowerPoint/Keynote/Open Office presentaion files. If you have any suggestions for inclusions or would like to point to out your own examples please leave a comment.

Flip launches an HD camera

Posted by Steve Hull on Wednesday 08 April 2009 at 10:28am
Tags: cameras | hardware | podcasts | video | youtube

Flip has just announced the UK release of the MinoHD which, as you might guess, is an HD version of the Flip video camera.

Unfortunately it still doesn’t permit the use of an external mic and the battery life has been effectively halved, but it does record in true 720p HD.  The viewscreen on the camera is the same as the one on the SD versions of the Flip, so you won’t see any difference while you’re recording.  Another improvement: there’s a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery.  The downside: it’s not replaceable.  This comparison with the regular Flip is quite impressive (NB: you have to click on the HD or HQ buttons at the bottom of frame once you’ve started playing the video to see the difference).

Audio blogging on the move

Posted by Antony Theobald on Friday 03 April 2009 at 2:32pm
Tags: mobile | podcasts | software | sound recordings

A new ‘audio blogging’ service has launched which might be worth keeping an eye on.

AudioBoo is currently an iPhone app which lets users send audio files from their phones to the AudioBoo site. Anyone can listen via the site or subscribe to the mini podcasts via RSS or iTunes.

A lot of the current uploads appear to be of the ‘testing, testing… 1, 2, 3…’ kind, but Guardian journalist Matthew Weaver has been using it to provide short audio reports from the G20 protests in London.

Does Obama’s gift to the Queen infringe copyright?

Posted by Antony Theobald on Friday 03 April 2009 at 12:46pm
Tags: copyright

Via The Guardian. Does the US president’s iPod gift infringe copyright?

This is the question the Open Rights Group is asking after Barack Obama gave the Queen an iPod containing 40 songs.

As with many rights issues it seems there is no definitive answer, but it’s an interesting question. Not one that should detract from the main reasons for this week’s visit, but a question that may reach some who have previously not given much thought to copyright.

Video training course - place available

Posted by Antony Theobald on Thursday 02 April 2009 at 12:39pm
Tags: digitisation | news | training | video

UPDATE: 24th April now full, next available date 4th August. Following a cancellation, we have a spare place on our new Digitising Analogue Video Recordings training course on Fri 24th April.

This course is proving very popular - the second date 15th May is now full.

We’re tweet-replete

Posted by Antony Theobald on Wednesday 01 April 2009 at 12:22pm
Tags: news

If you use Twitter, you may like to know you can now follow JISC Digital Media.

We’ll be using Twitter to provide updates on:

• New and recently updated advice on our website
• Information on training courses
• Events and conferences we’ll be attending or speaking at
• Latest blog entries
• Other digital media-related news we think the community would be interested in

If you have an event or piece of news of interest to the community, please let us know - you can do this by dropping us an email or by adding @jiscdigital to your tweet.