A more technical video post this one that came about in a bit of a long winded way. But bare* stickwith me
Chuck Fadley posted a link on the newspaper video group to a youtube video showing Sony’s latest HDV recorder thingy – HVR-MRC1 . It comes as standard with the HVR- XZ7 and the HVR- S270.
So what’s so exciting about it , apart from all those numbers?
Well as well as being part of the kit, not an extra, it records to generic SD cards. No Sony sticks or cards in sight. It also records to the card and tape simultaneously. So you can archive your tape and get immediate ingest in to an editor without the real time wait. Time saved.
Be Frank about HDV
In reading around about this I came across a page called Frank’s thoughts on HDV. This has to be one of the most thorough lists of cameras, decks, edits apps and output options for HDV you could ever want.
Shoot on an HV20?. No problem. There are links to manuals, reviews and even the HV20 owners forum. One link, on the Sony A1E section, pointed me a to a BBC website where you can find details on how to set-up most of the common camcorders to the BBC’s preferred colour set-up. How geeky is that?
Perhaps the most useful section is a round-up of editing platforms for HDV. All the names are here with solid background and reviews. So if you need info to support a business case…
Okay it’s a bit dry in places. But for the more technical or even those looking at answering those technical questions when skills develop this is a geek goldmine.
*thanks to Barrie Stephenson for pointing out that typo. Sadly I wasn’t advocating a nudist blog post session. Still, if that takes your fancy, you could try this
Quite a few people have been hitting my post about the Guardians making video supplement. So I thought I would let you know that they have posted all the content web site.
Couple of posts worth pointing out as immediately useful, I think.
One is a video by Guardian photographer Dan Chung gets a masterclass from Pinny Grylls. It just happens to be slap bang in the middle of an article explaining the different formats you can get on video cameras. Ooooh, that multimedia page loveliness that the web offers.
There is also a nice article on How to shoot for the edit and Beeban Kidron explains how to shoot an interview When talking heads stop making sense
Kevin Anderson takes a good look at mobile phones that will do for video and there is also a nice PDF version of their anatomy of a basic camcorder.
Go on, go video mental. You may as well, nothing to read here now that they have published everything you need to know
What feels like a very busy few weeks has kept me off the blogging (and feed reading radar). So in that braindump kind of way, here is what caught my interest before I had to bite the bullet and press the ‘mark all as read’ button.
Colin Mulvany asks ‘do you have a video strategy’ and in a thoughtful post turns it in to a personal question. Reflecting on how he plans to take The Spokesman-Review forward with video he creates a nice reflection on how a strategy can develop. If you want more behind the scenes stuff then have a look at a video, hosted at the Associated Press Photo Managers Association, of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s video process. Interesting stuff
Mulvany starts his post with his thoughts on Howard Owens’ strategy for video and the man himself has been busy. He’s set up a new search engine. “MediaGeeks.org, a vertical search engine for media professionals”. Along with Ryan Sholin’s Wired Journalists community, this just adds to number of rEsources out there. There is no excuse to get in to the digital culture. And yes you can learn how to be part of the culture.
Of course anything on Howards blog is worth a read even if it’s just to get your blood boiling for the day. It’s like a daily dose of the journalism equivalent of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal jacket… this is my p&s camera. There are many like it….
As a result of that robust debate, Howard has picked up a troll. On his post about the wired journalists site one Wenalway features large. Very interesting ‘anti-design’ stance from Robert Knilands and it’s nice to see someone have the courage of their convictions by having absolutely no design on his site at all. Rendering most of it unreadable.
But I digress. Howard has been posting quite a bit on developing the role of a journalist. What a journalist needs to get the job done. It’s good stuff, especially when some journos are wondering how they are going to fit it in. Micheal Rosenblum neatly sidesteps the dumbing down defense, neatly advertises his service (well it’s his blog) and claims that all newspapers are moving in to the VJ arena as he answers the concerns of one journalist on the newspaper video list. Its a sensible response to an oft expressed fear but surely we are all stepping in to online video territory; VJ’s too?
But if you are VJ or NJ or OJ or…whatever doing video then Visible Measures may be interesting. I’m sure there are people out there doing the same stuff but this sets up a good benchmark of the kind of things you could do.
Oh and if identity is something that is vexing you then perhaps Steve Klein’s musings on ‘web people’ over at Poynter may strike a chord. (that’s where the duck comes in)
But perhaps the web is the wrong platform. Perhaps Mobile is where we need to be. Matt Buckland has an interesting take on this with a post about mobile and monopolies in Japan.
