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Posted on 31/07/07 8:40:18 PM |
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Sophie
Political Parodist Posts: 595 Reply  |
Quicktime movies
Hi Steve, This is not strictly related to a problem with any book. I have Ed 2 & 3 and I was looking at your video clips recently. I noticed how reasonable the file sizes were in relation to the length of the clips. I am trying to make some video/sound clips of photoshop tasks for a one-day beginner's workshop 'take-away' CD. I have made a very short one using a capture program called SnagIT. The problem is my file size - 49MB! I tried taking it into Flash to reduce but it took about an hour to load and I don't really know Flash or what to do next! I zipped it down to 9MB. I realise I may have had too big an 'active window' in the first place but can you recommend a capture program or a means of reducing the file size? Any suggestions would be most helpful. I quite understand if there is no short answer and you cannot spare the time. Sophie |
Posted on 01/08/07 00:36:26 AM |
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dave.cox
Marquee Master Posts: 518 Reply  |
Re: Quicktime movies
Sophie, It is not uncommon for video file captures to be very large. One reason, is Snag-it captures at medium to high resolution. Unfortunately, Flash is not really the best tool to use for this type of work. If you have Captivate you can import your avi file there, and reduce the size of your project. I think that you will find that this works much better. It is really helpful when you need to reduce the size of a recording of a large active window. |
Posted on 01/08/07 08:52:54 AM |
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Sophie
Political Parodist Posts: 595 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
Dave, unfortunately I do not have Captivate but might get my college to purchase it - a thin hope! Plan B is to make the active window smaller. I may buy it myself eventually. Thanks for your help. Sophie |
Posted on 01/08/07 12:08:28 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7068 Reply  |
Re: Quicktime movies
It all comes down to which codec you use to save the video. I experimented with them all before I found that Sorenson 3 makes screen capture movies about 100th the size of some of the others! |
Posted on 01/08/07 12:48:51 PM |
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Sophie
Political Parodist Posts: 595 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
Thanks Steve, This is all a bit technical for me. Am I right in thinking that Sorenson is a video compression program? I'm afraid I don't fully understand the codec bit though I have looked it up. Sophie |
Posted on 01/08/07 2:24:49 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7068 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
I don't really understand it either! But when you save a movie you're generally asked which codec you want to use. That simply means which method you want to use to encode the video. It's a minefield! |
Posted on 01/08/07 5:03:55 PM |
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Sophie
Political Parodist Posts: 595 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
Thanks again. I'll battle on while bearing in mind what you have said. Sophie |
Posted on 01/08/07 6:14:55 PM |
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tank172
ThreeDee Thriller Posts: 692 Reply  |
Re: Quicktime movies
That's odd, I made a Real Estate commercial in After Effects and the production company required me to use Sorenson 3; which blew up the video size to nearly 3 gigs. It was a bit like a video slideshow presentation of aerial and land photography of the surrounding area. Along with text captions, plats, and music. There were no 'video' files in the project. Just moving and scrolling pictures... |
Posted on 01/08/07 6:20:41 PM |
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tank172
ThreeDee Thriller Posts: 692 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
Thinking more about it, they also requsted 'uncompressed' rather than any compression in the Sorenson options dialogue...I suppose that's what exploded the filesize for a 16 minute video... It took ages to render! |
Posted on 01/08/07 8:48:14 PM |
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Thistle
* Posts: 3 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
I have lately bought 'How to Cheat in Photoshop CS3' but only have CS2. My DVD has many Quicktime Movies missing. How do I get them? |
Posted on 01/08/07 9:04:50 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7068 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
Sorry, there was an encoding error on four of the movies. You can download the missing segments here. Apologies! |
Posted on 01/08/07 9:06:28 PM |
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dave.cox
Marquee Master Posts: 518 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
The sorenson codec is one of the better ones, and has several compression options. There are several other compression programs you can use from inexpensive to very expensive. Google for video compression, and you can get some idea. Sophie, I could compress that for you in captivate, if it would help. send me a PM, and I'll let you know where you can ftp the file to if you want. |
Posted on 02/08/07 10:49:29 AM |
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Sophie
Political Parodist Posts: 595 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
Thanks Tank, I'm getting a better picture of the pitfalls. Dave, I appreciate your offer but I would like to make quite a large number of these both for photoshop and another course I help to run. So you would be inundated. I could get version 2 of Captivate at education price. Would that be OK? I would be extremely interested in knowing how to find a good site to do the ftp thing. It would be very useful in my current job. Thanks again, Sophie |
Posted on 02/08/07 11:45:05 AM |
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Thistle
* Posts: 3 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
Thanks Steve. Great book! I am learning a lot and enjoying. Thistle |
Posted on 02/08/07 12:36:17 PM |
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tank172
ThreeDee Thriller Posts: 692 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
If the filesize is less than 100mb, you could use http://www.yousendit.com which is free. Alternatively, you could get a hosting site for ftp uploads. For example, at $45 through godaddy.com, you setup a website domain for 12 months, and get access to a server. Instead of using the domain as a typical website, you could use the 5 gigs of space for your ftp uploads and files. (You'll have to enable password protection on those folders, or use the "database" feature in the hosting account for security. You'll also get 250 gigs of bandwidth. In all, Dave's suggestion may turn out the best... 
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Posted on 03/08/07 00:12:00 AM |
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dave.cox
Marquee Master Posts: 518 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
If that is the full version of Captivate, then it should do the trick. If you are developing training, then I think that you will find that Captivate is an excellent tool to have. (Tech writing and Training development is what I do). Captivate can capture screens as screen snapshots, or as video, and gives you good tools to use to convert them in to training presentations. When I run up against a limitation in Captivate, I export it to Flash, and continue from there. I very seldom create screens in flash though, as I hate it's interface. I can develop great presentations in captivate, and use flash to enhance. Or I can create video clips in flash, and import the animations into captivate. As for getting an FTP site, Tank is correct. I use Dot5hosting.com. for $4 US/month, I get 300gb of space, 3000gb of transfer. Plus much more. |
Posted on 03/08/07 08:49:24 AM |
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Sophie
Political Parodist Posts: 595 Reply |
Re: Quicktime movies
Thanks Tank for all your helpful suggestions. By the way, I have my own website given by a friend. I will look into how I might use that. Thanks for the link too. That could be good. And Dave, Thanks too for your help. Captivate 2 is the previous version. No. 3 is the current one. I have asked the college for it. I will also look at Dot5. The college are going to use a site called Moodle, a teacher's resource site etc, and I might be able to use that. Grateful for all your help Sophie |