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Video Editing Rules

In the age of YouTube, classic video editing rules are quickly disappearing. But if you're interested in improving your editing skills, you should learn the basics and stick to them whenever possible.

More Editing Tips

Gretchen's Desktop Video Blog

Desktop Video Newsletter

Monday March 15, 2010

Every week, thousands of subscribers receive the Desktop Video newsletter in their inbox.  It's got the latest information and news about making, sharing and watching online video.

If you're not on the mailing list, sign up now so you never miss another edition!

Top Web Video Players

Thursday March 11, 2010

When I had to choose a web video player for my video business web site, I went with the JW Player. I liked how easy it was to use, and how many options there were for customization. It's also free for noncommercial use, and low-cost otherwise.

There are other good options, though. Flowplayer is extremely adaptable - though a little difficult to use. FLV Player has a free player that couldn't be easier to use, and Wimpy makes two players with a lot going for them.

Unless you know how to use Flash software, and can design your own video player, using one of these top web video players is the easiest way to get Flash video on your website.

Online Video Science Class

Wednesday March 10, 2010

Scientist everywhere - from NASA and universities to inventors in the garage - are using online video to explain their theories and knowledge. Online video is an ideal medium to bring scientific ideas to the masses. With some creativity, animation software (or just a whiteboard) complex theories can be broken down into understandable nuggets.

With all of these science videos online, students have access to hundreds of teachers, each with a different style and approach. If you don't understand a concept as explained by your text book or professor, just go to YouTube and you'll most likely find a video that explains it in a way you will understand.

To learn more about how and why scientists are embracing online video, check out this article from ReelSEO. For more videos, here's a list of the top educational video sites online.

YouTube Automatically Adds Captions

Friday March 5, 2010

The voice recognition software that creates the closed caption is still flawed, but that won't stop millions of users from enjoying the benefits of the auto-captioning service that YouTube recently made available to all users.

I tested it out on a couple of my videos and some of the results were hilarious. If there was any background music, the captions were absolutely worthless. In a perfectly clean sound environment, the results were pretty good - as long as the speaker went slowly. If there was any background noise, not even every other word was correct.

Despite its limitations, the service is very valuable, and stands to improve over time. You can download the transcription for editing, though with some of my results I'd be better off starting from scratch! Overall, the move will increase the accessibility of YouTube videos for hearing impaired viewers, and the translation service will open up videos to international audiences.

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