How to make a Digital Movie with BTV To record a new movie, open the “Make a Digital. Movie” folder on the desktop. make sure that “Movie to. QuickTime …
How to make a Digital Movie with BTV
Note: The following instructions should work with the Pyro Web cams in the Macintosh lab at the Robert Henderson Language Media Center The result will be a QuickTime movie that can be played on either Windows or Macintosh To make a digital movie, you will need the following: BTV software QuickTime Player software
Web cam
Media on which to save your movie:
ZIP disk
or recordable CD
Steps:
1 Preparing the computer 2 Preparing the settings 3 Recording the movie 4 Compressing your movie further 5 Copying your movie
1 Preparing the Computer
Note: Before you start your movie, it is very important that no other software programs be running To see if other programs are running, click on the icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen It is called the Finder In this example, Color It, Eudora, iTunes, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and Netscape Communicator are running These will interfere with the smoothness of your video capture, so select each one, go to File, and select Quit to leave the program Repeat this process until all the programs except for the Finder are gone
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After you have Quit all the other programs, only the Finder
should remain You cant Quit from the Finder since it is the operating system of the computer
2 Preparing the Settings
To record a new movie, open the Make a Digital Movie folder on the desktop Then double-click on the BTV alias to start the program
You should see two windows the BTV window and the Capture Controls window:
Note: If you dont see the Capture Controls window, click on Capture at the top of the screen and select Show capture controls window
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You should check the basic settings before you start At the top of the screen, look for Settings, and select Video Settings
Click on Compression in the upper left-hand corner of the next screen If you do not see Compression, click on the pop-up menu at the very top left of the window Then click on Compression The settings under Compression should be as follows Look to the right to see what the other settings should be Note: Compressor: Video is an important setting Click on OK after you have verified these settings
Again from the Settings menu at the top, click on Preferences
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Click on Movie Capture:
Look carefully at the Movie Capture settings to make sure that the features that you want in your movie will be
recorded
If you dont want your final movie to include sound, uncheck the Capture sound box If you do want sound, make sure that the Capture sound box is selected
Click on Capture destinations to specify the folder where your movie file will be saved By default this should be the Make a Digital Movie folder on the desktop If Destination 1 is NOT Make a Digital Movie, and you want your movie to be saved in that folder, then click on Set
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Click one time on the desired folder, and click on Choose
Click OK after you have checked Movie capture settings
Check the Video size Under Video Size at the top of the screen, select the desired size for your movie The standard QuickTime size is 320 X 240 Warning: If you select a larger size, your file size may be too large to store conveniently
3 Recording the Movie
Now you should be ready to record your movie You should see the Capture Controls window next to the BTV window
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If you dont see the capture controls window, click on Capture at the top of the screen and select Show capture controls window
To start recording your movie, click on Capture movie in the Capture Controls window The recording will not start immediately It
will start a few seconds after you click
The Elapsed indicator is the signal that the recording has started
Click on Stop capturing movie when you are finished recording
Very shortly your movie should appear in a new window This is a window for the QuickTime Player This window looks like the one on the right
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To get additional information about your movie, from the Window menu at the top, select Show Movie Info
This window should appear next to your movie If you want to see the actual rate of frames per second FPS, play the movie and look at Playing FPS Data size will indicate the size of your file Duration will tell you how long your movie is
4 Compressing Your Movie Further
Your movie has already been compressed with the Video compression If you need to reduce the file size, you can compress it further
Warning: Further compression will result in some loss of quality
To compress your movie again, you can export it in QuickTime Player Double-click on the movie file to open it if it is not open already
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From the File menu at the top of the screen, select Export
Click on the Options button Click on Save
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You will see the Movie Settings box If you
want your new exported movie to include both video and sound, make sure that both of these boxes are checked If you want your new movie NOT to include sound, uncheck the Sound box Next to the Video box, click on Settings
Under Compressor, select Sorenson Video
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These are the recommended compression settings Note that Frames per second should be set at Best Click on OK
If you include sound in your movie, these settings are appropriate:
Click on OK when you are satisfied with the settings
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Give this movie a different name from the first one Then if you are not satisfied with the quality, of the compressed movie, you can go back to the original movie Under Export, make sure that Movie to QuickTime Movie is selected
Note: If you are recording the movie for a class, check with the instructor regarding how to name your movie file Be sure to leave mov in the file name
Click on Save Note: This process takes a long time Exporting the movie will take approximately 5 times the length of the movie
You may want to use the Show Movie Info under Window to compare the compressed movie with the first one
5 Copying Your Movie Remember to copy or transfer your movie to a ZIP
disk or CD
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Important Warning
If you have followed the preceding directions carefully, you should never have the following problem However, if you ever use the Save as function and you see this screen:
Dont choose this option:
Note that the save normally option will result in a very small file This movie file will NOT contain your video data; it will merely create a pointer file that depends on the real file
Choose this option instead:
Click on Make movie self-contained Note that the file size is much larger because it will contain all your video data
Revised June 8, 2003
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Source:efymagonline.com
