Category: A/V Production

Posted on 04.29.10

Letus Extreme Lens Adapter: Great Depth of Field

by Stacy

Radek Michalik here giving a rundown on a sleek little piece of hardware I just invested in. I'm talking about the Letus Extreme lens adapter.

For those not in the know, lens adapters came about as a means to bridge the visual quality gap between film and video. One of the most noticeable differences between the two is depth of field. Film cameras naturally have a narrower depth of field, resulting in a very cinematic, organic image. Through mystical optics wizardry that I won’t go into here (mostly because I don’t really understand it), the lens adapter was born, allowing a filmmaker to use 35mm lenses instead of the video camera’s stock lens.

Posted on 04.13.10

Adobe CS5 New Feature Round-Up

by Stacy

Tim attended the CS5 Launch yesterday in Chicago at Ascend Training and found the Adobe Story from script to metadata was a pretty cool feature. Industry-wise, Adobe’s purchase of Business Catalyst and Omniture could potentially give some CMS and Analytics tools a run for their money too.

Here’s a quick rundown on what’s new with Adobe® Creative Suite® 5 Master Collection: a comprehensive toolset for designing across media with Design, Web, and Production Premium packages.

Posted on 03.26.10

Video and SEO: Transcription Steps

by Travis Chandler

I like trilogies. Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Legally Blonde…
Yeah. I know. Crazy but true. They really made three Legally Blonde movies. Look it up. And before you go telling me there are four Indiana Jones movies, let me tell you that fourth one doesn’t even EXIST as far as I’m concerned. C’mon, Inca cosmonauts? Seriously? What the heck ever.

Anyhoo, trilogies are awesome.  And therefore I add this, a third entry into my newly named “Adobe Soundbooth CS4 Metadata Transcription Trilogy!!!”
In all seriousness, my boss Tim pointed out that I never got round to fully explaining how this wacky and fun transcription business fully relates to SEO. That Tim’s a clever fella. It’s like he’s written about this himself or something (shameless book plug #1).

So! On with the show. In the first entry, we learned the ups and downs of robot transcribers. In the second, we tried it ourselves with absurd, mildly offensive results. In this entry, we’ll go over what you can do with the transcription results to improve the odds of your content needle being found in the digital haystack that is the internet. Read more right around the corner…

Posted on 03.19.10

Step-by-step Adobe Soundbooth CS4 Metadata Transcription

by Travis Chandler

Now that we’ve had a preview of robot metadata transcribers in part one of this brief blog series, let’s grab some popcorn and enjoy the show! When it came time for me to try out Adobe Soundbooth’s nifty transcribing technology, I launched the program and grabbed a clip of audio that I find entertaining. I happen to have a lot of short audio clips from the terrible-and-hilarious 1966 Sci-fi flop “Zontar, the Thing from Venus” all pre-clipped and ready to go for just this kind of thing. Doesn’t everybody?

The process of transcribing using Soundbooth was as easy as one-two-three: read more after jump.

Posted on 03.09.10

Fun With Video: Metadata & Transcription Software

by Travis Chandler

If you do video work, you’re going to bump into times when you need everything transcribed into a text file. If you have somehow avoided this thus far, it’s only a matter of time before a client requests it, or you end up demanding it for yourself. Now that metadata has become the quiet king of the internet search, you’re going to have to write it all out if you want your work to be found.

To understand why, just consider how you would likely search for a video clip yourself. Imagine you and a friend are discussing a film reference, for instance. Read more after the jump…