And thats enough I think. Of course there is loads of interesting stuff I’ve missed but you’ve probably already read it. So next time, instead of leaving it so long, perhaps I should just hubdub and get ahead of myself
More essential posting on the Digital Newsroom from Paul Bradshaw. If you haven’t caught up with this series of posts about the changes in the newsroom then you’re missing out.
In his latest post he talks about how to make money from the web. I suppose (and it saddens me a little) that this would be the first and only post many will read. After all thats the big question isn’t it. But there is much more to be had from soaking up all that Paul has to say.
As well as a useful round-up of the key areas to focus on, the post has a number of great sound bites that define the debate.
When talking about creating content people will pay for he says.
Most publishers are not creating commercial value, but social value. This is easy to dismiss, but online, social capital is a very powerful currency. One option (if not too injurious to publishers’ pride) would be reader donations. Readers may be more inclined to support journalism they believe in, such as a particular investigation or issue, rather than the website as a whole.
This is so true but Paul is quick to challenge an idea that this social value is intrinsically linked to local.
Newspapers and broadcasters have been limited by geography, and relevance to readers, so that the ‘why are we spending money on a website that isn’t read by local people?’ culture remains. We need to challenge our ideas of who our readers could be.
Changing markets
One commenter has already suggested that, whilst the post is excellent, it’s perhaps a bit of a glum summation. I disagree.
I think it’s makes a simple point very well – there are no simple answers.
Terms like local, community and content all mean different things now. But still a lot of firms are going for a quick fix. Paul makes the point that print has approached the web in the obvious way “colonise the new territory, and export the business model online”.
The recognition that this doesn’t work has meant that many look for the quick fix. Buy in the solution. But that’s like only reading this last post in Paul’s excellent series. Not a good idea
James Shaw from the Shropshire Star left a comment on my 2008 predictions post. James thought I was being a bit gloomy and left a few examples of what they have been doing. I thought it was worth shareing outside of the comments.
According to James, you can have a video strategy but…
Firstly, never think you’ll be more important than the main newspaper, or come first. If you do, you will upset a lot of people and it will not happen anyway.
Also, take a look at what is around you and start you strategy by complimenting the newspaper’s output, not competing against it. You may win some battles in the long term, but it is a long war which you will eventually lose.
This is not negativity, or lack of ambition – just a set of hard-nosed facts.
Here at the Star, we’re doing football highlights from AFC Telford (no TV deal there) which exposes us to at least 1,800 fans each week, fans’ reactions from Shrewsbury Town (thus skirting round the TV deal) which exposes us to at least 4,000 fans each week and highlights from Telford Tigers ice hockey (not as many hits as we would like, but that is not the point – it keeps our name in the local community).
The AFC Telford and Telford Tigers footage is uploaded at a time which does not compete with the main newspaper, while the Shrewsbury Town fans’ videos simply compliment our main editions.
Bearing in mind that these three ’strands’ give us a decent amount of exposure on their own, we can then cover news with a little less pressure on grabbing hits – and in theory, the news videos are given a little more attention.
I like the attitude of ‘not as many hits as we would like, but that is not the point – it keeps our name in the local community’. As long as you can find the most time and resource effective way of doing it, I think that’s should be a driving factor in a video strategy. I would go a step further and say in ‘those’ communities. The Telford Tigers community. The Shrewsbury Town community.
Keeping them sweet keeps you in the middle of it all.
I read James’ comment as supporting a type of video that can be produced outside the publishing cycel of the newspaper – it doesn’t compete in the sense that the newsroom isn’t losing staff to video when the newsppaer needs to go to bed. I think that’s sensible. We all know that most video and multimedia isn’t going to fit a daily newsaper schedule.
But it’s hard to get buy in to this – perhaps subtle – approach in a culture of newspaper first, above all else. As James says, a web first approach “will upset a lot of people and it will not happen”. But this binary style of thinking has to go. It isnt just one or the other.
The thing is that if you give in to that idea, if you develop to appease then ‘a lot of people’ are driving your strategy and they shouldn’t be.
It’s not a critisicm of James’ view. A strategy is whatever works for you and your audience and I know his views are based on making it work. But I don’t see how the newspaper is more important. I don’t think it’s any less important. They are different but complimentary. James knows it. But ‘a lot of people’ need to wake up to that. Now.